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Bro. Otis Fisher
It's so good to see all of you here on a sub-zero day. We're in the book of Romans, chapter 6, verse 9. That's 1st Romans, yes. I thought everyone knew that. Alright, verse 9. Knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over him.
Now, knowing that Christ, this is common knowledge, he's saying, and it's something that we know. It's a basic belief. Without the knowing of this, we could not operate. We know that Jesus, the Christ, died.
It was Jesus that died, the human part. That's very important because we must realize that he did not operate here on earth in his deity. Everything he did was as a man, under the power of the Holy Spirit.
So we know that he died and that he was raised from the dead, actually from among the dead, and that he will die no more. For in that he died, he died unto sin nature once. But in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
There's two words here for died. Both are perfect verbs. Means he died one time and that was sufficient. Once for all. But the word liveth is imperfect verb and it means that he liveth and he liveth and he liveth and he liveth and it goes on and on and on until it becomes a straight line.
Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, and we're reading this sin nature, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Likewise, reckon. Greg, what does the word reckon mean?
What do you reckon reckon means? Well, the Greek word is logisima. Maybe that helps. To consider it what? All right, that's awfully close. This word deals with reality, I reckon. If you reckon that there is $25 in your bank account, then there is $25 in your bank account.
If not, you're deceiving yourself. So Paul says, likewise reckon. In other words, you reckon yourself to be dead to the old sin nature. Very important, Russell, that we reckon this. The word reckon is used so much and almost as slang.
Sometimes it is lost as power, but it means to absolutely know beyond any shadow of doubt that this is exactly right. This word refers to facts and not to supposition. It is a fact that we are dead to the old sin nature.
Now, Joy, there was nothing we did to cause it to be. We simply were placed into Christ at his death on the cross. It was his death that did it. So reckon yourselves also to be dead, present right now, indeed unto the sin nature, but alive, present right now, unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Not by ourself, not out around Christ, but it is in and through Christ, Jesus. God did not intend for our bodily appetites to rule over us, and this is what happens when we give in to the old sin nature.
But as long as we're in these bodies, there'll always be a struggle. There comes those world travelers. We'll have a struggle with the flesh as long as we're in the flesh. Roger, when we're not in the flesh, what are we?
Spirit, we must daily go before God to reckon our old nature dead and by faith to claim the victory. Legalistic terms, absolute. Know it. In Galatians 5 and 1, turn over that, if you will, please, Book of Galatians 5 and 1.
Debbie, you have it? Read it to the rest of them, will you? All right, the yoke of bondage, he's speaking directly to the law, but also to the flesh. Every appetite we have, Paul, is given to us by God.
But never let the appetite control you. Always, always be in control of all of your appetites. Now, that's not just hunger. We think of appetite as something to eat, but it's talking about all of the lusty desires of the flesh.
In verse 12, let not sin nature, therefore, reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in the lust thereof. Let not, in other words, stop letting this old sin control you. And it will. And it gets to be an addictive habit.
Let not, therefore. David, what does the word therefore do in this verse? Absolutely. Because of that, stop letting the old sin nature control you to reign, R-E-I-G-N. What's that mean, Debbie? To be king, to exercise authority or power.
And it's in the present tense. So stop it right now, as it's doing it right now. Russell, what are we to do when we have a bad thought?
All right, okay.
We're not to meditate on it. If you stop it and meditate on it, you've already sinned. Now, lots of times, because of a lack of control of our mind, these thoughts will come. But we don't need to stop them.
Just get rid of them. Now, how do you do that, Russell? Yes. But how do you do that? These are all good and true statements. But how do you do it? How do you control your mind, Grace? All right, by discipline, by the will.
What? All right. Joy? All right. The earth. That's what I'm after. How do you dismiss it?
Roger? That's when we get ourselves in trouble. We stop meditating on those things that are right. And that's where it's built. We're pushing out the bad with the good.
Now, what would have prevented him from coming back? Fill it with other things. See, you do something all of the time. Even if you sit in a corner and sleep, you're doing that. Now, our mind is busy all of the time.
My wife has always told me she's able to turn her mind off to go to sleep. I can't understand that because I've never been able to stop mine. Anyhow, as Roger said, just to eliminate and push out the wrong things is not sufficient.
That's like the man that just swept everything out clean. We have to fill it with something. Just like the Lord removed the guilt of our sin, but he also installed righteousness. He didn't leave it empty.
Not for one split second. And we must realize that our mind is like that. If you're thinking about something that you know you shouldn't, think of something else. Force your mind to do something else.
Maybe count the lampposts or the tiles in the ceiling or whatever. Until you can get a hold of it and then begin to meditate on the Word. The more you practice this, the easier it becomes. It'll never get easy, but the easier it becomes.
Any questions? Alright. So stop letting this old sin nature reign in your heart, in your mortal body. That you should obey it. We don't want to obey it. We know that. Because it has the lusts of the flesh.
And they're there for everybody. I care less how pious and holy they appear. They still have the same thoughts as everybody else. Thirteen. Neither yield... Yield is to place a person or a thing at one's disposal.
Neither yield is present tense. Right now. Debbie, can we sin if we want to? Yes. Because we do only what we want to. So anytime you've sinned, it's because you wanted to. Don't blame it on somebody else.
Neither yield your... Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
Neither yield. This is an option. This is a decision that Greg makes by himself in his mind. He yields to the wrong thing. The more you study, the more you commit to memory, the easier it is to recall it.
Instruments. What is an instrument? Let me go back to Greg again. Now, we're not talking about a musical instrument, although that would fit, but we're talking about, say, in surgery. What are the instruments?
All right. So, your members then become what? A tool. Don't let them or don't cause them to be a tool to perpetuate unrighteousness, but yield yourselves unto God. Body, soul, mind, spirit, everything, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
So, it looks like, David, it becomes our responsibility to practice that which we teach, that which we know. Did you realize that if you never learned another spiritual truth, you have all you can handle knowing what you know?
And if we just practiced everything that we know, we'd be a lot better off than we are now. There is a danger, as you study and learn, to get so wrapped up in looking for a new truth, that that becomes the object.
You can't do that. That's wrong. What group was it that was known for new things? The Greeks. Fourteen. Four are because, now, this old sin nature. Now, I'm using the word sin nature. Debbie, what do I mean by the nature of sin?
The old man. The characteristics of the old man. The conduct of the old man. He's dead. Now, we're dead to him. He's not dead to us. That's why he keeps actively bugging us. For sin nature shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace.
Now, here's a good word, dominion. Let's let David explain this to us.
You can't use just one word. Well, you can't have the rule over you.
You will not have the rule over you,.
Because you belong to another lord now. All right.
In other words, it can no longer influence you. You can let it, but it has no connection with you at all. You are unplugged from the old sin nature. Disconnected. Done away. The lord performed a surgical operation that will never need to be done again.
He severed the connection. The sin nature shall not have. Greg, what kind of verb is shall? Oh, that's a fine word, imperative. What's it mean? And you do it? All right. The old sin nature, it is impossible for yet any longer to have dominion over you, to dominate you, to be in control in relation to what it used to be.
Before you were placed into Christ, Roger, the sin nature sat on the throne in your very being. That's what you were. Sinful. Sinner. Condemned to hell. But it shall not ever again or ever have dominion over you.
For you are not under the law, but under grace. You are now under the favor of God. Debbie, how much better could we have it? Not in this life. What then? Shall we sin because we're not under the law but under grace?
God forbid. It's almost as though someone had interrupted Paul and asked him a question. Said, you're saying all of this, then sin nature doesn't control us anymore, we have nothing to do with, then we can just do whatever we want to.
Sin all we want to. In fact, the more we sin, the more that's going to show the grace of God. Well, Joy, is that a good argument? Okay. It might be good from the opposition side, but it's not truthful.
It's impossible, utterly impossible for you any longer to bow down to Satan. You can't do it. So, what then? Shall we sin just because we're not under the law? God forbid such a thought. Know you not, or don't you know, that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey, whether to the sin nature unto death or of obedience unto righteousness.
If you wonder about your salvation, look at what you think about. Look at what you do. Write down your daily thoughts. Where does your mind go when it's not preoccupied with some designated thought? That's a good check.
When you're kind of in a stupor watching television, where does your mind go? Paul is saying, don't you realize that whoever you serve, then you're the servant of that sin leads to death. A sunflower.
We used to have, north of town, the man that raised sunflowers for seed. Any of you remember that? Does no one remember that? How many remember seeing those fields? Yes. As I would go to work of a morning, they were all facing east.
As I'd come home in the evening, they were all facing west. What happened, David?
They followed the warmth of the sun.
The warmth or the rays of the sun, and they kept their little yellow face straight toward the sun. My, what an example that is for us. But how do you determine when a sunflower is dead? It doesn't turn.
It's stationary. Are you dead or are you alive? 17, but God bethinked that you were, past tense, the servants. Now, notice it's not the seed of Satan. It's just the servant of Satan. You were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine, which has done what?
Delivered you. We're going to run across that word delivered again in a little bit. We've been freed from being servants of sin. Now that we're free from the bondage of sin and are under grace, it doesn't make any sense to sin, does it?
Instead, we can yield ourselves to God as his instruments for his righteousness. Yielding our members unto God. What's that mean, Greg? We found an honest man.
Yielding our members. What does that mean? All right. Instruments for righteousness.
David, give us an example of an instrument being used for righteousness. Well, he said our bodies are instruments.
He's in there. He's talking about the Lord and the jailer. He's saying they both went and got eaten by the lion. So he gave his body as an instrument for God to use to hold his soul. All right.
How many of you got up this morning? How many of you got dressed? How many of you came? Now, did your body do that by itself? You had to will it to it, didn't you? You're forcing your body to be the instrument that brought you here.
Use your body members as instruments for the righteousness of God. Make it do what you want. Could you have stayed home? Eighteen. But then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness.
Instruments of righteousness. Servants of righteousness being made free. It's passive. It's made by somebody else. We didn't do it. We were made to be free. And that was by our Lord. Nineteen. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh.
Now, there's a rather outstanding statement. What's Paul telling these people in that statement? All right. So I speak after the manner of men. David, what's that mean? All right. And speaking on a level that they understand.
I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. I find that I must speak in terms that you understand. And you understand very little because you're so carnal. So I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh.
For as you have yielded your member servants to uncleanliness and to iniquity, unto iniquity, even so now yield your member servants to righteousness unto holiness. He said, look back at your life. And he said, now I'm going to explain this so even you can understand.
Now, that makes me rethink once and I'll have to stop here and tell you. Back when I was running so much service for the sound company, we had, I forget what the problem was now, but it was in a big office downtown Dallas and I took my helper with me.
And he was another story and I won't get into that. But the man in the office asked us a question about how does this work. And my helper spoke up real quick, which he was always prone to do. He said, well, you sit right there and I'm going to explain it so even you can understand it.
Boy, that went over real well. But that's what Paul's saying, I'm going to explain this so even you can understand it. For as you have yielded your member servants to uncleanliness or to the old sin natures.
He said, look back at your life and see how you did that. That was just something that was automatic with you. You just did it because you enjoyed it. So you participated in it. He said, now I want you to take that same method and this time yield your members to do righteousness.
But have the same attitude, have the same motivation that it will become a way of life with you just as the old way was a way of life with you. For when you were the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness.
Did you have any righteousness when you were yet a sinner? Not even a little bit? Not even a drop of righteousness? I've heard so many people say, well, there's a little bit of good in everybody. Is that true?
Not before salvation. When you were servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. You had absolutely nothing about you that gave any hint of righteousness. What fruit had you then in those things whereof you are now ashamed?
So what was the fruit that you were producing when you were in that state? What? More unrighteousness. And John, it leads to what? Say death. We'll have to forgive John. He's had one trip, folks, that would fill a book in that snowstorm in the northeast.
What fruit had you then in those things whereof you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. The fruit or product of sin is death. And now being made free, right now, from the sin nature, and right now you're our servants to God, you have, present tense, your fruit unto holiness, and the end is not death.
What is it, Debbie? Everlasting life. The fruit of holiness is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. This is the gift of all gifts.
Now, again, I'd like to go over the definition of a gift. A gift can be given only by a being that has absolutely no need of anything or anyone. Has never had and never will have. That being can give a gift.
We say we give gifts to one another. I wish we could learn that that's the wrong use. You do not give a gift to someone if you expect or if you will ever need that someone. And we all need each other.
When I discovered the true meaning of the word gift, it just blew my mind away because of the gift that God gave his son. So by our definition, Russell, he didn't have to do that, did he? He didn't do it because we owed him something.
He didn't do it because we would ever owe him anything. A gift. A pure gift. Our Lord Jesus Christ. We'll start the next chapter next week. Any questions or statements? Any thoughts? Good or bad? How many are ready to go home?
David looked around real quick. Well, let's stand and we'll be dismissed.