Studies in Psalm 16:-06 — James K. Boswell

The Path of Life and the Fullness of Joy

The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup. Thou maintainest my lot. The lives that fall unto me in pleasant places, yea, I have a goodly heritage. I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel.

My thoughts also instruct me in the night season. I have set the Lord always before me because it is at my right hand I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices. My flesh also shall rest in hope.

As far as we've got this week, isn't it? And I want to consider mainly the last verse which says here, thou wilt show me the path of life. In thy presence fullness of joy, thy right hand pleasures forevermore.

The Father, he planned the way. The Son, he opened the way. The Holy Spirit, he shows us the way. The Father planned it, the Son opened it, the Spirit shows, speaks here about joy, fullness of joy. There you have the quantity, fullness of joy.

Thy right hand, you have the dignity of this wonderful joy. And then you have pleasures forevermore, and there you have the duration. The quantity, the dignity, and the duration of this wonderful joy and these wonderful pleasures.

And notice what it says, I will show thee the path of life. There is life out of death. It's a principle running right through Scripture. If we're going to live, we must die. Except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone.

But if it dies, the same bringeth forth much fruit. Thank God tonight for the much of fruit. As always before your heart, I wanted to think of this wonderful psalm. Remembering again, in thee do I put my trust.

Now you come right down to this last verse, thou wilt show me the path of life. Why, in thee and in thee alone have I placed all my trust. Lord, thou art enough, the mind and heart fulfilled. Fix my eyes, O holy Lord, on Thee, that with Thy beauty occupied I elsewhere none may see.

The Revelation of Christ Living in the Believer

Why am I stressing this last verse, especially in a meeting like this? I'll tell you why. There was a time in my life, and I was out in a full-time ministry, ministering all over the British Isles, seeing many people trusting Jesus Christ, seeing the little families established here and established there.

One day traveling along in a double-decker bus in the city of Birmingham, back in England, I was meditating upon being in Christ and being in Adam. And I was just a young preacher. And all of a sudden, just as if a voice spoke to me audibly, said, Jim Boswell, you're trying to patch up a man, to make a man refined, cultured, respectable, religious.

A man whom I finished with two thousand years ago. You were completely corrupt, you were rotten, there wasn't a good thing about you. Even all your respectable, religious, cultured flesh was just corrupt in my sight.

And I put you upon a cross. I put you upon a cross. And when my son died, I saw you there, dying in my beloved son. And now I see you no longer as in Adam, I see you in my son, holding without blame before me in love.

And now, here's the glorious truth. Not only did it reveal to my heart that I was in Christ, but now that Christ by His Spirit lived in me. Oh, I was so happy, I shouted glory right out in that double-daggered box.

It was a divine revelation to my heart that Christ literally lived in me. That He was the very life of my life. Now, I knew this theoretically, I knew it doctrinally, I knew it scripturally, and I taught it all over the British Isles.

But I did not know it experientially until that particular moment when the Spirit of God revealed to me that Christ lived in me. We were in a place in England for about five years. When we got into this particular area, we met about five Christians.

A college friend of my wife had been there conducting a crusade. Some sixty-five had professed salvation. When we got there, we couldn't find five of them. Oh, the danger of bringing people to a profession without any heart regeneration.

Oh, my friend, I'd rather go through a whole crusade and never see a soul profess than to see a whole crowd of mere professors. By God's grace, we never go through a crusade or even a week's meeting without seeing someone how some others come through for the Lord Jesus Christ.

But we were in this particular area. It was the Lord's Day between Christmas and the New Year. And we got that little group together. And like Mr. Willing, we showed them a New Testament church from the Word of God.

And the Lord's table was there. We gathered around the Lord Jesus, and from within, we taught them the truth of a New Testament church and the breaking of bread. The following Easter, we baptized twenty-one, and we went on like that.

The assembly began to grow and develop. Many were attracted by the ministry of Christ from other denominations, and they took their place in the assembly of God's beloved people. But the dirt came into that assembly.

Souls were not being saved. God's people were not going on in victories. I should have loved them to be going on. Unlike some evangelists, like some Bible teachers, I began to thrash them and tell them to go home and get things put right.

There's a naked man in the camp. There's something causing this blockage, this stoppage of blessings. There must be someone here living in sin. Monday morning, after a very busy Lord's Day, I was alone in my room, and I tell you very humbly, very frankly, in the closing moment of this particular conference, the Spirit of God put His finger upon all the trouble in my own life.

I wanted souls saved. I wanted God's people living in units of life and walking therein, to God's glory. You say, surely that's a good desire. The desire was all right, but the motive was not pure. There was an impure motive.

I wanted to be thought a great preacher. I wanted to be thought a wonderful Bible teacher, a wonderful soul winner. And God stopped the blessing. He will not share His glory with another. He must have all the glory.

He must have all the praise. I'm getting right down there before the Lord Jesus. He is cursing down my feet. All I could get from Him was Psalm 16, verse 11. I will show thee the path of life. I will show thee the path of life.

Now He said, Lord, what is it? Lord, show me this way. And just as a boy said, look at verse 10, thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor suffer thine holy one to seek corruption. And then I saw there was something in my life that had to die.

And again, the same boy said, you've given your wife, you've given your child, you've given your money, you've given your talent, you've given your time, but, Jim Boswell, I want you. And I sought the Lord with every part of me until that particular moment.

Then I found it easier to give my loved ones, to give my money, to give my talent, and to give my service, than to give Jim Boswell. And oh, that battle raged, as has been raged in many a heart here during this particular week.

You have been brought face to face with the challenge of Christ becoming Lord in every compartment and department of your life. Thank God for those who have entered in, who are now rejoicing in that glorious joy that Jesus Christ is Lord, over all, blessed in your life for His own pleasure.

Complete Surrender to the Lordship of Christ

But now, getting down before the Lord Jesus, I remember praying this prayer, O Jesus, Lord and Savior, I give myself to Thee, for Thou, in Thine atonement, didst give Thyself for me. I owe no other master.

My heart shall be Thy throne, my life I give, henceforth to live, O Christ, for Thee alone. And Lord, if it please Thee, don't show me one token of result until I reach the glory. Beloved, that was a crisis that's led to a continuance.

That was an act that's led to an attitude. And there's never a morning before I leave my room. Many times during the course of the day I look up and say, Lord, I'm still Thine own. O Lord, look after Your property, it's in danger.

I recognize I'm no longer My own, I belong to Him. Now, there's a lot of years since that has happened in my life, and I thank God for that crisis that's led to a continuance, to that desperate, deliberate act.

To me, it was just as desperate, deliberate as the moment I was born again, was that moment when I wholly, completely surrendered my life to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me ask you, lovingly, what about you?

The following Wednesday night, the whole assembly had come together, and humbly I confessed the whole thing to them. As for their forgiveness, and I should be judging then, O I then realize how easy it is to preach, how easy it is to stand up and tell others when all the time one's own heart may not be right toward the Lord Jesus Christ.

I have a grave, grave concern about trapping in unfelt truth, preaching what I'm not in the good of myself, all the danger of that, the danger of it. And, beloved, I remember confessing the whole thing to the assembly, and my friend, the tears that flowed that night, what happened by God's grace, the blockage was removed, blessing began to flow, then the Lord said, it's time for you to move on.

And, my friend, we thank God for that glorious, Christus moment when we recognize we're no longer our own, and we belong to Him, spirit and soul and body, time, talent and treasure, all placed at His disposal by His maximus grace.

Romans 6 and the Meaning of Baptism

Now, with all that before your heart, let me come back to the verse. I will show thee the path of life. My friend, we want life, and we want life in abundance. Now, won't you turn with me for a few moments tonight to Romans chapter 6, the sixth chapter of this wonderful book, the Romans.

Now, this is a classic on this wonderful subject, and I want to go somewhat slowly here, but I want you to follow me very carefully from the word of God, and just see what He says, not what the preacher is saying.

Verse number three. There are three things here the Lord wants us to know. He wants us to know, first of all, the meaning of our baptism. It says in verse three, Know ye not? Now, Paul's writing to those saints at Rome.

He says, Know ye not? Just as he wrote to Saint Corn, he said, Don't you know your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost who is in you, which ye have of God, and you are not to own your bought for the price?

Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. O my friend, may I ask you lovingly, have you had this revelation? Do you know that you are not to own, that you have been purchased by the precious blood of Jesus Christ?

O my friend, and he says, your body, your spirit, your soul, the whole personality belongs to Him. He says, Now do you know this? Have you handed yourself over to the rightful owner? He purchased us that He might possess us without any reserve and without any condition.

Now, regarding our baptism, remember the Bible says, the Lord says, Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not what I say? You are drawn near to me with your lips, but your heart is far from me. Dr. Stephen Alford, he said these words, Partial obedience is total disobedience in the reckoning of God.

Did you get that? Partial obedience is total disobedience in the reckoning of God. He is referring to Thessalonians, that is to say, all the Amalekites, stamp them out completely, don't leave one trace of the Amalekites.

He spared Agath, he spared the base of the flock, he partially obeyed, but what happened? He lost his kingdom and he lost his life. I repeat with all sincerity, partial obedience, to partially obey, is to totally disobey in the reckoning of God.

You won't get any credit or any recognition, my friend, for partial obedience. The Lord says, Total commitment, complete obedience, what does it say? We can never prove the delights of Islam until all on the altar we lay.

I thought me might have sung tonight, not part of my heart, but all of my heart, I give to thee. Not part of my heart, but all of my heart, I give to thee. What does it say? We can never prove the delights of Islam until all on the altar we lay.

For the favor which he shows and the joy he bestows are for those who will trust and obey. Then on fellowship's week we will sit at his feet, or we'll walk by his side in the way. What he says we will do, where he sends we will go.

Never fear, O may trust and obey, and his commandments are not grievous. Now notice what verse number 3 says, So many of us were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his day. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, but like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

For if we are being planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. There you have the meaning of your baptism. Now if your baptism doesn't mean this, then whether it's baptism is just a farce.

It's just a farce. You've got to recognize, my friend, you've been baptized into his death, planted together in the likeness of his death. We're saying this morning, we are in Christ. In Christ. We thought of that wonderful scripture, God with us, Emmanuel.

Then remember the last phrase of Matthew's gospel, I am with you. The original text, I with you am. The great be capital I, the small with you, the capital M, and that's where we are. We are lost in the great I am.

Crucifixion With Christ and the Death of the Old Man

We are accepted in the beloved. It is wonderful, isn't it? Now go to verse number six for the sake of time. Here's something else he wants me to know. Knowing this, our old man, all I am is a child of Adam.

All I am by nature, knowing this, our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, made it operative, put out of action, unemployed, rendered idle, discharged. It's all the same Greek word.

I like it, my friend. Let me give you an illustration the other night from Matthew's gospel, where the people were standing in the market square, and the Lord said, wise, tiny, all day, idle. It's the same Greek word.

The same word, wise, tiny, all day, idle. You know what they said? Because no man has hired me. A friend of mine was going along on a railway compartment some time ago. There were three people there on the train, and the one that played cards.

They wanted him to join in. He very politely said, it's impossible, I haven't got my hands with me. And they looked and said, what do you mean? He said, no, the cards I play cards with are idle. They're idle.

These are the Lord's hands. Now, have you got it, my friend? It may not, my friend, be your hands, maybe some other part, but you've got to render all pertaining to your old life idle, and I want to say this again.

The old man, the old nature, can't operate unless you employ him. He can't operate unless you're willing to operate. Unless someone has hired me. And the only one who can hire me, my friend, is your will.

Your will. We'll see that just in a moment. We must hurry. The body of sin might be destroyed at hand, for we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed, and comes free again. Freed means justified from sin.

Somebody's begging, Scotty, we've been found guilty of murder. We've been found guilty. The moment of execution arrives, and you go up, my friend, to the jail yard in Edinburgh, you see a notice on the door saying, John Brown was justified this morning at eight o 'clock.

It doesn't say John Brown was hanged or executed. John Brown was justified. He's justified in the eyes of law by death. He pays a penalty death, and he's justified. No one can accuse him or any claim against him now.

And friends, tonight, because we are being crucified with Christ, we are completely justified. No one dare raise the accusing finger. It's a grand thing to be a child of God. But there's something more.

Co-Resurrection and Reckoning by Faith

Verse number eight. Now, if we be dead with Christ, we believe we should also live with him. Now, verse number nine. Here's the third thing he wants me to know. First of all, the meaning of my baptism.

Secondly, the meaning of my core crucifixion. That when he died, I died. He not only died to bear away my sin, praise his name, but when he died, I died. He bore all I am as a child of Adam away out of the reckoning of God.

God reckons, by grace, I am crucified with Christ. Oh, the wonder of this glorious truth. I shout, I'm not going to fast for you. Oh, I will just wait, or not, the Spirit of God may reveal it to you, that when the Lord died, you died.

Don't try and feel dead. Believe what God says. Believe what God says. Now, here's the third thing. He wants to know our co-resurrection. Our co-resurrection, verse nine. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more.

Death is no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin. Once, in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Now, please, oh please, that is all in the reckoning of God. God sees each and every believer crucified with Christ, buried in Christ, raised in Christ, ascended in Christ, and seated in Christ now, in glorious victory.

Now, that is a fact. Whether you enter into it experientially or not, that's another story. But this is where God sees each and every believer. Now, my friend, that is your position as a believer in Christ Jesus.

But how is it going to become a natural fact in my life? Verse eleven becomes ours. What God has reckoned by grace, he wants us now to reckon by faith. And if there is some relevance, likewise, likewise, reckon yourself to be dead, indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

There is a two-fold reckoning in that verse. There is a negative and there is a positive. The negative, I reckon myself dead, indeed unto sin. Positive, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And this is the only way out of Romans 7, where you are a captive into Romans 8, where you become more than a conqueror. The only way you can live in Romans 8, out of Romans 7, is through Romans 6 -11.

It's the bridge that brings you from Romans 7 into Romans 8, and never to go back into Romans 7. Oh, my friend, this is vital. This is for you, dear child of God. He wants you to enter into this tonight.

All this can be yours, if you like, and allow the Spirit of God to enthrone Christ, Lord of all, in every part of your life. May I go back over verse number 11? The word is reckon. This is an accountant's word.

Put it to the account. Reckon upon it. Two society of butterflies were gloriously converted. Two weeks after they were saved, they were very popular girls, and they were invited to a dance. They sat down, and they saw the body, and they read over the invitation, and then they remembered.

At the event in the stateroom, if any question arises, always go to the word of God, and you get the answer. And God in His wonderful providence and grace laid in the Colossians chapter 3, where it says in Colossians 3, says your faith on things above.

Then it says, ye are dead, ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ and God. And those two young converts, only two weeks old, wrote back and said, we had your invitation, we cannot come, we died two weeks ago.

And you got it, my friend, they were reckoning upon the fact that they all belonged to the old life. See what this very God did, in the simplicity and honesty, the Lord led them to that text, we have died, and our lives are hid with Christ and God.

Oh, is this really new life tonight? Do you know the joy of it, my friend? Now, reckon yourself to be damned unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, know this, you may know it, that touch of your mind, and you may reckon that touch of your soul, but not know the power, not know the power of the resurrection life.

You may know it theoretically in your mind, and your soulish aspect may say, I reckon upon it. No, the reckoning in the world will never bring this power into your life, until you come to verse 13. And what you know in your mind, what you reckon upon with your soul, now you act upon with your will.

Yielding the Members to God

And what's verse 13 say? May I read it with you? Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but, here it is, but yield yourselves unto God. I'm afraid so many have tried, they've come to Romans 12 once, and they've been pleased with it, they've yielded their life, and they've tried with all sincerity, and it's never fizzed, it's never worked.

Some have come to Romans 6, and they've thought about it, they've been knowing about it, and they've reckoned upon it, but they say it doesn't work. I reckon, I reckon, I believe, but it doesn't work.

You know why? Because they've never yielded. And my friend, you'll never get anywhere until you yield. You never will. You've got to come to this place of yielding. It's complete commitment, complete surrender.

The Holy Spirit can't feel what you're holding on to. He can't take control of your controlling too. It must be unconditional, unreserved, complete commitment to Him. Are you willing for that tonight?

Are you willing? Are you willing to yield? The sad thing about it is, I'm finding young people in my ministry, all over this great North American continent, and other continents in the world, they're entering in, and the older people say, why I've known that truth all my years, I've known it for 40 years, I'm a saint in carnality.

They're sitting in carnality, and their lives are wasted, completely wasted. You know why? They're too proud. It's going to take too much out of you tonight, you older Christians, to get to your feet and say, it's Christ, and all for Christ.

It's going to touch your pride, isn't it? You've been brought up with this all your life. Richard Bennett, that dear man of God, who's out in California, from California, he's up there now, in British Columbia, and some friends of mine went to listen to him.

I plead with them, go and listen to him. They said, Jim, Jim, we've heard it all our lives, and it made me cringe inside me, and I say, your lives are barren, your lives are unfruitful, your prayers are useless.

You do all theoretically, but you never enter into experientially, and your lives are empty and barren. I'm not teaching a new theory here, children of God. I'm not teaching my friends some new doctrine.

Darwin, Stoney, Bennett, Denny, Dennett, McIntosh, Mother, Craik, Coates, all those men taught a present deliverance from the power of indwelling spirit, by yielding to the indwelling spirit. And no wonder this prayer bed would have power for God in those days.

As far as it is, had they continued as they are, they would have moved the whole world. They would have moved the whole world. Where are we today? Men, my friend, and women are coming up and saying, Jim, I heard that forty years ago, and I haven't heard it since.

Young people are coming up and saying, why? Is this something new? We've never heard this. I know many have heard it with the ear, but they've never heard it with the understanding heart. They've never heard it.

And by God's grace, you're hearing it again tonight. And I wonder what you're going to do about it. I will show you the path of life. The path of life is through death. You must die. You must die. You must attend your own funeral!

Have you ever done that? Have you ever done that? Have you ever come to praise my friend? And you're taking God's Word against your own self? And you see yourself there? And you say, Lord, I see myself, and I've died on the sin.

I'm alive under God. For Jesus Christ the Lord. Somebody said to George Muller years ago, Mr. Muller was the seeker of your success. The old man stood toward the ground, he said in humility, there was a moment in George Muller's life when George Muller died.

He died to George Muller and to his desires and all his fences. He died to his brethren, to their opinions and to their criticism. And from that moment I sought to please only one man by his grace, and that man is Jesus Christ.

Have you died? That's life out of death. Yield. Next to your will. Yield your members. Yield. Now, this has got to do, my friend, with Christian character. You know it. You're reckoning upon it. And now act upon it.

Yield. Yield. As you, the Bible says, yield yourselves, yield your members as instruments of unrighteous understanding. But yield yourselves unto God. Not your neighbor, not your brother, not your sister, not your wife.

Yield yourselves. I know men and I know parents are quite willing to yield their children somehow to the mission field. They're willing to yield their money, yield their service. But they'll hold back themselves.

And all they're giving is just haywood and stubble. Haywood and stubble will go up in fire. Only what comes from a wholeheartedly yielded life. The greatest dearest servant you have in this near North American convent, that dear man.

The Surgeon and Executive Transformed by the Gospel

I had been in their assembly for eight weeks the year before. We were having six servants in a day, commencing at six o 'clock in the morning. That dear man would be doing surgery nearly all night. He'd come down, down to the prayer meeting and pray.

As I go back the following year, I said, I'll come for a bunny, I can bring Colin Anderson with me, to help in the young people's work. He said, yes, bring him. We went. That dear surgeon, an executive in a very large firm, another dear man.

I asked if I could go up with him for coffee one night after the meeting. He said, Jim, when you were here last year, we criticized you. We criticized your ministry. We thought it was second blessing you were teaching.

But I said, Jim, our wives endured in. Our wives saw it and they endured in. And they knew the joy of this new life in Christ Jesus, this life and life in abundance. Their prayer life became revolutionary.

Their prayer at Bible study became a new book to them. And they began reading souls through to Jesus Christ. They would listen to us preaching. They were saying, oh, beautifully constructed, beautifully put together.

Worked perfectly in your delivery, but there's no power. And they said, Jim, you're just a Boswellite. You're a Boswellite. We twailed and whined, we said, you're a Boswellite. They said, Jim, we see the truth and we want to enter in.

And those men, those straw men, that neurosurgeon, that man, he bowed and confessed to tears rolling down his face. That executive said, I see it all. I've been given $65 ,000 a year to missions, mainly to the Dominican Republic.

And I gloated, I rejoiced to see my name at the bottom of that check as I sent it to the Missionary Service Committee. I rejoiced. And I said, oh, he wouldn't stubble. Oh, he wouldn't stubble. Those two men broke down in a sob-like tune that came true for Jesus Christ.

Knowing, Reckoning, Yielding, and Obeying

Their lives were completely transformed. What about you? Heal yourself. Sit down to verse number 16, please. Jesus says here, know ye not to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey? His servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether sin unto death or obedience unto righteousness.

But God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin, that ye have obeyed from the heart that form or mold of doctrine which was delivered you. Four words I want you to get. The first word is know. The second word, beloved, is reckon.

Now you may know and you may reckon and not know the path. And you never will until you yield. Until you yield. And this is a death-deliberate act. Just as definite, young people get this, just as definite as the moment you receive Christ into your heart, is that moment when you stand to your very feet and you're bowing your head and you're saying, Lord, I yield.

Lord, I surrender my oath. Or it may be in the Lamb's lovely hymn. Take my love, O Lord, I pour at thy feet as treasure store. Take my servant, I will be ever only all for thee. Yield yourselves. Y-I-E-L-D.

Here's an acrostic for you. Yield yourselves unto God. I, immediately. Don't leave it till tomorrow because you're compromised and you won't do it. Do it right now, my friend, even now as I am speaking.

Look up and do business and say, Lord, Lord, I may not understand all this means, but I know you're talking to me. You've been talking to me all week, Lord. I can know this, Lord. And Lord, I yield. Lord, I yield.

All I am, all I have, Lord, I yield and I yield to thee. I do it immediately. Then eat entirely, the whole man, all your members, your intellect, your eyes, your ears, your tongue, your hands, your feet, your intimate members, the whole man, the whole woman, boy or girl, hand it over without any reserve.

Yield your members. Yield your members. This has got to do with Christian character. And you'll never be enemy for God until you ask. You never will. All your service, your Sunday school work, your Bible class, just haywood and stubble.

Until you come to recognize, my friend, all are nothing at all. He must be Lord of all or he's not Lord at all. Entirely. L. Lovingly. Lovingly. The Son of God loved me and gave himself for me. Oh, my friend, our sister's sons are now entering into that heart of love.

Oh, the great heart of love is toward you tonight, toward me. Listen again. The Son of God loved me and gave himself for me. And I take the last three words and I respond. As I read them backwards and I pray from my heart, He shall be me for himself.

Love responding to love. Love so amazing, so divine. Demand shall have my heart, my life, my all. Oh, isn't he worthy of this? Isn't he worthy? Yes, ten thousand times, ten thousand. He alone is the worthy one.

Then these, decisively, is a decision that leads to a habit. You decide, you continue to decide. It becomes habitual to look up and say, Lord, Lord, I'm not my own, I'm thine. Lord, I'm your property.

Oh, have you prayed that? Dear man was a terrible drunkard. God met him and God stayed and transformed his life. One day, standing by one of the saloons, there he stood carrying one of those old-fashioned Singer sewing machines on his shoulder, one of those treadle ones.

The bartender standing at the door, he says to him, I say, Jock, I say, man, that salvation is making you strong. He says, yes, there was a time when I couldn't carry a dime past your door. Salvation is a change.

I say, but Jock, are you never tempted now? Are you never tempted to come in? He says, yes, many times I am. As I pass by and the smell comes up, my own nature says, go and have a drink, Jock. Go and have a drink.

He says, I just look up and say, Lord, look after your property. It's in danger. And I get past all the temptations. It's simple, but is it true? Is it real in your life? Just as clear as that. Now, here's the next word, obey.

Obey. Four key words leading you in, my friend, victorious moment by moment, day by day living. It's so vital, it's so precious. You know. You reckon. And you yield. Now, here's the proof. Obedience. Obedience.

My friend, if you love me, you obey my word. If you love me, you do what I tell you. And it's God's word says so. What about believer's baptism? Have you been baptized? What about the Lord's Supper? Do you break bread upon the third day of every week?

What about come up from among them and touch not the unclean? What about this verse I'm quoting you now? Heal your members as a delivered command. Another command is be being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Presenting the Body as a Living Sacrifice

Now, these are commands. Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel. These are commands. Time will allow me to develop them. As I close, please turn to Romans 12. Romans 12, now I must close. And notice, please, here the beautiful language.

May I help you now? No. You can't. You may. And it won't work. If you come to Romans 12 without coming to Romans 6, it will never work. You've got to reckon, my friend, the sin of the death upon you, all the damning nature.

See yourself upon that cross of the Lord Jesus. And now is one alive from the dead. And alive from the dead. Now you come. And He says, I beseech you, therefore. Oh, look at the lovely language. How wooing He is.

I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God. By the mercies. Not by the commandments, but by the mercies of God. Because you are pardoned. Because you have been forgiven. Because you are justified and sanctified.