The Christian's Daily War

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Hey, open your Bibles up to Galatians 5 for me.
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In Galatians chapter 5, we're going to be looking at verses 16-26.
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I started teaching on this a few weeks ago, and I'm just basically taking it one verse at a time.
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There's no reason to rush.
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I try to dig into the verses and look and see what's there, but remember the importance of the context of Galatians as a whole.
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This book is written by the Apostle Paul to a group of churches in a region of the world which we would now call southern Turkey.
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At that time it was called Asia Minor, and the southern area was known as the Galatian region, and the churches of Lystra, Iconium, and Derbe were all there, and Paul had planted those churches in his missionary journey, and when he left, another group came in, probably identifying themselves as having come from the church of Jerusalem, and we make that conjecture because of the message that they taught.
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They taught a message of what we would refer to as Judaizing.
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They came in and said, listen, Paul has told you about Jesus, but Paul didn't tell you the whole story.
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You need to keep the law, and that includes circumcision, that includes the dietary restrictions, that includes the maintaining of the Sabbath.
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If you're going to truly be a Christian, you have to be a Jew because Christians are Jews.
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That's the argument of the Judaizer.
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You have to become a Jew.
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Paul had taught a message that said that God broke down the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile.
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Paul's message was one that there was no longer Jew or Greek.
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There was no longer slave or free.
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There was no longer male or female.
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They were all one in Christ Jesus, and the dividing lines that had separated the cultures in the past were now to be set aside for the unity that was found in Christ.
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That was Paul's message.
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And the Judaizers came in and said, no, we're going to set those lines back up.
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We're going to put those fence posts back up.
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And so Paul is angry.
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Those of you who have been here, I've been preaching now in this book for, I don't know, a while.
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Yeah, almost a year, I guess.
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What we've noted from the beginning is Paul's writing is frustrated with their lack of fidelity to his teaching.
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The very first chapter, I'm amazed that you have so quickly departed from the Gospel and turned to another Gospel.
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Not that there is another Gospel.
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I mean, you think of the language, that's the way he's talking.
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He's not flowering his language with sweet sentiments.
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He is attacking them.
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When he gets to chapter 5, we've already read in the early part of chapter 5 how he says to them, he warns them of the danger of falling for this false teaching, and he tells those who are troubling them, he said, I wish they would cut themselves off.
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Remember what it actually says, I wish they would emasculate themselves.
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And again, it was a play on words.
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I wish those who would force you to circumcise yourself would just go ahead and cut themselves completely off.
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It was the language of emasculation.
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Paul has no, well, he has no patience for false teaching.
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Because it damns men's souls.
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And then we get to verse 16, or rather verse 13, and he says, for freedom you were called, brothers, do not use your freedom for an opportunity for the flesh.
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And this is where Paul's message becomes very practical, because if you've listened to Paul's message up until now, it's liable you would come away with some type of conflicting idea that, well, if Paul is teaching that we are saved by faith alone, then what Paul is teaching is all we have to do is believe, and our belief won't change our behavior.
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And there are people who believe that.
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A lot of people in churches who say, I can believe in Jesus on Sunday, and I can rob, pillage, rape, and plunder Monday through Saturday, and I can go back to church on Sunday, and I can go dun, dun, dun, dun, and it's like taking an Etch-A-Sketch and it's all gone.
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No, Paul says if you are free in Christ, that does not mean you are free to sin.
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What it means is you're free from the condemnation that the law had placed upon you because of your sin.
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And now that you are free from the condemnation of the law, live in light of that freedom.
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And then we see in verse 16, he says, But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
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I'm jumping through this because I've already been through this.
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I don't want to go back through the verses I've been through.
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If you weren't here, I'm sorry, but I want to get to the verse for today, because today we're going to go to verse 17, but we haven't read the text yet, so let's read it.
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And we're going to read it in its entirety.
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I'm in Ephesians.
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Let me turn the Bible.
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I'm sorry.
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I'm in the wrong book.
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Galatians 5, verse 13, and we're going to read down to verse 26.
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For you were called to freedom, brothers, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another, for the whole law is fulfilled in one word.
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You shall love your neighbor as yourself, but if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
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But I say to you, walk by the Spirit, and you will not desire, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh, for the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh.
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For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
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But if you're led by the Spirit, you're not under the law.
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Now, the works of the flesh are evident.
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Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of rage, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, things like these.
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I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
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Against such things there is no law, and those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
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If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.
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Let us not become conceited, provoking one another and envying one another.
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Father in Heaven, I thank you for your Word.
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I pray even now that as I seek to give an understanding of this passage, Lord, that you would keep me from error.
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For God, I am a fallible man, and I am capable of preaching error, and I don't want to.
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For the sake of your name, for the sake of my conscience, and for the sake of the hearts of these men, may your truth be proclaimed, may your Holy Spirit be the teacher.
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May He go out this day, and may what is said be mixed with faith.
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May it go past the ear and the mind and into the heart.
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And those who know Christ, Lord, may they be encouraged.
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May they be even rebuked if necessary, and may they be led to repentance if needed.
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But Lord, for those who do not know Christ, Lord, may today be a day of reckoning, that they might see in themselves the absolute void of a life that is lived outside of Jesus Christ.
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And it's in His name we pray.
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Amen.
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Amen.
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Alright.
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Verse 16 is what we spent most of our time last week on.
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And my goal, let me give you the breakdown.
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Last week we had the call, which is walked by the Spirit.
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Today we're going to look at the competition, which is the desires of the flesh versus the desires of the Spirit.
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And then next week we are going to look at the distinction or the comparison between the works of the flesh and the works of the Spirit.
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And so what we're going to do next week is we're going to write on this board, we're going to write all of the works of the flesh that Paul lists.
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We're going to define them.
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We're going to talk about them.
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We're going to identify what he's saying.
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And then we're going to write on the other side the fruit of the Spirit.
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We're going to identify what those are.
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But that's next week.
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Before we get there, however, we're going to look at verse 17.
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We're going to spend our day today looking at verse 17.
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Paul has just told us in verse 16, he has given the imperative, walk by the Spirit.
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Remember what we said last week.
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To walk by the Spirit does not mean to listen to the little voice inside of you.
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Because the problem with the little voice inside of us is the little voice inside of us often is not the Spirit, but is rather the flesh.
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The little voice inside of us doesn't encourage us to commit adultery, but we commit adultery.
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The little voice inside of us does not encourage us to steal, but we steal.
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I'm sorry, the little voice...
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I'm saying this wrong.
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Excuse me.
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The little voice inside of us might encourage us to do those things that God tells us not to do.
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So if the little voice is telling us to do things that God tells us not to do, it's not God.
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It's not the Spirit.
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And so what did we say last week that we ought to listen to instead of the little voice inside? Anybody remember? It's only a week.
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Okay, I...
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Yes.
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How do we know if the little voice inside of us is from God or from the flesh? It's the Word of God.
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That's the objective standard.
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The difference between objective and subjective is objective is always true no matter what.
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Subjective is dependent upon you.
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For instance, I like chocolate ice cream.
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I like vanilla ice cream.
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And I like strawberry ice cream.
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I just like ice cream.
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But...
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But I imagine, John, you probably have some ice cream that you don't like.
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My wife likes mint chocolate chip.
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I don't know why.
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Anybody who wants to eat ice cream tastes like toothpaste.
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I mean, just to me, it's mint.
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Mint tastes like toothpaste.
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I don't know why, you know.
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That's a...
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Yes.
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Exactly.
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So my point being is we all have subjective things, but there has to be a standard, an objective truth.
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And the standard of objective truth is the Word of God.
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Therefore, if I have a desire in my heart that is truly there, but the Word of God says it is ungodly, then I can know that that's not being led by the Spirit.
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So when Paul says be led by the Spirit, I think we have to first realize that that's not a subjective thing.
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It's objective because we have the Spirit's Word.
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Subjectivity has become the great danger that most people don't even realize is a danger in our world.
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Because, and this is how it usually goes.
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Someone will do something that is wrong and heinous.
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Someone will say to them that's wrong, and they'll say, hey, that's not wrong for me.
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It's wrong for you.
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And I get to decide what's right for me.
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And what's right for you is up to you.
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Huh? The cops are pretty good at it, too, though.
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I mean, it's...
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As soon as your hand comes clear for something, you think it's all right.
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I want to...
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I want to say this.
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Everybody, cops, non-cops, everybody, are sinners.
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And therefore, while people should be held to the standard of the positions they take, like a pastor, a policeman, anybody.
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And they should be punished when they do evil, without doubt.
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We can't say that, okay, this one group here is all bad and the other groups are all good.
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Everybody's a sinner.
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The problem with the world is everybody is bad.
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You understand that? Yeah, well, yeah.
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And so, yeah.
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And I just want to be careful that we don't diverge into something, you know.
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No, it's okay.
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It's okay.
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The point is, when we deal with the subject of objectivity versus subjectivity.
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Well, I believe it's okay for me, so it's okay.
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Like the lady who said, I don't believe in God and that's true for me.
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You believe in God and that's true for you.
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I say, no, that ain't the way it works.
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Because my belief in God will not make God exist if He doesn't exist.
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And your disbelief in God will not make God not exist if He does.
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So your belief in God is like gravity.
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You can say I don't believe in gravity, but if I put you up on that roof and push, gravity is going to kick your tail whether you believe in it or not.
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And that is the difference between objective reality and subjective reality.
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And the danger in the church is people have turned being led by the Spirit into a subjective reality.
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Well, the Spirit led me to do this, Pastor.
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No, He didn't.
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The Spirit didn't lead you to leave your wife.
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The Spirit didn't lead you to mistreat your children.
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Do you see where I'm going with this? People want to blame God for their own sins when James tells us that we should not say that we have been tempted by God.
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But we have been led away by our own desires.
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The responsibility for sin is always laid at the foot of the sinner.
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And therefore, we have to consider the idea when Paul says be led by the Spirit, that is an imperative, that is a command.
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We have to know how that leading comes.
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And I think that more often than not, people think that that's some kind of a subjective feeling.
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Now, as I said last week, and I'm not contradicting myself here, but there are times when the Spirit will prompt us.
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How do we know it's the Spirit prompting us? When it agrees with God's Word.
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If the Spirit prompts me to do good and to love and to encourage and to give and to be generous, then I can know that's God.
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As Augustine said, all of my sin is my fault and all of my goodness is God.
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Anything that I do is good, I attribute to the goodness and grace of God.
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Anything that's bad, I attribute to my weak and destructive flesh.
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And that's where we get to verse 17.
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Because verse 17, Paul outlines a very important principle.
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And by the way, I want to mention historically, very quickly, Galatians is one of the first books Paul wrote, if not the first book.
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So what Paul gives us here, he elaborates more later in his later writings.
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So this is early Paul.
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Not that it's different, mind you, I'm just saying that oftentimes we see in Scripture a process of growth in the writing.
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And that happens with the Apostle Paul.
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So we're going to look here at verse 17 and we're going to see what he says.
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And then we're going to see that in other places in Scripture, he actually elaborates even more on this idea.
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And fleshes it out more.
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But let's look at verse 17.
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For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit.
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And I don't know if you have an ESV, but I don't know what translation you have.
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But if you have a translation where they capitalize divine names and divine pronouns, you will notice that the Spirit is capitalized.
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Is that true for everyone? King James is capitalized.
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Is it capitalized? Okay.
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That's important because that's the translator's choice, right? Because the actual original languages didn't have capitals.
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Well, actually, the Greek is all capitals, no space, no punctuation.
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It's very difficult to read.
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So the idea of capitalization, that's a later invention.
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But capitalization helps us to see...
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What did you say, brother? You were saying? That means the definition is in the back.
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Oh, okay.
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It's a translation thing.
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Okay.
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Well, the point I'm trying to make is when he's talking here, the translator is trying to indicate to us that this is not talking about our human spirit, but this is talking about the Holy Spirit who lives within us.
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I think that's important to note.
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Because when you become a believer, when God saves your soul and gives you the gift of regeneration, the Holy Spirit of God, the third person of the Trinity, comes to live in your heart.
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He is omnipresent, which means He's everywhere, but He makes a specific and unique presence in your heart.
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This is the gift of the New Covenant, by the way.
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Remember when Peter, on Pentecost, when he preached, he said God will pour out His Spirit on all flesh.
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That was a prophecy from Joel 2, where God had promised that with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, there would be the coming of the Holy Spirit.
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And remember what Jesus said, I must go away, because when I go away, I will send you another Comforter, and He will be with you.
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That's the Holy Spirit.
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The Holy Spirit comes to live in the heart of the believer.
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What we don't have in the presence of Christ, we do have in the presence of the Holy Spirit.
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You see, the disciples walked with Christ beside them, we walk with the Spirit inside us.
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And so we have the Holy Spirit.
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And that's why the capitalization is there, I want to point that out, because the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh.
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For these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
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That is such a powerful use of language, because that's Paul's statement, basically saying that the Christian life is one ongoing battle.
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We're going to get there.
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You're going to outrun me, John.
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But we're going to get there.
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But my point to say now, before we get there, last week, I compared the Christian life to what? Do you all remember? A journey.
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I said it's not a sprint, it's a marathon, and it's not even a marathon you run, it's a marathon you walk.
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That's why it says walk by the Spirit, right? We always talk about the Christian walk.
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And last week I talked about Pilgrim's Progress, because Pilgrim's Progress is about the walk of the Christian through the trials of life, and the different areas that you have to face, and the different problems.
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And so as we are walking this out, as we're going through this, we find a raging battle going on within us.
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And the raging battle is the battle between the Spirit who lives within us and the flesh in which we live.
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So we have the Spirit within us and the flesh in which we live.
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And there's this battle between the two.
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And I want to ask this question.
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It's a rhetorical question, so you don't have to answer.
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But I want you to think about this question.
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Why is the flesh so weak? The Bible says that, right? Even Jesus, when He had His disciples, He said, could you not bear with Me for even an hour? The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
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Why? You can answer if you want.
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I'm going to give the answer.
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No, no, no, please, I want to hear it.
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Because He wants us to rely upon God for everything that we can't do.
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That is true.
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That is true.
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And not exactly where I was going, but accurate.
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So I don't want to take away from what you said.
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That is true.
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But I want to talk about the actual reason behind what makes the flesh weak.
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Go ahead.
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Because the things of the world are against the Spirit.
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Okay, that's true.
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But why? We've got to go back to something else.
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And in both of what you said, it's accurate, so I'm not trying to take away from it.
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But I'm looking back to what was the cause.
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Because the cause of this world is why people have to become believers.
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All of this is true.
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John, what did you want to say? It's the fallen man.
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Thank you, thank you.
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That's really where I was headed.
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Because what you said is true, what you said is true, but there's a reason going all the way back to the beginning.
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One of the things that people often miss is the absolute necessity of the existence of Adam and Eve in Christian theology.
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People think Adam and Eve is a myth.
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Adam and Eve is not a myth.
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And I'll give you the reason why Adam and Eve is not a myth.
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Because if Adam and Eve is a myth, then the entire Christian theology and the entire position of the Bible falls because it relies upon this one central premise.
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God created one man and one woman to be His representatives on earth, to image bear Him on the earth.
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And they, by transgression, fell into sin and with them took all of their posterity.
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That means all of their children.
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So the act of sin which was engaged in by our first forefather Adam was an act that represented all of us in His fault.
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Turn in your Bibles to Romans 12.
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I'm sorry, Romans 5.
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Romans 5.
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Yes, it did impact all of creation.
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And absolutely, Romans 8 says that.
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Romans 8 says the world and creation is yearning like a woman in childbirth, looking forward to its redemption.
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What is the promise of revelation? A new earth, right? Because this one has suffered.
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And that's what you talk about, the world.
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That's why I said you're right.
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But it goes back.
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I remember a couple years ago, every year we go to the fair, and I hand out Gospel tracts to talk about the Bible.
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And I have a big board with questions on it because I want people to talk to me, so I'll write big questions on the board.
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And the question I wrote on the board was what causes evil? Is it men's hearts or society? Oh, it's society that causes evil.
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Even police officers came up to me.
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I know it's society! And I said, officer, what's society made of? People.
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Society didn't just pop out of nowhere.
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Society is the people in it.
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And the problem with society is the evil hearts of men.
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So we go to Romans 5 and we look at verse 12 and it tells us this.
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That's why I said 12.
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I was thinking verse 12.
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It says, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned.
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For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted when there is no law.
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Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
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So what's that mean? Alright.
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Adam sinned.
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He broke a law from God.
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Agreed? Agreed.
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One law.
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One law.
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You have all the trees in the garden, except that one.
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One command.
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He broke it.
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Huh? How did he break it? No, it says she gave it to him and they together ate.
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Did he tell you he knew what trees did? Of course.
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Oh, of course.
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And I can prove this from 1 Timothy 2.
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1 Timothy 2 says the woman did it in ignorance, but Adam did it in disobedience.
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He knew.
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He knew what he was doing.
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She did it because she had been tricked, but he did it knowing it was wrong.
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Yeah.
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I was going to ask about the ignorance part because she said to the servant, we need a tree.
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Well, it says she was deceived.
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So maybe not ignorance, but she was deceived.
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But Adam was not deceived.
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And the point there, that makes it worse.
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Because if you're deceived, you have a little bit of an out.
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But here's the other thing about Adam and Eve.
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Eve was not the representative of mankind.
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Adam was.
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Adam was the federal head of mankind.
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Do you guys know what the word federal means? We have federal government.
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What does federal mean? Federal means representative.
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We have a representative government.
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Adam was the representative.
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Adam represented all mankind when he acted.
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And this verse proves it.
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Because what Romans 5.12-14 is saying, is saying people died from Adam to Moses even though they didn't have a law to break.
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Why did they die? Why? Because of Adam's sin.
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You see, we are born into this world sons and daughters of Adam.
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And we bear the guilt.
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You say, I don't think that's fair.
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God ain't looking for your vote.
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God didn't ask for your opinion or your permission.
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God sent a representative over this world.
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His name was Adam.
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And He sent a second representative into this world.
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His name was Jesus.
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And that's what the verse goes on to say.
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Read it.
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Because it says, Verse 18 As one man's trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men.
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For by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.
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You see, Jesus is called the second Adam.
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Actually, He's called the last Adam.
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Because the first Adam is our representative in death.
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And the second Adam is our representative in life and righteousness.
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And you are either in the first Adam or you are in the last Adam.
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If you're in the first Adam, you are headed towards hell because that is where death and sin deserve to go.
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Or you are in the last Adam and you are headed towards heaven not because of what you have done but because of the One who represented you.
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We live in a representative world.
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You're either represented by Adam or you're represented by Christ.
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You're either under the banner of man or you are under the banner of the God-man.
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It's one or the other.
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Okay, I'll go back.
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I don't want to get too far away from your point.
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You said Adam sinned when he ate from the tree, but he first knew that it was bad to do it.
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Him being all good at that point, I don't understand how he knew...
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Him knowing that it was bad that he was capable of doing the same.
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I kind of get what you're saying.
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The Bible does talk about iniquity and uses the word mystery.
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Now, I don't like to use the word mystery just as a throw-off, but the Bible uses it so I feel it's at least as safe.
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It talks about the mystery of iniquity because we can take it back even further.
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We can say we know what caused Adam to fall.
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He was tempted by his wife.
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We can say we know what caused Eve to fall.
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She was tempted by the devil.
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And both of them blamed the other.
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Remember when God came to Adam in the garden? What was Adam's response? The woman whom thou hast given me! Who did he point his finger at? He blamed God.
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That's bold.
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That's bold.
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The woman whom thou hast given me.
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God didn't accept that excuse, by the way.
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And Eve blamed the serpent.
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But who does the devil get to blame? Only himself, right? So there's a point at which we have to go back and say iniquity has an origin that we don't really understand, but iniquity in and of itself is a rebellion against God.
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And it began with the devil.
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And he encouraged man to fall, and we fell as well.
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So there's no answers to what the impetus was in him because he was made righteous.
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He's called the anointed cherub.
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This is the devil.
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He's called the most beautiful of all the angels.
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And yet, he fell.
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And the only answer that I've been able to come up with is that pride...
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And the Bible says pride goes before the fall.
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Pride in the desire to be like God in the wrong way.
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We should all desire to be like God in the right way.
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But the desire to be like God in the wrong way is the desire to want to take God's place.
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Yes, sir.
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Didn't you tell me one time years ago that that was one of the thoughts that R.C.
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Sproul had a problem with? Yeah, it was a question Dr.
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Sproul has mentioned is the question of what caused Satan, Lucifer.
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What would cause him to fall? And the Bible doesn't try to give us that answer.
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It just simply says that he did.
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And therefore, it would be...
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God's sovereignty made him that way.
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But the Bible says God doesn't tempt us to sin.
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God doesn't introduce that into the heart.
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So we have to be careful when we believe in the sovereignty of God that we do not ascribe to God iniquity.
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In fact, the confessions of faith that we believe in, I teach on several confessions of faith.
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The 1689 Confession, the Westminster Confession, the 1646 Confession.
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They all make a very strong emphasis on though God is sovereign, God is not responsible for sin.
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The weight of sin is always laid at the foot of the sinner.
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Right? And so Adam sinned because he wanted to.
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That's an important thing.
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Adam wanted to do what he did.
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And here's the thing I've always thought.
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Adam was my representative.
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Some people say I don't like that.
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I always think when people say I don't like that, I always say, do you think, honestly, you would have done better? I mean, we don't know, right? But I don't think I would have.
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I don't think I would have done better than him.
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I think God is really good at making choices.
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And He chose the representative that I think represents all of us.
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Yes, sir? I'm talking about Adam and stuff.
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Obviously, he was the only one that actually had the free will to make that choice, right? Yeah, and I'm careful using the word free will.
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It's a loaded term.
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We all have moral agency.
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And moral agency simply means we all have the ability to make choices.
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And those choices are real choices that come from the desires of our own heart.
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The problem with man is that the desires of our heart have been corrupted by the fall.
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We could say Adam had uncorrupted desires, and yet he still fell.
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That's a mystery to me.
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I know why I desire to sin because I have corrupted desires that come from the fall and the flesh.
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And that was the whole point of this was to get back to Galatians to say that the reason for the weakness of the flesh is we're all born sons and daughters of Adam.
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We're all born in this weak flesh.
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Moral agency.
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We're all moral agents in this world.
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Meaning that we all have an understanding of right and wrong, and we are all actors or agents in making right or wrong choices.
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But that is not the same as free will because free will says we have the power to do right or wrong equally.
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That's not true because of the sin of the flesh, we are predisposed to the evil.
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Therefore, we are moral agents, but we are not free.
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Because freedom would indicate there's nothing in us that predisposes us to one or the other.
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And because we are predisposed to evil, we cannot say that we are completely free.
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In fact, the Bible doesn't say we're free.
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The Bible says a man who sins is a slave to sin.
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It doesn't say he's free, it says he's a slave.
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He's either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness.
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There's never a point where you're said you're free.
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You're either a slave to sin or a slave to Christ because you're not free.
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Yeah, and that's why I say the language of free will sort of has loaded.
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So I just say he was a moral agent who was not predisposed to evil.
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And yet he still sinned.
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Hey, reference my podcast.
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That makes me happy.
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This message brought to you by Coffee with a Calvinist comes on every morning at 6.30.
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Yeah, okay.
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Alright, so now I'm off topic.
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Okay, so the question was why is the flesh so weak? And my answer to that is because the flesh is corrupt.
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The flesh is corrupt because of sin and the sin of our first Father has affected us all.
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We are all inheritors of that sin.
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And so, there is a battle.
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The Spirit is completely holy.
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He's called the Holy Spirit.
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The flesh is corrupt and unholy and therefore, we have this battle that goes on within us.
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And you mentioned Romans 7, John, so I want to go there very quickly.
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Romans 7.
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If you were already in Romans 5, if you just look over a few chapters, Romans 7 is one of the most hotly debated passages in all the Bible.
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And because of my lack of time, I don't really want to spend too much time on the debate.
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I've taught on this in the past.
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I even did a podcast about it.
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But here's the thing about Romans 7.
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The great debate is is Paul talking about himself before his conversion or after his conversion? Because he says some things that sound like an unconverted man.
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But he says some other things that sound like a converted man.
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So the question of Romans 7 is, which is it? And I'm not going to give you the answer.
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Because I don't know.
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I'm willing to say.
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I can see merits in both sides of the argument.
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I can tell you what I think, but I don't necessarily need to influence what you think.
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You have your Bible.
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You read it.
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I don't think it's an understanding that I would need to impose upon you.
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But let's read it at least to see what he's saying and compare it back to Galatians 5.
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Okay, so you're in Romans 7.
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And he begins at verse 7, but I really want to go down to verse 13 because it's such a long section.
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Let's read verse 13.
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Did that which is good bring death to me? By no means.
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It was sin producing death in me through what is good in order that sin might be shown to be sin and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
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For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.
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That's the part that's the big debate.
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As Paul says, the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.
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People say, a believer can't say he's sold under sin.
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He's been redeemed by Christ.
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So that's the great argument verse, right? But then he goes on.
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He says, I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate.
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Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good.
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So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
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For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh.
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For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
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For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
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Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells within me.
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So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
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For I delight in the law of God and my inner being, 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.
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Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
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So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
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So, here's the two positions.
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And one would say, Paul is talking about himself as a Pharisee.
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Because as a Pharisee, he wanted to do the law, but he was unable to do so because he was spiritually dead.
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That makes sense.
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Because the Pharisees did want to keep the law.
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I mean, that was their whole thing, right? They were law keepers.
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So Paul is looking back on his pre-converted self.
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The other side would say this.
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Paul is talking about the distinction between the flesh and the Spirit and saying that the Spirit truly wants to do what is right, and that's something that only a believer can say because the unbeliever is dead spiritually.
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So the believer has to be alive to want to do right towards God.
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So we have this great debate.
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And as I said, I'm not here to tell you the answer.
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But, if we compare this to Galatians 5, which we know is Paul talking about himself as a saved person because he says the Spirit, that is the Holy Spirit, is working against the flesh.
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So that has to be a saved person because the unsaved person doesn't have the Holy Spirit.
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He says the Spirit is battling with the flesh.
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So if we compare the two, it might lend us to think that perhaps Paul is talking about the converted man.
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But here's the problem.
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In Romans 7, it almost seems as if he's saying the converted man has no ability to overcome the flesh.
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And that is not true.
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So if that's what we take away from Romans 7, then that would be wrong.
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Go ahead, John.
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It kind of answers the debate because at the end, he's praising Christ.
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You know what I mean? But he asked the question, what shall deliver me? So the question is, was that before or after his salvation? I agree.
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It wasn't a real question.
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He was like, whatever.
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But what's going to save me? Christ Jesus.
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You know what I mean? And that's the answer at the end of the day anyway.
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The answer is, whether you're an unsaved person or you're a saved person, the salvation is always the same.
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It's in Christ.
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If you're an unsaved person, look to Christ.
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If you're a saved person, look to Christ because you still need to be looking to Christ.
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The thing that I find most difficult about Romans 7 is that Romans 7, Paul tends to express a genuine desire to do good.
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And for me, it's hard for me to think of an unbeliever who has a genuine desire to do good.
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But again, I'm not going to tell you what to think.
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I'm just giving you my thoughts.
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Because the other side of the coin is he seems to be indicating he can't do good.
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You know, when I go to do good, I can't.
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But then Romans 8 comes in.
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That's right.
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So let's go back to Galatians 5 now and let's look at it in light of what we've talked about, in light of what we've seen.
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Go back to Galatians 5 and we read it.
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Again, verse 17.
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For the desires of the flesh, that is this wicked, fallen, Adamic flesh.
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That means the flesh that comes from Adam.
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And by the way, we all share the same DNA.
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Everyone in here is from the same pappy.
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We're all cousins.
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Every one of us has the same ancestor, Adam.
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In fact, all of us are noadic.
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Not only are we all Adamic, all from Adam, we're also all noadic.
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We're all from Noah.
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The distinction comes in whether or not you are Shemite, a Japhethite, or a Hamite.
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Because that was the three sons of Noah that ultimately populated the world.
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You've ever heard of the phrase Semitism? Anti-Semitism, which means referring to the Jewish people? That goes back to Shem.
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The people of Shem.
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The Jewish people trace their line back through Shem.
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And you have the Hamites and the Japhethites.
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So all of us are either Japhethites, Hamites, or Shemites, but we're all Noahites and we're all Adamic, or Adamites, whatever you want to say.
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We're all of the same stuff.
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That's what makes racism stupid, by the way.
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Racism is foolish because we're all the same race.
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We just have different melanin.
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And the melanin count shouldn't make us hate each other or love each other anymore.
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You know what melanin is, right? Stuff that makes your skin change color.
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We're all of the same family.
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And we're all in the same predicament.
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And the predicament is not culture.
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The predicament is sin.
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Sin gives birth to culture.
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The predicament is we are all Adamic.
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All born with the same problem.
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And that problem is the sin of the flesh.
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But when we are born again, we get possessed, good word, by the Holy Spirit.
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And that's why I don't believe a Christian can be possessed by a demon.
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Because the Holy Spirit lives in me and He doesn't take roommates.
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Just so you know.
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I mean, it's as simple...
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I don't think...
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I think we can be oppressed by demons.
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I think we can be affected by demons.
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But I don't think they can come make a house in the same house that the Holy Spirit's made a house.
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So, that's one...
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Yes, sir? You were talking about being possessed by the Spirit.
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In Paul, in Romans 7, in John 16, it says that it's the counselor that convicts people of the world of their guilt.
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So, like you were saying, can an unbeliever have that guilt? Yes, but it's an external thing.
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The Spirit can and does convict unbelievers from an external perspective.
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But the believer has the Spirit within.
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So yes, the Spirit comes into the world to convict the world.
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How does the Spirit convict the world though? This is important.
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Through the preaching of the Gospel.
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When we proclaim the Gospel, the Bible says the Spirit mixes with faith.
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He goes out and He mixes in to that and uses that preaching.
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So that is why the necessity of preaching the Gospel.
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Because that's the tool that the Spirit is using.
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That God is using through the Spirit to preach.
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That's what we talk about, Spirit-empowered preaching.
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Yes, sir? So, if we greet the Holy Spirit, He leaves? No, He doesn't leave.
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Can you explain that? Well, I mentioned it last week.
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I talked about grieving the Spirit and quenching the Spirit.
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Grieving the Spirit is when we do something that the Spirit would have us not do because He's with us, right? Right.
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And I often tell people, and I've had to think about this in my own life, really had this conversation with myself.
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When I engage in sin, I'm taking the Spirit with me and that's wrong.
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Right.
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I mean, think about it.
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Right.
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You go into the crack house, you're taking the Spirit with you.
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Right.
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Not you.
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No, no, no.
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I'm saying, you go to see the prostitute, you're taking the Spirit with you if you're a believer.
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What a shame.
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What a shameful thing to do.
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So, we have the Spirit within us and we can grieve Him by disobeying because we know what we should do.
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So, what about quenching the Spirit? Quenching the Spirit is when He prompts us to do good and we choose not to.
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Like I mentioned last week, if God is prompting me to share the Gospel with someone and I say, oh, I don't want to do that, that's like there's a fire inside of me and I'm putting it out.
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So the difference between grieving and quenching in my understanding, is the difference between choosing evil, that would be grieving.
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Like my son, right? My son is in the Air Force.
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But when he was at home as a teenager, he grieved me a lot because he was a teenage boy and he was lit up with the desires of his teenage heart.
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And often times he got caught up doing all kinds of things I didn't want him to do.
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And I love him to death, but my heart was grieved when I would have to deal with him in that.
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And then there were times where I really wanted him to do right and he chose not to.
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And I felt like that was like a quenching.
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That's how I would distinguish between those two.
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But I still loved him.
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And he was still my son.
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When we become a child of God through Jesus Christ, we're adopted into the family, and we've been birthed into this new family, God doesn't abandon us like a bad parent.
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God loves us even in our disobedience.
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In fact, that brings me to draw to a close because y'all remember Martin Luther, the 16th century German monk, my favorite of the reformers.
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He just has such a colorful use of language.
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He was a monk before he was a reformer.
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This is what he says.
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And I love this quote.
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I found this in the commentary when I was preparing to preach for you guys.
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And this is like the most honest quote I've ever read of like a pastor just being real.
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And this is a guy who is a leader in the reformation movement.
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Leader of thousands.
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Germany is Lutheran because of Martin Luther.
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I mean, this man is very influential.
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But listen to what he says.
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When I was a monk, I thought I was lost forever whenever I felt an evil emotion, a carnal lust, wrath, hatred, or envy.
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I tried to quiet my conscience in many ways, but it did not work because lust would always come back and give me no rest.
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I told myself, you've permitted this and that sin, envy, impatience, and the like.
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Your joining this holy order has been in vain and all your good works are for nothing.
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If at that time I had understood this passage, the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, I could have spared myself many a day of self-torment.
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I would have said to myself, Martin, you will never be without sin for you have flesh.
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Despair not.
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Resist the flesh.
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I mean, how honest is that? Because he's saying, I've got the flesh, therefore I'm going to have this battle, but I don't have to live in despair.
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I just have to fight the battle.
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I don't have to live in defeat.
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I just have to keep fighting.
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A picture I always think about in my mind and I think I've mentioned it to you guys before is the picture of the dead fish going down the stream.
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If you've got a whole stream that maybe had been poisoned and the fish float up to the top and they all begin to float downstream, imagine if one of them came to life and now he's going to try to swim upstream to get away from the poison.
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He's going to have a fight because now he's not only going against the stream of the culture, but he's getting hit in the face with all those other dead fish.
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Every time he tries to swim forward, he's getting knocked back.
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That's the battle between the Spirit and the flesh.
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So Paul is not in any way trying to say that as a believer, you're not going to have a battle.
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In fact, he's telling you, gird up your loins for battle.
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You know what girding up your loins means? No, it doesn't mean put your belt on.
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Back in the day, the men wore gowns basically that float all the way down to the ground and you cannot fight when your gown is to your ankles.
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So what they would do is they would yank up, they would tuck behind and they'd pull it around and they'd tie it up to basically make it into a, it looked like a big diaper, but it was like a pair of shorts.
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So they took their skirt and they lifted it up and they tied it around and they girded up their loins and they were saying, I'm ready to fight.
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Now I'm ready to go.
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That's right.
52:53
That's right.
52:53
And so that's the attitude, right? What does Paul tell us? Put on the whole armor of God that you will be able to resist in the evil day.
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Maybe that's a study we should do next.
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What is the armor of God? Because that is necessary.
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The breastplate of righteousness.
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The helmet of salvation.
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The shield of faith.
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The shoes of peace.
53:19
All of those things matter.
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The belt of truth.
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What holds it all together? The truth.
53:25
He is the truth, right? The way, the truth, and the life.
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Absolutely.
53:35
Yes.
53:36
So I want to close.
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I didn't get as far as I wanted to.
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I still got some things in my notes, but I'm down to the end of time.
53:45
Let me read you one more quote from Luther and I'll pray.
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No man is to despair of salvation just because he is aware of the lust of the flesh.
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Let him be aware of it so long as he does not yield to it.
53:59
The passion of lust, wrath, and other vices may shake him, but they are not to get him down.
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Sin may assail him, but he is not to welcome it.
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Yes, the better Christian a man is, the more he will experience the heat of the conflict.
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This explains the many expressions of regret in the Psalms and in the entire Bible.
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Everybody is to determine his peculiar weakness and guard against it.
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Watch and wrestle in spirit against your weakness.
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Even if you cannot completely overcome it, at least you ought to fight against it.
54:31
According to this description, a saint is not one who is made of wood and never feels any lusts or desires of the flesh.
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A true saint confesses his righteousness and prays that his sins may be forgiven.
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The whole church prays for the forgiveness of sins and confesses that it believes in the forgiveness of sins.
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What's the great prayers of the faith? Lord, forgive us of our debts as we forgive those who have been indebted to us.
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Why did Jesus teach us to pray that way? Could it be that every day we're going to fight that battle? Until such time as we are given a new body and a new flesh, we'll fight a battle with this one.
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Alright, well next week we're going to look at the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit.
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We're going to compare them and see what the apostle Paul says about them.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for the Word.
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Lord God, may it permeate in our heart.
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May it grow into beautiful and good fruit in our lives.
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Lord God, save us.
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Save us from the flesh.
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Lord, help us to overcome the desires of the flesh.
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Help us to do so by the power of the Spirit.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.