I'd like to read in Romans chapter 6.
I told anyone here from Marion they might
hear something they've heard before, but not quite
the same.
I've been adding more to it.
Romans chapter 6.
Actually I'd like to read from the last
verse of chapter 5.
That a sin hath reigned unto death, even
so my grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
So chapter 6, knowing this, that our old
man has been crucified with him, that the
body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth
we should not serve sin.
Tell the chapter a little in verse 12.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal
body, that you should obey it in the
lust thereof.
Neither yield ye your members as instruments of
unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God
as those that are alive from the dead,
and your members as instruments of righteousness unto
God.
And look down to the end of chapter
7, verse 20.
Now if I do what I would not,
it is no more I that do it,
but sin that dwelleth in me.
I find then a law that is a
principle, that when I who would do good,
I would do good, evil is present with
me.
For I delight in the law of God
after the inward man.
But I see another law in my members,
warring against the law of my mind, and
bringing me into captivity to the law of
sin, which is in my members.
O wretched man that I am, who shall
deliver me from the body of this death.
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord,
so that with the mind I myself serve
the law of God, but with the flesh
the law of sin.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them
which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not
after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Verse 13.
But if ye live after the flesh, ye
shall die.
But if ye through the Spirit do mortify
the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
For as many as are led by the
Spirit of God, they are the sons of
God.
And verse 23.
Not only they, but ourselves also, which have
the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves
grown within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to
wit the redemption of our body.
I think if you study the epistles, and
I appreciate what our brother Topley has been
telling us about just the first verse of
the epistle of Paul to the Ephesian believers,
we appreciate some degree of the depth of
the instruction and the revelation that is given
to us by means of the Spirit of
God moving these men to write the truth
of the word of God for us.
And they're well worth our time of studying
them.
We need to study the word of God
even more than we do, I'm sure.
I think that when you look at the
epistles, you find that the Roman epistle is
the basis of the nine epistles or the
eight epistles that follow it.
It's that which establishes the principle of Christian
gathering, first of all, that has its beginning
first in salvation, that is so clearly dealt
with in this epistle.
Paul is laying the foundation for that which
is to come in relation to the gathering
of the saints and first Corinthians and proper
assembly order, proper conduct, proper expression of the
will of God and local testimonies.
And as well, going on in the depth
of the teaching that we have been encountering
in the other epistles, such as in Ephesians
and going right on until we find ourselves
at the little epistle to Philemon.
And when you look at the epistle to
the Hebrews, you find there again a basis
for the eight epistles that follow it right
down through the remainder of the word of
God.
So those two would divide us into sections
that have to do, first of all, with
the principle of justification, the principle of salvation
and the work of Christ entirely.
And then the principle of sanctification that follows
in the middle of this book, then other
themes that follow on because and follow on
behind that.
And then, of course, we have other subjects
as well that could be considered.
I want to consider primarily with you what
we have in the Roman epistle in some
measure, very briefly.
I think that when you look at this
epistle, you can divide it into a number
of parts.
I've appreciated the fact that you can divide
it, first of all, in the first five
verses up until five and eleven.
And I take it that that section is
dealing with how can a guilty sinner like
you and I are by nature and by
practice?
How can we be justified and made and
declared righteous in the sight of God?
How can we say we say from the
condemnation that our sins deserve?
How can we brought in to such a
place of enjoying the freedom from the guilt
and the recognition that I deserve to be
punished for my sins?
And I would take it in those five
chapters, the first five chapters down through chapter
five and verse eleven.
Also, it completely unfolds to us the principles
of justification that is by faith entirely setting
aside all the religious attitudes and practices of
the Jewish religion.
And establishing very clearly that God has purpose
in his sovereign grace to reach sinners simply
on the grounds of believing the truth concerning
the Lord Jesus and depending upon him.
I think that when you come to chapter
five and verse 12, the subject changes from
the subject of our sins and the condemnation
that we deserve.
Then it's a subject of our sin and
the power that seeks to overcome us and
the means by which we cannot be justified.
But how can a justified sinner be sanctified
to live a holy and a righteous life?
Because one should follow right on the other.
The word of God doesn't speak to us
in any way about a sinner being justified
by faith in Christ and then feeling to
be sanctified, set apart to live a holy
life that is pleasing to God and honoring
to his name.
That's God's expectation.
The world may be full of those that
claim to be born again.
People that say they they're saved.
But the word of God teaches that the
results of that is going to be a
sanctified, holy life of a believer seeking to
do that which is right for God, pleasing
to the Lord Jesus and expressing submission to
the Holy Spirit.
And that's the subject you find in chapter
six, seven and eight, I believe.
How is it going to be done?
Of course, when you come to chapter nine,
10, 11, you have I don't think it's
a parenthesis necessarily.
It's just another section.
Because there he's answering the question, if that
is true, then how could it be?
Because God instituted the law as a principle
of life.
And now you're saying that the law has
no effect so far as justification and the
law has no ability to sanctify.
The law has no ability not only to
save a person, but the law has no
ability to sanctify a person and enable them
to live a holy life.
God doesn't intend to save us by keeping
the law.
He doesn't want to make us holy just
by keeping laws, legalism.
And then when you come to chapter 12
for the end, I take it that there's
the practical results of it, beginning with that
lovely verse, chapter 12 and verse one and
two.
I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that you present like a living
sacrifice your bodies, holy and acceptable to God.
That's what God desires for life.
And I lived and I have lived.
I'm sure you have, too, in the past
of your life, many years.
But the subsequent reality of salvation has not
been evident in practical terms and practical results.
It's a wonderful thing to see a believer
like we reminded this morning of the Apostle
Paul.
For the moment he was saved, he had
two questions even before he was saved.
And I would take those two single questions
controlled and motivated his life for the rest
of the journey.
The first one was, who are thou, Lord?
You find a man that was burning with
desire to know the Lord Jesus.
Chapter three of Philippians, he says that I
may know him.
That's his great desire.
That should be our great desire.
And that's enough to control our desires so
far as what we long to know, to
know him.
But he had another question that also directed
his life.
What will thou have me to do?
And his entire life from that point on
was not only occupied with seeking to know
Christ.
Not just know about him, but to know
intimate fellowship and relationship with him.
And also be obedient to his will that
was revealed to him.
There's a man who before the very beginning,
even before he was ever saved, he could
say, I've lived in all good conscience before
God on this day.
I envy that man.
Tremendous to think that according to the light
that he had, even in his unsaved days,
he was seeking to please God.
He had a zeal for God like he
could say in chapter 10 of Romans, but
not according to knowledge.
When you look at the first part of
this epistle, I don't want to take the
rest of the time.
It's too much anyway.
We look at the rest of the first
part of this epistle.
I want to say that I believe that
he is dealing with three different groups of
unsaved people.
You may differ on that, but that's the
way I see it.
I believe, first of all, he's dealing with
a pagan that lives in absolute darkness.
The one that has been degenerating from the
very beginning when he says they once knew
God, but they glorified him not as God.
Neither were thankful and their evil heart was
darkened.
And so you have from the very beginning
a darkening, a blinding, a movement, a direction
has been taken that has resulted in men
knowing the judgment of God.
That they who do such things are worthy
of death.
They not only do those things, but they
take pleasure in them to do them.
He's dealing with men that are not under
the law.
He's dealing with men that are not too
much concerned about trying to live a life
like Paul was living.
He says, is there any hope for them?
I believe that the pagan living in absolute
darkness can be saved.
I hope you do too.
They might get saved much more quickly than
the religious sinner.
There are three things I see that they
need to come to realize this man that
has no knowledge of truth whatsoever.
He needs, first of all, to realize that
he has been rejecting the truth that God
has given him in creation.
He needs to come to realize and to
recognize the fact that the glorious hand of
God's handiwork, the glorious display of God's handiwork
is seen in everything that is seen, everything
that is observed.
The whole creation attests to the reality of
God.
Begin to honor God by the recognition of
his creatorial power.
Then, in fact, he also needs, I believe,
to realize that he's been, in verse 25,
chapter one, he needs to recognize he's been
serving and religiously serving the creature rather than
the creator.
He's been directed his worship toward the wrong
object.
He's been occupied with the wrong kind of
God in his own mind.
He needs to realize there is a real
creator.
It's not only a God in heaven, but
there is also one who has made me
and to whom I'm responsible.
It's a sad thing, by the way, in
our day.
The religious Christian so-called seminaries are turning
to the worship of the creature more than
the creator.
It wasn't very long ago that Union Theological
Seminary in New York had a chapel service
in which they gathered around a number of
different kinds of plants and confessed their sins
to these plants.
The sins of ecological harm and danger that
they have done.
That's a seminary.
That's a Christian seminary.
And one that attends that seminary I read
said that at chapels they don't know whether
it's going to be a Hindu service or
a Muslim service or who knows what kind
of service.
He says it's a changing situation.
I guess so.
They worship and serve the creature more than
the creator.
So the pagan needs to understand that you're
occupied in worshiping the wrong object.
And not only that, it comes to the
last verse here.
He says that person needs to realize that
he really deserves God's judgment.
He's guilty.
He's doing things that he consciously knows that
are wrong.
And there's a person that can be saved
if they face the reality of their own
sin and their guilt.
Their salvation for them.
When you look at the next group, I
take it that they're the religious or philosophers
that are enlightened.
The ones that know.
The ones that have a high standard of
living.
The one who, like the Greek philosophers, sought
to realize and to determine what is the
purpose of life?
Where does life come from?
Why am I here?
What am I supposed to be doing?
Men that sought to know the answers to
life's riddles on the wrong level.
What about those people?
I believe that when you look at chapter
two, we find, first of all, they need
to realize that God's judgment is not according
to man's estimation.
It's not a matter of whether they think
they're right or whether friends think they're right
or others think they're right.
They need to realize God's judgment is according
to truth against those that do such things.
God's standard is never deviating.
Religious or rather, I'm sorry.
Enlightened philosophers, those that seek to live by
a high standard, need to come to realize
my standard is not high enough.
It falls short of God's requirements because God's
standard is too high.
The second thing that person, I would take
it, needs to understand is that there is
going to be a judgment.
Now in verse 12 and 13, it's not
according to what the law itself says necessarily.
It's going to be according to even the
fact that what I believe to be right,
I don't even live according to it.
Man naturally knows a lot more than he
practices.
And because of that, he's judged by his
own standard and he comes short and he
fails.
There's hope for that man as well.
And he needs to realize as well in
verse 16 of chapter 2 that there's a
day when God is not only going to
judge his deeds.
He's going to judge the secrets of his
heart.
And when that's exposed, he's going to find
himself condemned before God.
He needs to face reality.
And there's salvation for even a man like
that.
But he has to be honest.
When you look in the verses following beginning
in verse 17 of chapter 2, he's turning
his attention to the Jew as a law.
He claims to be a teacher.
He claims to be one that is upholding
right standards and the principles that God has
given.
But he says, first of all, you have
to realize if you're going to be saved,
that even what you claim to hold as
a high principle in your life, that you're
not even attaining to it yourself.
And as Paul unfolds the history in this
chapter, he looks down over their history and
their past and their condition.
As he looks inside them, he says there's
nothing but ruinous, rottenness, ritualism and religion.
Nothing there that's pleasing to God.
And ultimately, that person would have to come
to verse 19 like the Apostle Paul did.
Wherefore, by the deeds of the law shall
no flesh be justified in his sight, for
by the law is the knowledge of sin.
There's salvation for a religious Jew as well.
And so God, by the pen of the
Apostle Paul, unfolds in verses that follow.
How can a man like that be justified?
Being justified freely by his grace through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
And God has set forth a propitiation through
faith in his blood to declare, I say
at this time, his righteousness.
That he might be just, that he might
be righteous and the justifier of him that
believeth in Jesus.
What a blessed salvation we enjoy.
You know, you and I ought to rise
every morning with thanks to God for his
salvation.
We ought to enjoy it for 24 hours
of the day until you rise again and
thank God again that he ever saved your
soul.
Because you and I were just as steeped
in sin as any other person in this
world tonight.
And I found that out before I was
ever saved as a boy in a Christian
home.
We all have to face the fact that
we are, we have sinned and come short
to the glory of God.
But God has the means by which sinners
can be justified.
And sinners today in this meeting, as we've
been hearing already, they can be justified freely
by the grace of God through the work
of Christ and through Christ alone.
He develops that in chapter 4 where he
makes it very clear that just like Abraham,
believe God, just believe God.
And it was counted to him for righteousness.
The same principle holds today.
But when I think about chapter 6, which
is where I want to look at primarily,
there you have six mentions of the believer's
body.
There's no mention really of a believer's body
at any other part of this epistle.
But when it comes to this section having
to do with sanctification, with the exercise to
live a holy life.
A life that is set apart to God.
A life that recognizes the claims of Christ
upon us.
A life that is seeking to rise in
the responsibility and the responsiveness to the grace
of God expressed toward us.
He says now we have to think about
your body.
In chapter 6, I think it's down about
verse 12 or so, he says it's your
mortal body.
That's where we have the fight.
That's where we have the warfare, that's where
we have the contention.
Because he's not dealing with the sins that
we commit so much as he's dealing with
the power of sin that seeks to dominate
us.
And dear child of God, you and I
still have a problem with it.
We still sin.
But God is basically saying that we should
not be under the domination of sin.
Sin does not have to control you and
me.
As it did in the days before salvation.
He talks about our body.
Now the body is neutral.
The body has its potential to live for
God and to be used of God, to
be an instrument in service.
To be a means of bringing the gospel
to others.
To be instrumental in serving God's people.
But the body can be used either one
way or the other.
We have a body that has been given
us.
And the body is made out of flesh
and blood.
And it's intended as a result of God's
salvation.
Because salvation has claimed you and me entirely.
More than our possessions.
More than our plans and all the rest
of it.
God wants you and me physically, emotionally, spiritually,
entirely.
That's what we read in chapter 12 in
verse 1 and 2.
And if we fall short of that, because
we do.
We're failing to really respond as we should
to the grace of God.
Now he deals with the body, he says
in chapter 6.
Going down here he says, verse 12.
Let not sin therefore reign.
He's looking at the picture of a king.
A despot.
Who has absolute control over his subjects.
He says, don't let sin control absolutely in
your mortal bodies.
You know our bodies are mortal.
That means they are subject to death.
Apart from the Lord's coming that we hold
as a precious hope in our hearts.
We are all going to die.
In 1 Corinthians 15 we read about the
mortal putting on immortality.
I take it that refers to the rapture
of the believer.
Because as long as we're in this world
we're mortal.
But we're going to put on immortality and
we'll be in a condition we'll never die.
He says the corruptible needs to put, will
be put in on incorruption.
That is those that have died are going
to be raised again to be incorruptible.
But right now we're in mortal bodies.
And brother or sister your body can be
used for the fulfillment of God's purposes.
You know God didn't save you and me
just to save you from hell.
That would be the very lowest level.
And in fact I don't even read a
place in my New Testament to tell me
that the Lord Jesus died so that I
wouldn't go to hell.
He saved us so we might be his.
He saved us so we might live for
him.
He saved us so we might devote our
lives in full service for him.
We all should be full-time servants.
We can't all be full-time preachers.
I'm not sure any of us are full
-time preachers because we do other things too.
But we should be full-time servants.
And we should all be the Lord's servants.
That's who we should be living for.
He says don't let sin, because sin was
never intended to dominate and control a believer's
mortal body.
He says the reason is there's a new
master that's taken over.
Going back to chapter in verse 6 he
says knowing this that our old man, that's
what you and I were before God saved
us.
That's not the flesh.
We still have the flesh.
He says our old man has been crucified
with Christ.
It was judicially executed when Christ died on
the cross.
All that we were before God in our
sinful state, in a body that was totally
devoted to sin, a body that could do
nothing else but sin.
He says that has been crucified with Christ.
It's not something you and I have to
do.
It's already been done.
He says so that the body of sin,
a body that was devoted to sin, a
body that could do nothing but sin, regardless
of what kind of sin it might have
been, might have been religious sin.
It might have simply been a matter of
self-will, sin of some form or another.
It was still sin because all that the
body could do was sin.
That that body that was entirely occupied with
sin might be annulled.
That its power might be broken.
It's not destroyed.
Well it might no longer be in that
condition under absolute control of sin.
Sin was a master.
And you know when sin was our master,
brother or sister, we didn't even realize it.
We might have been occupied with sins, but
we weren't occupied with the whole principle that
was behind it.
The principle of sin that was operating and
causing such havoc in the life.
But in this chapter he says very simply
that there's a basis for our sanctification.
A basis for our liberation from the dominating
power of sin.
He says that's the fact that we died
with Christ.
You say well baptism really is a picture
of death.
No it's not a picture of death, it's
a picture of burial.
But you bury people that have died.
It's a bad deal when you bury somebody
that's not died.
You know they don't like that.
But baptism indicates something has already taken place.
And that's why a person really has no
business getting baptized if death has not already
taken place.
But a dead person should be baptized.
And if there's a Christian here today, younger
or older, that has never been baptized, you
fail to realize or confess before others and
to God himself, I died with Christ.
And that means the old life is over
with.
That means that's a separation that has taken
place.
That's what happens you know when there's death,
there's separation.
You don't communicate with dead spirits.
At least I never saw the reality of
that.
So here's a person that died with Christ.
He says you're separated and it's expressed symbolically
in the fact that you've been buried by
baptism.
But he says Christ was buried but he
wasn't left in a grave.
He rose again the third day.
He says you and I are raised also.
But it's not to walk in the same
kind of life.
Because that old life was under the control
of the body of sin.
But now he says you're living in association
with a risen Christ.
The one that is at God's right hand.
He's the one that you're linked with.
He's the one you're identified with.
You're baptized in the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
And you're identified with a Christ who died
for you.
And you died with him and he rose
again.
And we live in the newness of life.
So he says that's the fact that you
should not.
He says you should not allow sin to
dominate your life.
In fact he says verse 14, sin shall
not or will not have dominion over you.
For you're not under the law but under
grace.
You know child of God and I say
this to myself.
When we allow sin in our life.
We're yielding to something that has no right
to control.
Sin does not have a right to control
your life.
And when we sin.
What we're doing is allowing sin to exercise
a right that it really doesn't have.
But it'll do it every opportunity it gets.
And sin itself is a principle, is a
power that motivates and controls.
Still works for the flesh.
And still seeks to control your life and
mine.
I have two more chapters to look at
but I'm going to say it very quickly.
Chapter 7 tells us very simply.
The law is absolutely ineffective.
Paul says I tried that.
I think it's Paul's experience.
He says I tried keeping the law before
I was saved.
And I came down to the Ten Commandments
and I thought I was doing really well.
But then I came to the last one.
Thou shall not covet.
And you know coveting is only an attitude
of the mind.
It's not really an action at all.
And he knew I was lost.
He says the law doesn't make a person
sanctified.
It doesn't make them holy before God.
Because all it can do is to judge
him and condemn him for his sin.
No he says what the law really does
is that sin nature.
That thing that is within me, the flesh.
It just reacts against the law.
And all it wants to do is to
do it anyway.
In spite of the fact that God says
no.
The natural tendency is to do it anyway.
He says the law will never do it.
The law can't make a person righteous.
The law can only tell you when you're
unrighteous.
When you're wrong.
He says I tried that before I was
saved.
I think that's the first part of the
chapter.
And if you allow me so, I think
it's biographical.
I think that he is also saying that
I tried that in the early days of
my life as a Christian.
And I found it wouldn't work anyway.
Because he says I was subject to a
body of death.
A body that just simply didn't cooperate.
A body that didn't do what it was
supposed to do.
He says who is going to deliver me
from the body of this death?
I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord.
When you come to chapter 8 though.
I'll leave that to another night, another day.
Chapter 8 is a beautiful chapter.
I love chapter 8.
In chapter 8 you learn that there's one
resource for you and me.
That has been provided so liberally and abundantly.
It's the indwelling presence of the power of
the Holy Spirit.
You know that's why he's there, child of
God.
He indwells us so that he might enable
us.
Not to do what the law demands, but
to do what pleases the Lord.
And to do it because there's a nature
within us that responds.
When you look at the first 27 verses
of chapter 8.
You'll notice you'll find there that the Spirit
of God himself is energetically moving on your
behalf.
The Spirit of God is for you.
He's the one that is encouraging.
He's the one that empowers.
He's the one that makes us able to
overcome these evil impulses.
He says the Spirit of God even himself
makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot
be uttered.
In other words, even in our failures and
our infirmities, our limitations.
He says he's the one that stands before
God on our behalf.
He's the one that is able to meet
our every need.
The next section we find out that God
himself is for us.
There's a forged link of God's eternal purpose
that is going to be fulfilled.
He says of God before us or since
he is for us, who can be against
us?
And then I love the last part of
the chapter because we find out the Lord
Jesus is for us as well.
He's a God's right hand interceding for us.
He says nothing, nothing ever can separate us
from the love of God that is in
Christ Jesus.
You and I feel like failures, don't we?
Maybe I shouldn't say you and I.
I feel like a failure a lot of
the time.
I feel like I'm not what I ought
to be and I know I'm not.
I long to be something more.
But you know, that's a healthy desire.
We could never have a better position than
we have presently before God in the Lord
Jesus.
Or we can have a better condition.
And we should seek with all of our
hearts to enable, to put into practice the
truths that God has given us.
And to allow the spirit of God, the
liberty of working in us to produce what
only he can produce.
The law can't produce it.
The flesh can't do it.
Other means are of no avail.
But thank God, remember the spirit of God
is in you.
He dwells there.
He represents Christ there.
And he wants to empower you and me
as well.
To respond in a warm, wholehearted way to
the desires of the Lord Jesus.
And to enable us to put it into
practice.
He's the one that is the power for
Christian living.
He works with the word of God that
he might enable us to please the Lord
Jesus.
Thank God we have such a blessing in
Christ.
I wish I could appreciate it more.
Wonderful to be saved.
And even better to live for the Lord
Jesus with true joy in your soul.