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Bro. Otis Fisher
We're in Romans chapter 7, were it not for sin, death would have never had a beginning.
But Dennis, if it were not for death, sin would never have an end.
Now I want to know something. Which is the worst, to love sin or to commit sin?
Joy, why is that worse?
Is that right, Dennis? All right.
A man can commit sin through temptation or ignorance and be sorry for it, get forgiveness for it.
But he who loves sin, his will is in the sin. And that aggravates it.
And it's like the dye which makes the wool crimson in color.
And worse than that, he doesn't realize he's sinning. First verse.
Know ye not, brethren, for I speak to them that know the law, how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth.
Now legal terms are only binding to a man as long as he is alive.
Paul's going to use the husband and wife relationship as a demonstration to show that they have died to the law.
And they're now free to marry another. And this marrying another is what,
Russell? They have died to the law and they're free to marry another.
All right. Now, we were not free in the technical sense of the word.
You either love Satan or you love Christ. There's no in between. Second verse.
For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he liveth.
But if the husband be dead, she's loosed from the law of her husband.
Greg, turn to Colossians 2 and read me 13 and 14 and 15.
All right. That pretty well nails down the fact that we're dead to the law and we're in Christ and we are alive.
Third verse. So then, if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress.
But if her husband be dead, she is free from the law so that she is no longer an adulteress, though she be married to another man.
So it's death that separates this union on earth. And he's using that to show how we are dead to the law.
Know this, that when the husband dies, the wife dies as a wife.
Therefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by union with 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
God. Now, the word body, suma, that which casts a shadow as distinguished from the shadow itself, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto
God. We're to be productive. Now, Dennis, if I produce fruit while a
Christian, I must also decide what fruit and where it can be used.
Is that right? All right, listen real close.
If I produce fruit while a Christian, I must also decide what fruit and where it can best be used.
All right. John, let me get your thoughts. Greg? All right.
Is that who I think it is? You belong up here.
Always with the excuse. We're in Romans, the seventh chapter, and we've just finished the first, second verse, somewhere is in there.
And I had just asked the question, if I produce fruit while a
Christian, I must also decide what fruit and where it can best be used.
Is that true? If I produce fruit while a
Christian, I must also decide what fruit and where it can be best used.
Yes, that's why I had you move up here. All right.
Well, no, not really. But I want to know what
I meant by, or what you mean, if I produce fruit. Dennis, what do you say to that?
If I produce fruit, what do you mean? All right.
And you'll produce it. That's right. All right.
I think you all have got it pretty well down. But John, he says, if I produce fruit, what do you mean if?
You're going to produce it, whether you know it or whether you want to or whether you don't want to.
That's your course in life. We are to bring it forth.
We're the branch on which it is hung. We're not to distribute it.
Father's already done that. In 1 Thessalonians 5 and 10, we find these words.
What? In 1
Thessalonians 5 and 10, we find who died for us, that whether we are asleep, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
It makes no difference whether you're alive or whether you're asleep. The only thing that makes a difference is while you're here, you can and will produce fruit.
If a Christian follows any interpretation, now I stress this most strongly.
If a Christian follows any interpretation other than the truth, they're living in adultery.
Yes. That's right.
You have produced fruit, you're producing fruit, and you're going to produce fruit as long as you're alive in this world.
It stops when you die. If a
Christian follows any interpretation other than the truth, now how do we know that what we're teaching is true?
How does a teacher know? Joy, our
Father has given us the truth, and we're not free to interpret it as I see fit.
We must follow it exactly as the Holy Spirit leads.
I cannot sit here and teach you what I think it means. If I don't know,
I better find out and not teach it until I do know. Same with you.
You're all teachers, more or less. Here we find that it was by the very body of Jesus that we were set free.
It was by his body that we were set free. Now, why,
John, why? Why was it his body that set us free?
All right, David, is that you that come in? We're in 7, what, 5?
Chapter 5, verse 7. Something like that,
I don't know. Now, by his body we were set free.
I want to know why by his body. What? All right, go back to 4.
Russell, all of you be thinking. All right, we can look at it a little bit differently today.
David, do you have any thoughts on this? All right, because it was by the body that we sinned.
Dennis, could you have sinned if you had not had a body? You wouldn't be here.
You wouldn't have had the opportunity to sin. Now, Adam took that away from you.
We understand that. We're born in sin, but it has been imputed to this human race.
The human race didn't think of sin all by itself. It was imputed to us, and we're stuck with it.
Now, John, did the law die or did you die?
All right, the law is still alive, isn't it? Russell, what would have happened if the law died to you instead of you dying to the law?
All right, Greg, what would have happened if the law had died to you instead of you dying to the law?
Well, I didn't hear him all. All right, if the law had died to you, you wouldn't have any more troubles, but you have trouble.
So the law is alive, but you've been removed out of its grip.
You've been placed in the category where your head has paid for the law.
Verse 5, For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin, that means emotions of sins, which were by the law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.
Now, what do you see in that verse, Dennis?
All right, that's pretty good. Joy, what do you see? Boy, you're taking the easy way out.
Russell? All right.
Greg? All right.
First of all, do you see that it's showing you you bear fruit unto
Satan or you bear fruit unto the
Lord, one or the other? Do you see that? Never both.
It cannot be both. It's got to be one or the other. Now, could it be the same fruit as a
Christian? Could an unsaved produce the same fruit as a
Christian, David?
Well, going out, the person is producing this fruit, another one's producing this fruit, another one this fruit.
I'm not saying it right. As strange as it seems, it could be the same fruit that the unsaved produces, only it is not fruit unto life because he's dead.
He's producing fruit, but to him it's dead fruit.
Now, it's got to be that way or all things wouldn't work together for good. Everything that the non -Christian produces, and he's producing just like you are, he doesn't get credit for it.
He gets the opposite credit. What is a double?
It's a debit. Yes. Well, that's true, but I wouldn't know what you were really talking about unless we explained it.
An apple produced by a non -Christian is the same as an apple produced by a
Christian, but not to the individual. Yes.
All right, Russell. All right.
The difference lies in the individual, not in the fruit.
The person that produced it, what was his ground for producing it?
But it's the same chicken fruit. That's the point I'm trying to get across.
That's right. That's right. So do you begin to see what the non -Christian produces and what the
Christian produces? Yes, there's a hand. Yes, so you're trying to saw the person that made the chicken for the right reason.
He couldn't do it for the right reason. I don't understand. That's right.
That's right. He doesn't understand. He doesn't have the key that unlocks it, the real reason to do it.
He does it for personal gain. That's exactly right.
But does a non -Christian know that he is a non -Christian?
No. He can't understand. Bob, you didn't know you'd do sin.
Now, you might have understood the consequences due to the law or something before you become a Christian.
But once you become a Christian, then you understand what you were doing.
So the person that's producing fruit, he's producing fruit, but he doesn't know why and he doesn't know that it's there.
He doesn't understand the fruit. And the things that he's involved in is for personal gain.
That's right. Before you were a Christian, it was wrong based on the moral society in which you lived.
That's right. And you know you shouldn't... Alright, do we see the difference?
Does everybody understand that the fruit is history?
It's produced regardless whether you're saved or whether you're lost. But if you are a
Christian, then you're producing the fruit that the
Holy Spirit guides you. And if you're a non -Christian, you're producing fruit that the sovereignty of God directs you.
But you don't know why. And I don't say that to say that a
Christian always knows the fruit he produces. He doesn't. You all have produced lots of fruit in your lifetime that you are not aware of.
Yes. Yes.
That's right. Yes. See, we're not aware of the fruit that we produce.
At least I hope we're not. I'm not...I don't follow this belief that I've got to write down every one of my prayers and then when they're answered, go back and check them all.
There's people that do that. He didn't say that.
That you cannot tell a Christian by looking at his fruit. You cannot determine as a man is a
Christian by what he does, what he produces, or this one is not a Christian by what he does or what he produces.
Now, I like to think that I can a little bit, but I really can't.
That's right. Absolutely. No.
In the flesh, we're living a merely earthly life.
So we cannot tell a Christian for when we were in the flesh, when we were, an imperfect verb, past tense, when we were in the flesh, you're not living that way now.
You're living by the Spirit, capital S. And you're living by the
Spirit by not being in the flesh. It's got to be one way or the other. Dead fruit.
I think we've covered that. It's not alive to those that produce it. It is still fruit, but not for Jesus Christ as far as that person is concerned.
Sixth verse. But now, we are delivered.
What a wonderful phrase. We're delivered from what?
From the law. Now, that means I've been set free.
I don't need to follow the law any longer. I don't obey stop signs.
I don't, I can do anything I want to do. I don't obey the law.
Is that the law he's talking about? No. The law goes back to what
Bob mentioned earlier. The society in which we live has laws.
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.
But now, at this very moment, at this very moment, we are delivered.
Apo. Passive. You didn't deliver yourself.
I didn't deliver Dennis. Dennis didn't deliver David. Jesus Christ delivered us when we were placed into him on the cross and spiritually we died with him.
This thing of being delivered to be severed from, separated from, discharged from, loosed from anyone or thing, of a separation of one thing from another, which the union or fellowship of two is destroyed from the law that being eternally dead to be subject to eternal misery and hell wherein we were held.
Now, before salvation you were held by the law that we should serve active a good sense to yield obedience to.
Seventh verse. What shall we say then? Is the law sin?
God forbid, nay. I had not known sin but by the law.
I had not known sin but by the law. For I had not known lust except the law had said thou shalt not covet.
This gets back to the question, does a lost person know they're lost? No, they don't.
Only in looking back after I have received it can I see that I was lost.
What shall we say then? Is the law sin? I had not known sin but by the law.
I had not known sin but by the law. Now David, from the viewpoint of the heavenly father, are you under the law?
So do you know sin? Looking from his side, does he see sin in you?
No. Not at all. Because I had not known sin except by the law and I have not,
I'm not observing the law now. I am and we'll see why now in a moment.
For I had not known lust, you wouldn't have known it was the law unless it said not to do something.
My carnal mind does not recognize sin.
Your carnal mind does not recognize sin. There has never been and shall never be a lost person that knows he is lost.
It's only after notification by the Holy Spirit that we know sin.
Now the world is full of people that today, right now, they're trying to persuade somebody to become a
Christian. Can you do that, Dennis? To talk to a sinner about sin is like talking to a tree stump about the atomic energy.
They may know about sin but they do not know and understand sin until they become saved.
Romans 7, 8. But sin, taken occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence, for without the law, sin was dead.
This word occasion. We get our word fulcrum.
And to be sure that everybody understands fulcrum, I brought one this morning.
You thought it was a ruler, didn't you? A fulcrum is this point over which this pivots.
Now, I can raise a mighty load using a fulcrum.
If I get way down here, I remember the boxcars at home. I would put this under the wheel, had a great long handle.
I could still see myself when I was too little to pull it. But then
I began to grow and I could hang way out here on the end and jump up and down on it.
And I could move that boxcar. A heavy boxcar. Fulcrum.
Fulcrum is this pivot over which the arm breaks.
It isn't a spool of wire. But taking occasion, taking fulcrum, our support on which the lever pivots by commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence, cravings, longings, desires, for that which is forbidden, lust.
For without the law, sin is dead. For where there is no consciousness of sin, of the law of sin, it shows no life.
For sin, in the absence of the law, has no chance to function technically as sin.
Now, do you understand what I just said? All right.
For sin, in the absence of the law, we take away the law, it's just sin by itself, has no chance to function technically as sin because you did not know it was sin unless there is a law there prohibiting whatever it is you have done.
By the way, sin is the only thing that never had an infancy. Think about it.
We got it full blown. For I was alive without the law once, this is
Paul speaking, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.
There was a time when I was alive before when I knew no law, then
I thought that I indeed lived. No law against the way
I'm living and I'm alive. There was a time when I too did not have the law and I was, so to speak, alive.
But when the law was brought home to me, it awoke and then
I died. Sin arose to life and I died.
Sin sprang into life while I died.
The sense of sin found new life and with that I died.
So Paul is saying that I realized I had broken the law and was a sinner doomed to die.
When he found out that he was breaking the law, he died.
Any questions? We're going to stop right there. Now, does anyone have questions?
Start with Tim. It used to be a sin in this country to play pool in the church, people thought.
But now the church has a pool table, so pool has nothing to do with it.