Crouching Tiger (Part 2)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse, with No Compromise.

The Law Exposes Sin but Cannot Save

The law just exposes and goes, something's wrong. You can't live up to it. It's a detector of sin. That's what the law's special ministry is. Oh, it's a good ministry. But you're a Christian now. The law's fulfilled by Christ for you.

The law just stirs things up. One commentator said this, the law sees red. It's like a bullet. It sees red. It charges ahead. Sin does. Spurgeon said something, boy, let this sink in. The Lord brings good out of evil, but sin brings evil out of good.

That you could take something so good like the law and sin can misuse it and abuse it. Our indwelling sin, that principle of sin in us grabs the good holy law, torques it. Here's this personified sin like a crouching tiger in us and it gets a hold of something really good and sin is that bad it can take something good.

Stir it up. Paul says in verse 9, I was once alive apart from the law. Oh yeah, I was a Pharisee, but I really wasn't convicted. I was just living my life. But when the commandment came and it was illumined by the Spirit of God, energized by the Spirit of God, I really am a sinner.

Think Damascus Road. Sin came alive and I died. I was just living my life. This is probably your Christian testimony as well. You're just living your life. Yeah, there's some commandments of God and there's the Ten Commandments and this, that and the other.

But one day your heart was just rocked and you realized you were a sinner and God was holy and you would stand before Him and you knew you needed a Savior. He was alive in the sense that sin within Him wasn't activated yet.

He had no remorse. He was unconvicted, enjoying the unbelieving life. But when law came through the words of Christ Jesus, He didn't go on His merry way anymore. Sprang into action, sin did, and He used the law, the ministry of death.

Verse 10, the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. You keep the law, friends, if you're an unbeliever, you get to go to heaven. Perfectly keep the law, you get heaven. Remember what He said to that young man, do this and what?

Live. Do this and live. What must I do to inherit eternal life? Just keep the commandments. You want to enter into life, Matthew 18? Keep the commandments. But of course, we know because of the fall we can't do that.

And the commandment that promised life, see the commandment's not wrong, the law's not wrong, but it proved to be death to me. That's why when you insert Mosaic Law back into a congregation, it stirs up all kinds of things.

Legalism at the first, and legalism leads to angst. It leads to measuring people up. Verse 11, for sin, see He's speaking figuratively here, a metonym, referring to sin as its principle, substituting a word to refer to an attribute that sin, seizing upon, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, through it killed me.

Sin so blinds people. Think about your unsaved friends. They are so blinded and deceived, they think they can get to heaven with their own righteousness. They think they can get to heaven with their parents' righteousness.

They think they can get to heaven through circumcision, our baptism. Blinds, deceives, kills, makes you think you can live under the law. Paul affirms everything in verse 12. He sums everything up so no one thinks something's wrong with God's law.

Law just reveals. Law just identifies. Law sets the standards. Law sets a penalty. But it can't justify and it can't sanctify. So the law is holy, it's not sinful, it comes from a holy God. And the commandment is holy, so is you shall not covet.

That's holy and righteous and good. The difficulty lies elsewhere. The problem's someplace else. The law's just but it can't justify. The law's just but it can't sanctify. What's the problem? Sanctification fact number three, sin is the problem.

The Christian Struggle with Indwelling Sin

Is the law sinful? No. Law's good. What is the problem? If sin, excuse me, if the law is holy and good, what's the ultimate source of death for me? Indwelling sin. Now we come to this section here where there's two camps in evangelicalism.

I won't bog you down with all the details. You can study it if you want. Some people think this is a Christian person talking in this section. Some people think it's an unbeliever. And so let me just tell you why I think it's a believer talking here.

Paul is a believer. He's regenerate. And this is not a weird view. This is Luther had the view, Calvin had the view, Hodge, John Owen, Bob Nick, FF Bruce. It's the common view. Number one, because it just fits the flow perfectly.

Justification, sanctification. This is in the sanctification section for Christians. That's the first reason why I believe it's for a Christian. Secondly, Paul, because of grammar, makes me think this is a Christian because he uses I and he uses present tense.

He doesn't say past tense and Damascus Road kind of thing. It's all present tense, I. And thirdly, my last reason for this, we could give you more, but it's hard for me to think of an unbeliever talking the way Paul does about the laws being good, an analysis of sin properly, an analysis of God properly, acknowledging the spirituality of God's law and his own carnality.

I think that's probably a Christian talking, a mature Christian Stoughton MacArthur thing. And before we dive into this any longer, let me try to give you a little pastoral encouragement and heads up.

This is the kind of language that is good for you and it's good for me. Why? Because when you first get saved, oh, just think back for a second. I just think back to those days in 1989. My world comes to a screeching halt and then God, like he did with Lydia, in his great providential, sovereign, distinguishing, gracious way, opens my heart to receive the things spoken by him through the word.

And you just think about that. You know, Paul is told, oh, don't go to Asia, go over there into Macedonia. And then Paul doesn't go to Asia and he goes to Philippi. He goes into Macedonia to meet a lady from Asia standing by the river.

I thought I was supposed to go to Asia. No, go into Europe and meet a lady from Asia. And providentially, all worked out, God opens her heart and then you know when that happened to you. Oh, I was going to go to hell if I died and I get to go to heaven.

I had to pay for my own sin. Heaven is forever, hell is forever and God chose me in eternity past. Jesus died for me, the spirit made me alive and I get to go to heaven. I could not contain myself. Just think, heaven gained by the work of another.

I didn't do anything, even my reception was not, I held out my hand so God would give it. I was dead and God granted me faith and he gave me salvation, he caused me to be born again. And you're on cloud nine.

But what Paul does here is remind you of a very necessary fact. As good as it was, as pleasant as it was, as true as it was when you first experienced the joy of your salvation, you are now in a battle.

There's a battle going on and there's a battle of sin and dwelling sin principle even in a Christian and it's of epic proportion. So friends, if you say to yourself, you know what, I'm really struggling with stuff.

Be encouraged because before you were a Christian, no struggle. Your only struggle was, well, why do I keep hitting the pulpit? Because some of you look like you're sleeping. Struggle is good. Before you were saved, I didn't want to get caught, yeah, my conscience is a little bad, I'm sorry to hurt that person's feelings, I have to go to jail, there's a variety of reasons why unbelievers, but there's no struggle.

When you're an unbeliever, you don't say, you know, I've offended a thrice holy God. But now there is a struggle. Friends, it's a sign of maturity to struggle and you're going to see that right here with Paul.

Paul, the apostle. And the difference between seven and eight, I want to make sure you see the connection there. Eight's all about the spirit of God and chapter seven is all about I, I, I, I, law, law, law, law.

We need to get to eight. But right now we're in seven. We need the spirit's power because there's no deliverance found in ourselves. There's no deliverance found in the law. Sin's the problem. Verse 13, but that which is good then bring death to me.

Did that happen? The law's good. Did the law bring death? By no means. It was sin. By the way, for those of you who think Satan causes all your problems and gives you post nasal drip and makes you eat lean cuisines or whatever it is, I don't know.

This is all sin. It was sin producing death in me through what is good. God is holy. His law is holy. But law stirs up raw reveals law doesn't sanctify in order that sin might be shown to be sin and through the commandment might become sinful beyond all measure.

Only sin can pervert something so holy like the law. How sinful is sin? It's very sinful. Number four, sanctification fact. Number four, Christians are weak and can't live the Christian life on their own.

Christians are weak and can't live the Christian life on their own. This is the main point today for the sermon. We are weak people and we can't live our lives on our own. We can't live our lives through the law.

We are utterly unable to do it. You're going to see Paul's cry right here. This is the struggle of every Christian. The struggle with sin. This is why you ought to sing that song, I need thee every what? Hour.

You can't save yourself with the law and you can't sanctify yourself with the law. You need the Lord. Verse 14. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh sold under sin. You're going to see I.

Notice all the I's there in the section. I, I, I, I, I, I. Let's make a teaching time out of this. When you see the word I, I want you to think of impotent. By myself, I can't do it. Now, of course, I want you to read your Bible and I want you to pray and I want you to do the spiritual disciplines.

But if you think by you doing those things, if I just get up early to read, if I just have an accountability partner, if I just read these chapters, if I just do this, if I just do that, if I just do the other, if I do this, if I do the next, if I do the following.

Friends, you're going to feel bad because it's not going to work. Of course, read your Bible. Of course, pray with the mentality of verse 8. Chapter 8. I need the Spirit of God. I need you to do that.

Lord, help me. Lord, give me mercy. I'm of the flesh sold under sin. See, new believers need to learn this lesson quicker than slower. There's still a battle with the evil sin principle. Call it an old nature if you want.

I don't care what you call it as long as you recognize it. Luther said, this is the proof of the spiritual and wise man. He knows that he is carnal and he is displeased with himself. Indeed, he hates himself and praises the law of God, which he recognizes because he is spiritual.

But the proof of a foolish man is this, that he regards himself as spiritual and is pleased with himself. Sin's crazy, verse 15, for I do not understand my own actions. I mean, how can it be that we could be at church serving and worshiping and then on the drive home, this kind of stuff happens.

For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. See, this is what sold under bondage to slavery does. I can't do it. I want to do it, but I don't. We are powerless. Problem for Paul wasn't knowledge.

The problem was he didn't have any power as a regenerate person to deliver himself from the law of sin and our members. Verse 16, this is how mature Christians think. Now, if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good.

See, I understand. I just don't have the power to do it. I'm in a desperate struggle to be released from this. It's a life and death struggle. So now, verse 17, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

He's not absolving himself. He's just saying sin's powerful and I still do it. Hopeless. We need the Spirit who dwells in us, chapter 8. That's who we need. See, true or false, apart from me, Jesus said you can do most things.

Apart from me, you can be a good father. Apart from me, you can be a good husband. Apart from me, you can be a good wife. Apart from me, you can be a good ministry, a minded person. You can do nothing.

We have a question to ask. I wonder if apart from Jesus, I can even keep the law. Verse 18, for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

I know better. Don't you ever say that to a kid? Don't you know better? I'll say it to your kids. You should know better. Your dad should know better. I know better, but I can't do it. And if you can't do it, in justification, it's like the penitent thief.

You know, Lord, have mercy. Luther said, I cannot keep the birds from flying around my head, but by the grace of God, I can keep them from building their nests in my hair. I'll tell you what my problem is.

My problem is this, self-sufficiency, self-reliance. I know what to do, I know how to do it, and I'm fairly good at it. That's my problem. Because the second you start thinking like that, I can navigate this at work, I can navigate this at home, that's when God, by His graciousness, gives us frustration and despair and angst and futility, so we realize, you know what, I'm so sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Lord, help me. That's Romans chapter 8. Now, see, right now it's just the despair part, so I want to remind you of this. There's three kinds of people in the world as I see it. There are the Romans 8 people.

Have you met them? There's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. There's like up on a cloud, they have harps. They're just like, no condemnation. Then there's Romans 7 people. Wretched man that I am.

I'm a worm. I'm nothing. I can't stand myself. I'm sinful and corrupt and crooked. See, these kids listen. These kids listen. You're corrupt too. But friends, I can only preach 7 today, but 7 and 8 go together.

If you're a chapter 8 person, don't forget about 7. And if you're a chapter 7 person, don't forget about 8. So the third person here involved is, I know both of those are true. I know I'm justified by the work of another, sanctified by the work of another, and I know there's no good thing in me, but I know it pleased God, the Heavenly Father, to love me enough to send His Son to die in my place.

And you know what? I'm wrapping my arms around both Romans 7 and Romans 8. They're both true. But here we're just in 7. He says in verse 19, I do not do the good thing I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Paul, a Christian, great inner struggle. He's powerless over the flesh. So what are you going to do? Insert the law to help you? Moses can't help you. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it.

He's still using the I. He's just trying to focus on how bad sin is. But the sin, literally, the sin principle, the root cause, still dwells in me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.

I want to do the right thing. You know what? I'm a pious Jew. Paul said I delight in the law of God. He loved God's law. He loved Moses. You can love Moses as long as you don't try to live under it as a Christian.

I delight in the law of God and my inner being. But if I try to live and battle myself, in myself, I'm going to be defeated. I can't get rid of indwelling sin with Moses. But I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

D .L. Moody was right. I have more trouble with D .L. Moody than with any other man I know. Isn't that true? I love to do premarital counseling and meet with the couples and they're all starry-eyed, rightfully so.

Then I say, you've got to do some reading to get married here. Wives to be, I want you to read The Excellent Wife by Martha Peace. Husbands to be, I want you to read The Exemplary Husband by Stuart Scott.

I'd like you to read a really easy book, Christian Living in the Home by J. Adams. Then I'd like you to read another book and it's called When Sinners Say I Do. If you're not married, you should read that book.

If you are married, you should read that book. It says early on in the book, When Sinners Say I Do, every morning, if you're married, you wake up with the most sinful person in all the world. Yourself.

That's what Paul saw. Because when you're not measuring other people, you realize how needy you are and you cry out to God for mercy. And he shows that mercy in chapter 8. I'm just happy that I've got this struggle, aren't you?

That there is a struggle shows maturity, shows salvation, shows that you're alive. And we just say, I'm unable. I have no abilities. I acknowledge it. And verse 24, if you want to look at I, me, wretched man that I am, can you get farther in your Christian growth than saying, I'm wretched and needy and I'm going to have to look to the Spirit of God for help, not Moses?

It's painful, but it's good. Who will deliver me from this body of death? You know, they used to charge murderers back in the Bible days, according to some manners and custom books. If you were a first degree murderer, they took the murdered body and put their back to your back and strapped that dead body onto your back.

You were the murderer. The murderer E was strapped onto your back and you began to walk around with that thing on your back in the hot sun of the Middle East. And then the putrefaction and the smell and the bacteria that would come out of the body would kill you.

And it's like Paul's like, this body of death that's on me, sin which is stirred up by the law, I've got to get it off me. I'm exhausted. That's what the word means. Wretched through the exhaustion of hard labor.

Deliverance Through Jesus Christ and Life in Romans 8

Why go back to Moses and be chained to some polluted, corrupt course that stirs up your sin that Jesus has already paid for? And sanctification fact, finally number five and we're done. The best is yet to come.

Look up, the best is yet to come. You got the partial first installment, but deliverance is also future. Jesus' deliverance is past, present and future. Here we have Paul just blurting out, thanks be to God's where we get the word grace.

Chorus, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Oh, there's going to be a final deliverance. I'm going to tell you this right now. Moses can't deliver you. Civil law can't deliver you. Ceremonial law can't deliver you.

Moral law can't deliver you. There's only one liberator. Law just makes you see what you do. Law just exposes sin. Jesus Christ delivers where Moses can't. And that's why he says in chapter 8, do you see it, verse 1?

There's no condemnation now for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free. From what? In Christ Jesus. From the law of sin and death. 2 Corinthians. Moses, you are free.

Why run back? For God has done what the law, mosaic law, weakened by the flesh could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemns sin in the flesh. And when you died, when Jesus died, you died with him.

In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled. Why go back to a fulfilled law? In us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. And then Paul summarizes everything in Romans 7 .25, and we end here.

I myself, so then, serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. He's got to look outside of himself. He's got to long for heaven. Christian, be encouraged when you have a struggle.

It shows you're growing. It shows you're saved. Contrary to health, wealth, blab it and grab it people on TV, there's a struggle. Opposition. Don't forget about Romans 8 when you're a Romans 7 person and vice versa.

D .L. Moody said, When I was converted, I made this mistake. I thought the battle was already mine. I thought the victory already was won. The crown already in my grasp. I thought the old things had passed away, that all things had become new, and that my old corrupt nature was gone.

But I found out after serving Christ for a few months, that conversion was only like enlisting in the army, that there was a battle on hand. And what's your weapon? Moses? His oath, his covenant, his blood support me in the whelming flood.

When all around my soul gives way, Moses is all my hope and stay. I don't think so. On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground sinking sand.

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