Book of Romans - Ch. 6, Vs. 20-Ch. 7, Vs. 25 (06/16/2002)

Park Meadows Church

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In this chapter, you have been reading sin as sin nature, I hope.

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The sixth chapter of Romans is a powerful, powerful chapter. We can spend two or three months on just the chapter alone.

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But today we'll start with the twentieth verse, almost through with it.

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Twenty says, For when ye were servants of the sin nature, ye were free from righteousness.

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You cannot have both. There's lots of people that try to have both.

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They're fooling themselves. Do you remember what the word doulos means,

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Joy? The word doulos. Verge, you remember the word doulos?

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Does anybody? What's it mean,

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Marianne? Bondservant. A bondservant. Now, can you be a bondservant of one person and a bondservant of another?

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No, it's impossible. So you cannot serve sin nature and righteousness.

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It's impossible. You had absolutely nothing about you that gave any hint of righteousness.

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I'll say that. What fruit had you then in those things, whereof you are now ashamed, for the end of these things is death.

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Those things is death. You're now ashamed of the old life. What's ashamed mean,

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David? It means what?

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Yes, yes. The fruit or product of the old life is death.

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But now, being made free, perfect, present, from the sin nature, and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life.

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For the wages of the sin nature is death. Greg, what do you have to do to collect the wages of sin?

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But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. We have eternal life, but only in Jesus.

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It is his life. Now, a few words about the word gift.

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We exchange gifts at Christmas time. We don't really. We exchange presents.

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A true gift can be given only by a person that never has, does not now, and never will need anything from anybody or anything.

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This means that God is the only one who can really give a gift.

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We use the word incorrectly. I'm not out to change your vocabulary, as long as you understand the meaning of the word gift.

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It makes the gift truly a gift of gifts. Are there any questions?

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You cannot mix the two. You can put them together, put them in the same container, but they won't mix.

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That's right. That's right.

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So, we were dead to one of them, and we'll always be dead to one of them.

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Chapter 7, if it were not for sin, death would never have had a beginning.

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If it were not for death, sin would never have an end. Is it worse to love sin or to commit it?

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Dennis? Where'd Dennis go?

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Well, that's why he's not answering. He run out on me.

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I'm glad you got back. I have a question for you.

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No, no, we're waiting on you. Is it worse, let me get it right, is it worse to love sin or to commit sin?

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Why do you say that? Alright.

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Good answer. That's right.

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A man may commit sin through temptation or ignorance. When he finds out his sin, he's sorry.

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But he who loves sin, his will is in the sin. And that aggravates him.

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It's like the dye which colors the wool to crimson.

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Now, verse 1, well, first let me take this.

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Is the fleshly body carnal or spiritual? Now think about your answer.

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David, you're right.

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Our fleshly body can be used for righteousness or sin.

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So it's all moral. Do you see the difference? The fleshly body itself.

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What is it that's living in the flesh? You. Define you.

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You're just digging yourself deeper. That's right.

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So the body is not sinful nor righteous.

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It's whatever you make it. Now, is the law spiritual or carnal?

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Well, we'll answer that one a little later. Now, when you're saved, we do not get a new life.

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How can that be? I got saved,

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I got a new life. But I didn't. Anybody want to take a stab at it?

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All right. We got the life of Christ, and that's the oldest there is.

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It's new to me, Greg. But I did not get a new life.

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You see the difference? All right.

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Romans 7, 1. Know you not, for I speak to them that know the law, how that the law hath dominion over man as long as he liveth.

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The law controls our life. Many laws control our life.

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Paul is singling out the law of marriage, compares the state of a man both before and after regeneration.

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The law of matrimony, he says, is this, that as long as the husband lives, the marriage remains binding, but if he is dead, the woman's free to marry again.

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Now, that's in the physical. Romans 2.

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You'll have to bear with me on it.

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2. For the woman hath an husband, for a woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth.

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But if the husband is dead, she is loose from the law of her husband.

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Well, that just makes sense. When the husband dies, the wife dies as a wife.

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3. So then, if while her husband liveth she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress.

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But if her husband be dead, she is free from that law so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.

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4. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto

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God. Are you dead to the law, or is the law dead to you,

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Greg? What's the difference?

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If the law become dead, then you'd have no problems. But you're dead to the law.

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What you said was right. So when we were in the flesh, the motions, and that's an old

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English word, meaning the afflictions Christians must undergo on behalf of the same cause that Christ did, so we could substitute the word emotion, of sins which were by the law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

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If this is carried to its end, it produces eternal death. Now, it's working in our members.

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Members are all moral, but the sin makes them work for unrighteousness.

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But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held, that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

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We were held by the law. We couldn't get loose from it.

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It took something or someone more powerful than the law to loose us.

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What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Seems as though it would be.

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But Paul says, God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law.

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For I had not known lust, except the law had said,

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Thou shalt not covet. I ask you again, does a lost person know they're lost?

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They don't know what it means. So to talk to a lost person and explain their lostness, it's hard to do.

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They're not comprehending. There has never been and shall never be a lost person that knows he's lost.

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Only after notification by Christ do we understand the sin in which

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I was living. Now, they may know about sin, but they do not know sin.

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Eight. But sin, taken occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence, for without the law, sin was dead.

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Taken occasion. I have here, when

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I was growing up in the elevator, we had a pinch pole. Always a great long thing.

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And we could set it on the track, slide it up to the wheel of the boxcar, and push down, and you were moving about a two -inch foot in a plate in there with a long handle, so you can understand.

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And it would take very little movement out here to move, or you had a lot of power to move the car.

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This sin, which is, it takes occasion by the commandment.

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There's a commandment against it. It uses that. It takes the occasion.

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Now, the point over which the fulcrum balances or braces is called a fulcrum.

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The point is the bar over which the point breaks is the fulcrum, right here.

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How many of you know what a fulcrum is? Have you ever experienced it? Okay. So you can pry a whole lot, or you can pry a little bit.

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But this is the point over which it breaks. Whatever shape it is, there's one point in there that it breaks.

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Now, sin is like that fulcrum.

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Not this, not this, but the point over which it breaks. It uses that to be more powerful.

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Sin is the only thing in the world that never had an infancy. For I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.

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David, what does he mean, I was alive without the law once? All right.

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When he did not know the law. Then I thought that indeed

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I lived, for my conscience never troubled me, because it was not aware of any disease.

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It wasn't aware of the law, so my conscience didn't bother me. And the commandment which was ordained to life

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I found to be ordained to death. Now, the commandment which is ordained to life,

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I discovered it was ordained to death. Let me see if I can illustrate this.

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An automobile is a very useful thing, but a car in the hands of an inadequate driver can become a dangerous thing.

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In fact, it becomes a death -dealing thing. The fault's not with the thing or with the car, the fault's with the driver or the person behind the wheel.

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That's where the fault is, not in the car. The problem's with corrupt man.

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Yes. Yes. So you want to know what concupiscence is?

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It's all manner of evil. Of evil. Of evil in the wrong term

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I'm talking about. It's all manner of sin. Concupiscence.

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11. For sin, taken occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it, it slew me.

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It is though Paul were dead. The sin, without saying so, killed him.

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He was headed for death. Sin is personified again here.

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It is a tempter. Sin tempts every man outside of the Garden of Eden. In the

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Garden of Eden, Satan persuaded man to believe that God could not be trusted.

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Do you remember that? He came to Eve and he convinced her that, without really saying so, that you can't trust

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God. He convinced her that she was able to become like God, apart from God.

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Then, sin, like the pied piper, led the men, the children of men, into believing that they can keep the law and that God is not needed.

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All you have to do is keep the law. This is the false trail that has been taken about which leads to death.

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It was ordained to life. Paul says that he found it led him to death.

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Sin at last will kill, for the law did bring the knowledge of sin. Now, if man had never known sin, wouldn't have needed the law.

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And man is without excuse, because everybody knows. Again, the difficulty is not with the law, it's with the man, not the law.

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Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.

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Is the law righteous? What was it

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I asked? Is the law spiritual or carnal?

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And you said carnal. Wherefore the law is holy.

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What? Yes, you're right. And the problem is with the person.

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It's a human problem. Man is the X in the equation of life.

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He is the uncertain one who cannot be trusted. Was then that which is good made death to me?

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God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.

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We have a paradox here. Is it a good version of a good thing?

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The commandment was totally incapable of communicating life, but it told you you had to be like.

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You had to be like God. Man must have recourse to help from the outside, because the commandment intensified the awfulness of sin.

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The only way that man would ever, well, he couldn't extract himself.

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The only way he could hope to extract himself is by the blood of Christ.

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For we know that the law is spiritual, but I'm carnal, sold under sin.

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Without the law, all would not have been sold under sin.

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But the law was here. The law was established. And it sold him.

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For that which I do, I allow not. Now, if you don't understand or don't follow, you won't understand.

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For that which I do, I allow not. I do the things

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I don't want to do. For what I would, that I do not.

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But what I hate, I find that I do that. This body of ours is neutral and can be used for that which is either good or bad.

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I want you to be sure you get that this morning. Our body can be used for either good or bad.

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It's an instrument only. Just like the automobile

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I referred to is good or bad, depending upon the driver. Sin, without our doing anything, has a great influence on our life.

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I ask you this morning to imagine, if you will, a young baby, less than a month old, and look at that beautiful face.

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Then come back 50 years later and look at that face. You say, well, yes, but sin has taken its toll.

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Without sin, we'd never grow up. But without sin, we wouldn't grow into what we are.

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Disease, afflictions, Sarah's leg will never be what it was.

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It might be better than it was. Flesh is inert, has no capabilities or possibilities toward God.

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Your flesh cannot be saved or lost. It was under the curse, so it's lost.

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But it is dominated by the sinful nature, the ramifications of which reach into the innermost recesses of the body and mind.

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The heart of man is desperately wicked. He wants to do the things that are evil, and the body responds to that.

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Paul describes his pitiful plight as a slave soldier to a

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Simon Legris taskmaster with a whiplash of evil. If, then,

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I do that which I would not, and that's what I find myself doing, I consent unto the law that it's good, because it points out what

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I'm doing. Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but the sin nature that dwells in me.

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That seventeenth verse, memorize it, underline it, type it out, put it on your mirror.

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It's no longer I. It's not me that's doing that. It's the old sin nature, because the real

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I, or the real me, is what, Julie? It's in Christ.

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Therefore, it is in the life of Christ, and I had nothing to do with that.

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The less we should, the more we would. I do the things which

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I know I shouldn't, but it's no longer I that do it.

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It is no more I that do it. It's not me.

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You're not a sinner saved by grace. Please understand that.

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When you put an ER on sin, sinner, it becomes a profession.

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It becomes habitual. You're not a habitual sinner. You are a saved person that sins once in a while.

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When we take the position of I'm just a sinner, we're actually slapping God in the face, because he made me not a sinner.

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For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.

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For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I cannot find.

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The evangelist that comes to town, comes to your church, and he says, all of you that want to come closer to God, put up your hands.

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Well, I want to do that, so I put up my hand. Those of you that want to commit your life to God, come forward.

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Boy, that's just what I've been looking for, David. The minute the evangelist makes that statement, he's got me.

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That's what I want to do. That new nature of mine says, sure, you sure would like to live for God, but there is no power, there is no power in that.

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That is multitudes, that's what multitudes of believers fail to recognize, that there's no power in your wanting to.

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There have been folks who have been coming forward for years, and that's all they've been able to do, just coming forward.

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They never make any progress. It's the same group that comes forward next time. Only God can cause you to know.

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For the good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. We've all experienced that.

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Now, if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me, the old nature, is causing us the trouble.

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I find then a law, when I would do good, evil is present with me.

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Evil must be there. It's the other side of sin, the other side of righteousness.

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When you're attempting to serve God in the spirit, have you ever discovered, any of you ever had a hint of the old nature wanting to do something else?

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I'm sure you have. You'd be human if you hadn't. I know you wouldn't grow if you hadn't.

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Perhaps an evil thought will come to your mind. Every child of God, regardless of his state, must admit that in every act, in every moment, the sin nature is present.

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Failure to recognize this will eventually lead to shipwreck in the Christian's life. Oh, I want you to understand the sin nature.

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It is with me. I don't like to talk about it, so I won't talk about it.

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But if I have righteousness, sin is present. Now, I delight in the law of God after the inward man.

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David, what is the inward man? Right.

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But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members.

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You see, you don't get rid of the old nature when you're saved, and that there's no power in your new nature.

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I see a different law. Is the enmity of the old nature against God?

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Yes, because of the child of God who is honest to cry out, as Paul did.

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Now, what kind of weapons do we use to fight against the carnal that is in that state?

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What kind of weapons? That's right. The word of God, Jesus Christ, spiritual laws.

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O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? One of the methods of execution,

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I've told you about it before, but let me rehearse it.

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Let's say Greg has stood trial and he now is condemned to death.

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That death will consist of the Roman government taking a corpse and tying it to Greg face to face, nose to nose, with chains that he cannot break.

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And Greg is remanded to the keeping of the corpse forever.

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Well, we can see right quick what would happen. The whole body decays. It falls off.

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But the skeleton's still there. If Greg suffers through this and he's still alive, then he's set free.

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But nobody ever made it. Nobody. That awful, awful thing.

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I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

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Paul says, I thank God who gives deliverance through Jesus Christ our

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Lord. This is the answer to Paul's SOS. God has provided deliverance.

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Yet in Produces chapter 8 in which we see deliverance is given in detail. Both salvation and sanctification come through Christ.

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Always through Christ. He has provided everything we need.

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God in Christ sets us free. So, the law is spiritual.

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When we get saved we don't get a new life, we get the old life. That's new to me because I never had it.

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Is there any word from anybody? That's right.

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That's right. Yes, everybody has.

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That's right. As it has happened to Paul, so it has happened to every one of us.

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Some are at a difficult stage. Some fight more than others. I myself fight all the time.

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What? Yes, yes. Yes. When you finally, finally under His soft, that removes all kinds of weights.

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And the more I realize that, the more weights I drop off.

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But God is running all this. Now, I'm held responsible for the decisions

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I make because I wanted to, but God programmed it. Sovereignty of God.