Freedom From Bondage Romans 8 - Part 2 — Leonard Ravenhill

Bondage, sorrow, is that sure, isn't it? Out of my sickness into thy health, out of my poverty into thy, out of my sin, because you see you go through, oh I mustn't preach, I'm going to preach this a week on Sunday, I'm going to preach on Romans 8, we're opening the new building by the way, in Van a week on Sunday, and while I remember, because I forget, this coming Tuesday and Wednesday I have to preach at Jimmy Swaggart's college, somebody says shall we pray for you, I said no, pray for him.

I know the word God has given me, all I need is power to deliver it. I got two mornings to preach to a thousand or more students and others that will come. Will you pray Wednesday and Thursday that God will do something new and wonderful there?

No, I want to preach, really, I mean I want to preach on Romans 8 a week on Sunday. Dave Wilkerson's preaching this week over at the fellowship there and I'll be preaching the week after. I feel I've got a real word from the Lord out of this very chapter again, a different dimension.

Life in the Spirit and Dominion Over Circumstances

I'm going to say this again, verse 9, ye are not in the flesh if the spirit, but in the spirit if so breathe that the spirit of God, can you think of anything more majestic? The spirit of the living God fall afresh on me, no live in me.

I shouldn't fluctuate, I'm in doubt like that, I should have dominion over circumstances, over feelings, over emotions. I know you've got to fight them, but this is what it's all about. You look a bit surprised, okay, but that's what it's all about anyhow.

I'm trying to think of a hymn, Wesley wrote I think, Jesus thine all victorious love, shed in my heart abroad, then shall now my feet no longer rove, rooted and fixed in God. My steadfast soul, what does Paul pray?

That ye may be steadfast and unmovable, is that a poetic dream? You say you preach sinless perfection, don't preach anything of the kind, never heard a man preach it in my life. You make it sound as though it's impossible to sin, no that's not it at all, I'm not saying it's impossible to sin, I'm saying it's possible not to sin.

The scripture says we're kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation. Oh those boys have been up on the moon there and apparently had some trouble, oh no they get to the moon, they got halfway up there, they're coming back.

I have a bundle of papers in my office, at least I had it, unless I gave my grandchildren them. When the Apollo 15 went up to the moon, they took some pictures there and they took a little bible and they sent me one of them from the, what do you call it now, NASA?

It says on it this little bible that was taken, this was taken onto the moon by a member of the crew of Apollo 15, I have this thing in my office. They sent me a lot of pictures and they said, one of them said the most amazing thing, we've got used to looking up at the moon and it has no props on it, it's just a ball up in the sky.

But he said when we got up there we saw the world hanging like that, looks strange to see the world I just left, no props on it, no pedestal, just there swung in space. Isn't that amazing? My dear sweet wife lived in Melbourne, Australia for some years, I went and preached around Australia and you know on the sphere of the world, Australia is down here and the ocean is there.

You think that isn't wonderful? You try a handful of water on the bottom of a bucket and get it to stick. You can't get it to stick and yet God hangs the world upon nothing. It took us billions of dollars to find that out, Job said that thousands of years ago.

Boy, aren't politicians dumb? He hangs the world upon nothing, this paper's thin. I've used this illustration before maybe, I caught a fish over in the Bahamas there, in the sea of course. I remember it was about 34 inches long and it weighed 34 pounds.

We took it back to the house and we gave it to the cook, a precious black woman, I think she could cook a shoe and make it tender. I'm glad she didn't of course, but then they gave me some fish and said, would you like that fish?

No. No taste. What, did you put some salt on it? No. Why should I put salt on it? It's been swimming in the saltiest water in the world for the last 25 years and the skin is only as thick as this and yet that fish can live in that atmosphere year after year for a generation or a decade and another decade and the salt doesn't go through that little thin skin.

But you tell me that God can hang the world on nothing and keep a fish in the ocean for 25 or 125 years and the salt doesn't get in, but he can't keep me from sinning in a lousy world like this? That the blood can't protect me?

That the promises of God can't protect me? That the Holy Ghost can't protect me? Well, go home and dream. We're so used to a crippled church, we'll be embarrassed if we see the church start moving in the Holy Ghost.

The Holy Spirit's Help in Weakness and Prayer

The spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead, he shall also, it says he shall quicken your mortal bodies. You know, I'm learning to claim this a bit more, not for when I die, but every day that I live.

Let me go over to another verse here before I finish. Likewise the spirit, the mighty Holy Ghost, verse 26, helpeth our infirmities. The Holy Ghost, what's your infirmity? It's not talking about a physical infirmity.

It's talking about some spiritual weakness. The spirit also helpeth our infirmities, so he deals with our weakness. I recognize my infirmity and claim on him and he comes and makes up that I have a deficiency, my infirmity.

We know not what we should pray for as we are, so he deals with our ignorance. He makes intercession for us according to the will of God, so he makes up for our insufficiency. He deals with my weakness.

He deals with my ignorance. He deals with my insufficiency. You wonder that we sing Wesley's hymn, Jesus, you lover of my soul, thou O Christ art all. I want to tell you something, God has no afterthoughts.

Calvary was not an afterthought. God hasn't defined a solution to the day in which I live. The church has to rediscover it. They answer to all sin, to murder and lying and incest and lust and all the diabolical things of hell have all been answered in Jesus Christ.

The average church had gotten down the same thing every Sunday, the Lord died for your sins, sing a lovely hymn. They don't know anything about being emancipated. All they want is forgiveness. How many people want their fetters broken, their lying spirit, their lustful spirit, their deceitful spirit, their spirit of temper, their spirit of pride, their spirit of uncleanness.

God does not have to find an answer. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's son is adequate, but I have to go and submit myself to him. Verse 26 says, the spirit itself or himself maketh intercession for us.

Verse 34, it is Christ that died, yea, is risen again, who is at the right hand of God, who maketh intercession for us. So in verse 26 you have intercession, in verse 27 you have intercession, in verse 34 you have intercession.

Predestination as Conformity to Christ

Now there's an awful lot said about predestination. Do you know what people do? They amputate it. Oh you were predestinated to be, I had a man in my office recently and he was so strong on predestination, oh well God knew the moment you were born and he charted your course, he knew the moment you died.

I said you're telling me that last year that God supervised the flushing of a thousand fetuses or a million fetuses down the john? Come on man, you say he was a foreordained of God, that child, when it came from the womb, God knew it will be shoved down in a toilet and flushed away.

Or something will be put in its mother and the little thing could be torn up in its mother's womb, is that your God? Sure we predestinated to what? This verse 29, who he did foreknow also he predestinated to be conformed to the image of his son, that's predestination.

I'm predestined to be holy, I'm predestined to be pure, I'm predestined to walk in the light as he walked in the light, as he was so are we when we get to heaven. No no sir, as he was so we in this world.

We're trying to put it all off to when we get to the other side. I'm told a popular preacher in town says there's no victory till you die. Shut the place up and become a Mohammedan, they can preach that.

The big stumbling rock in the world tonight is not poverty and all these, it's all capsuled in one little word, S .I .N. It explains every wrecked home, every wrecked life, the failure of every government system and every other system, the law of the spirit of life, I love that phrase.

So the spirit bears witness to my life, he bears witness because I have no condemnation, he bears witness why? Because I have the spirit of adoption. Boy I wouldn't like to wake up tomorrow morning and feeling I wasn't in the kingdom would you?

Wouldn't that be horrid? Oh you're big enough, you're six foot four, you feel secure, I wouldn't in this world. I can wake up in the night and sing with confidence we now draw nigh and father above father cry.

The spirit answers to the blood and tells me I'm born of God. This is Dutch to you if you're not born of the spirit. He can't bear witness you're a child of God if he has to witness to condemnation, to guilt, to sin.

Freedom From Condemnation Through Christ

My dear wife read something to me last week, it's very interesting. A man had taken the place of his brother in jail. A man went along and he said your brother was sentenced to five years wasn't he? Yes.

And you said you'd take it? Yes. What are you doing? He said I've taken his penalty but I can't take his guilt. I've taken the punishment he still bears the guilt. But Jesus took the punishment and the guilt, no condemnation I dread.

It's possible for me to live as close to God on earth as I would if I were in heaven. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth. I am earth, I was came out of the earth, I'm of the earth earthy. Jesus Christ made it possible.

This must be right because Spurgeon said it. And he wasn't Pentecostal. What did Spurgeon say? A little faith will get you to heaven, a little more faith will bring heaven to you. You know your children, you parents, your children should be able to look on you as though you'd stepped out of heaven and getting out of bed in the morning with a bad temper or something.

You should walk before them every day and my and children say my mother is the holiest woman on earth. I have a letter on my desk now is written in 1724 by the by the daughter of uh what's his name Martha?

Oh good I told us before Jonathan Edwards. She says my daddy is a gravel-voiced rough-looking man and he's fierce in the pulpit but he is a lamb when he's home. But my mummy, she's nine years of age, boy she's got a vocabulary an awesome vocabulary.

When my mummy comes out of a prayer chamber in the morning she said she needs a veil over her face. You think children don't know? Your ambition shouldn't be to be a successful missionary first of all or a successful minister.

Your ambition should be know that now you're as far as God can do it he'll keep doing it conform to the image of his son. The gentleness and meekness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Give me a couple of minutes here.

Mortifying the Flesh and Guarding Devotion

Verse 13 says if ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if through the spirit you do mortify the deeds of the body. Now come on your experience of God 10 years ago isn't good enough tonight. You were filled with a spirit maybe you've been leaking.

The question is not when you were filled the question is are you filled? Are you filled with the love of God? Are you filled with the knowledge of God? Are you filled with the will of God? If ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if through the spirit you mortify the deeds of the body.

Remember that great phrase of Paul's in 1 Corinthians 9 when he says I keep my body under. You've got to have rest for your mortal body. You can have rest but don't be lazy there's a big difference. You've got to eat for your mortal body but don't be a glutton.

Keep your body under control. It's the temple of the Holy Ghost. Be ambitious but don't be covetous. You see it's a partnership I have with God and you have with God. It's not all God's business it's mine as well.

Let us lay aside everything. What's the weight in your life? What's the thing that destroys your prayer life? What's the thing that destroys your devotion? Racquetball. I had a man a brilliant man in the British Navy one of the high officers and he lost his anointing.

Do you know how? It's ridiculous. Stamp collecting. He could read his Bible in Greek. He was a marvelous teacher but he got occupied with stamps. He spent a fortune in stamps. He had racks and racks of books.

They were all he said one day I'll sell you my British Colonials for 1200 pounds. That was about 50 ,000 dollars at that time. Just one section of his stamps. His wife said he used to say when he came home from the Admiralty he'd get his Bible up he would talk he'd explain this in the Greek and something that now he said it wasn't TV.

Collecting stamps. Collecting stamps. He had more than anybody else. He had some prize stamps. Remember again it's a simple thing but it's true. The good is the enemy of the best. The devil doesn't want you to get drunk or dissipated.

He wants to get your life attached to something else. As long as he can draw you away from holiness and draw you away from holy contemplation and draw you away from meditation and draw you away from obedience he doesn't care how he does it.

The simpler the trick is more devastating. If he through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the bed, deeds of the body he shall live. As many as are led by the spirit of God they're the sons of God. How do I know the spirit bears witness because he leads me that's why.

I don't have to tell you but I have to have an inward obedience and that inward obedience will soon show out. Verse 22 we know that the whole creation groaneth. This groaning comes in three times verses 26 and 28.

We know that the whole creation groaneth and traveleth in pain together until now. Not only they but ourselves also have the first fruits of the spirit. Well brother if you've got the first fruits what are the final fruits going to be?

If we've got a peace that passeth out understanding, if you've got a joy unspeakable, a faith unshakable and a will unbreakable, dear Lord what's the ultimate going to be? If I can have these in my mortal flesh what's it going to be when I get a glorified body?

That's the last thing in this verse. Even we ourselves groan within ourselves waiting for the adoption to wit the redemption of the body. I skip one great verse there. Verse 17 if we're children we're heirs of God and joined heirs with Jesus Christ.

Sharing Christ's Glory and Suffering

You know Jesus Christ wants to share all the riches of his redemption with me. I think of a family in England they had a lot, Ireland actually, they had a lot of money. They were very highly respected, great social standing, great crowds of pedigree cattle and everything you can imagine.

And when the family was up everybody respected their children but something went wrong in the family and their prosperity turned to adversity and the esteem people had for them went the very opposite way.

Now the children were all listed with father and mother. People sneered at the children, oh your old dad couldn't do this, your old dad didn't do that. Remember the time when you were the most respected people in the whole community and now you're the most despised.

What happened? The son shared the glory of his father socially and financially when they were very wealthy and then when the thing turned the other way he had to bear the shame. Let me look at this just a second.

Another thing I want to quote here from Romans 8. You could say there that we're heirs of God, there's the dignity but wait a minute. If children then heirs, heirs of God and joined heirs with Jesus Christ.

If so be what? You can't separate from it. If you're going to share his glory you must share his suffering. Now notice what it says. If so be that we suffer with him not for him. There are millions of people suffering for him in Russia tonight.

They won't bow their knees at the government. It doesn't mean they're suffering with him, they're suffering for him. They know as Christians they should take this way. If I suffer with him I share his grief, I share his anguish.

How many people do you know? You call them friends, you could go in your days of joy and your days of prosperity. If your world collapsed, if shame came over your house, if your daughter got into sin or your son or something, would you go freely to them and say listen this is my condition right now.

If I'm going to suffer with him I'm going to see the world as he sees it. These eyes of mine. Remember again Revelation 3 he says to a church I counsel thee to buy of me eye salve and that was what they exported.

They exported it to the world because they didn't have shades and they go down the roads or across the deserts and like you get snow blindness you can get sand blindness. And the Lord says I counsel thee to buy of me eye salve.

He says to the same one I counsel thee to buy of me clothing and they were the greatest exporters of wealthy clothing in the world. He says I counsel thee to buy of me gold. They had the greatest gold exchange in the known world at that time.

Everything they boasted in God said it's nothing. It's all materialistic, it will perish with the using. I counsel thee to buy of me real eye salve that you may see. And I say I warn you tonight don't pray that unless you mean want to see as God sees.

Isn't there a hymn verse of a hymn that says oh take the dimness of my soul away. I don't want to wake up in heaven and look at all the things I've missed that I could have seen. I'm prepared to step out of track and as one of your old saying in America is I'm prepared to march to another drummer.

The philosophy if you want to call it of this book is contrary to everything the world has. All its standards, all its values, all its goals. They're totally wrecked when you put them under the microscope of the word of God.

Walking Triumphantly in the Present World

And the whole thing about the success of the Holy Spirit is getting the witness of the spirit that there's no condemnation in my life. That guilt has been removed. That I can walk triumphant in his name.

That I can be like him in this present evil world. If I'm going to share in his bounty sometimes he witnesses with groanings that cannot be uttered. That's not according to our idea. We thought he'd give us ecstasy all the way and he'd pull all the God isn't going to pull down the mountains.

He's going to give strength to get over them. He's going to make you the most popular person on earth. He's going to give you a close relationship with him that you won't care a hell of beans about anybody else's opinion or thinking.

A little boy says well I don't care what you think. My daddy changed my name. I'm receiving all his wealth. I receive a mansion. I can have that Rolls Royce. I can have the yacht. I can have everything.

He changed my name. He changed my nature. Boy I love to read this book. Do you? I read about a book of life in Revelation. I believe that book of life has the name of everybody from Adam right till the final trumpet blast.

That's the book of life. The Lamb's book of life is different. The book of life God put on record when I was born. The Lamb's book of life he put on when I was born again. We've got three wonderful sons.

When they were born we had to get their names registered. They were sent to London to Somerset house that has the names of every Christian. I was going to say no not every Christian. Every English person in the last 200 years.

Oh I suppose they can microfilm them now. They've stacks and stacks in rooms of millions and millions of copies of birth certificates. The Queen of England has a bunch of children. Do you know what? She has the honor of having her children in the same book as mine.

Isn't that something? There's only one book for the British Empire. My children's names are there. The Duke of so-and-so's name. Lord so-and-so's there. Then will he own my worthless name before his father's face and in the New Jerusalem appoint my soul a place.

Do you think I'm going out to the beggarly elements of the world? The junk houses of this world? The rock and roll? Christian rock they call it. Christian wrath it is. Do you think I'm embarrassed to be a child of a king?

Eternal Rewards, Judgment, and Faithfulness

Every man that's falling in hell at the final judgment will wish he'd lived a pure life. Wish he'd lived a holy life. Wish he'd lived an obedient life. No, it's a bit too late when the final curtain begins to fall.

Today you've been sewing without knowing it. You've been putting threads in your garment for eternity. You've been building your character. We're not going to wear the same things in heaven. In fact, all people going to hell are not going to be punished the same.

They're going to be beaten with many stripes and with few stripes. I can't wait till all the pimps and all the mafia and the folk that run the underworld that stand at the judgment seat of Christ and have to bow their knee and then he consigns them to everlasting hell.

I'll shout hallelujah if you don't. I can't wait till the roll is called. I see people from every kindred and tribe and tongue coming. Not all to be part of the bride, but all to the wedding feast if they've been obedient.

Because you know well enough there were 10 virgins. Not five harlots and five virgins and it was midnight and it was time to go in and five of them made it and five didn't. Where did the five that didn't go?

Out of darkness. Work it out for yourself. It's not eternal darkness. It's a temporary punishment because eventually they got into the marriage supper. I'm convinced of that. But they were shut up and they knocked on the door.

What did the one inside say? I know you not. In the seventh of Matthew he said to those big multi-billion dollar evangelists who said we've healed in your name, cast out devils, raised the dead. He says I never knew you.

He doesn't say that to these. He says I know you not. Their oil was running out. Their testimony was weak. Their prayer life was in rags. Come on don't be too kind to yourself. Don't assume that Peter's waiting inside the gate just to clamp a big crown up, six-decker crown with diamonds and rubies.

Forget it. We cannot earn anything for our salvation but we have to earn everything for our rewards. We're only rewarded according to our labors, our faithfulness. There's a spirit bear witness tonight that you're displeasing him.

Have you condemnation in your heart? Have you bitterness? Have you got some grudges? Some jealousy? Some pride? No wonder your life is hampered. Puts cataracts on your eyes. By some eye salve tonight, by obedience, by repentance say Lord I don't care what it costs.

Take the dimness of my soul away. Take the impurity away through the precious blood. Take care of my weakness, the weakness in my intercession. I don't doubt the sacrifice of Jesus. It's perfect. I don't doubt the power of the Holy Ghost.

I just doubt because it's not working in my life. So let's pray for a little season. We really hope that.

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