I thought, loved ones, I should talk about
real affection next Sunday and talk about something
else this morning.
Are you at peace with your Maker now?
Are you at peace with your Maker?
Do you know that you'll go to heaven
when you die?
Do you know that Jesus knows you?
I mean, have you a sense, yes, I
know he knows me.
We are on personal terms with each other.
Now, last Sunday, we talked about the two
steps that you need to take if you
want to answer yes to those questions.
If you want to be able to say,
yes, I am at peace with my Maker.
I do know that I will make heaven
my home.
I do know my sin is forgiven.
We talked about the two steps, remember.
We said, first, you had to repent.
That is, you had to look at the
things that you'd been doing in your life
up to now that you know disobey God's
will and his law for you, and you
had to repent of those, the acts and
the thoughts and the words that you've done.
You had to turn from them, stop doing
them.
That's one part of repentance.
And then, you remember, the other part we
talked about was, see that inside you is
a whole attitude that is the real heart
of sin.
It's an attitude that of a God, really.
And you need to see inside you that
the reason you have disobeyed God in the
past is that you have very much the
attitude yourself of a God.
You want your own way often, and you
want people to often treat you in the
way that really God wants them to treat
him.
And so you need to see that.
You need to see inside you is a
great self-centered, self-gratifying monster that is
really opposed to God himself, and you need
to turn from that and to turn to
God and treat God as God and the
center of the universe and not yourself.
And then, you remember, the second step was
believe.
Believe that that sinful self inside you is
so diametrically opposed to God that the only
thing he can do if he wants to
exist in the universe is to destroy it,
but the two can't exist in the one
universe.
And so he's committed to destroy it.
But instead of destroying it in you, which
would have meant your being wiped out too,
he transferred you in it into his son
and he destroyed it there.
And you have to believe that gospel.
You have to believe that that monster in
you has been destroyed in Jesus.
And that's how a person can be a
Christian.
When you do that, a spirit of peace
with God comes into your heart.
Just the way when you have tension between
you and a friend and you sort the
thing out, there comes a great relaxation.
So it is with your maker.
A great spirit of peace with God and
a great spirit of love for him and
for other people comes into your heart.
Now, I want to talk this morning, loved
ones, about another tragedy that occurs in the
lives of many thousands who take those steps.
Really.
A tragedy that exists at present in many
thousands of lives of people who regard themselves
as Christians.
And it's this.
It doesn't last.
I don't know if some of you are
here this morning, but I know thousands of
people who have taken those steps of repenting
and believing the gospel.
And they've experienced peace for a while with
God.
And they've experienced a love for other people.
But as the weeks went by and the
months went by, they began to be aware
again that there was still something evil inside
them.
And they began to realize that there was
something inside that had not been touched and
that still wanted its own way and still
rose up and wanted to attack other people
and wanted to be respected and looked up
to like God.
And there are many thousands of Christians who
have struggled those first two steps and then
have suddenly begun to realize that there's still
something evil inside them that has not been
dealt with.
And what I want to share with you
this morning is the tragedy is that many
of them and many of you are in
the grip of that thing because of deception.
God is allowing that to take place in
you to show you why his son really
had to die.
But you and I and thousands of others
don't realize that.
And so we kind of rationalize it.
So we have a measure of victory over
outward sin and we kind of hold our
tongue when we need to and we control
our temper as much as we can.
But underneath there is this stuff rising inside
us wanting to be angry, wanting to get
irritable, wanting to be unclean.
And we keep holding it down and we
think to ourselves, this is it.
This is the best that you've got.
And so we rationalize it and we pretend
at times it isn't so bad and we
pretend it isn't really sin.
And then we make the great pretense of
all.
We pretend that the Bible teaches that that's
the normal Christian life.
Now, I'd like to show you why we
believe that.
And I hope, loved ones, that during this
few minutes together, I'll show you why that's
a misinterpretation of this dear book.
So I'll show you the chapter that we
all use to defend that miserable, defeated Christian
life.
It's in Romans and it's chapter 7.
And it's page 982.
Romans 7 and it's page 982.
And most children of God who have taken
the first steps to become his children and
become born of God, they know they have
within them a conflict that is breaking them
up and is destroying their victory.
But they say, well, I mean, Paul had
that.
And they go to verse 15 and they
say, look, that's just me.
I do not understand my own actions, for
I do not do what I want.
But I do the very thing I hate.
And they say, now, that's Paul, an apostle.
He said that.
And that's, he's speaking as a Christian, isn't
he?
And now I feel the way he does
in verse 16.
Now, if I do what I do not
want, I agree that the law is good
and that's right.
I'm for it.
I want to be good.
So, you see, it's not really my fault.
And that's what we get ourselves into.
It's not my fault, you see.
It's my sinful nature.
The good bit of me that is born
of God, that doesn't want to do that,
you see.
And that's the bit that will go to
heaven.
But this sinful nature, that's the bit that
makes me angry and irritable and bad-tempered.
But, you see, it's not really me.
And they go to the next verse in
17.
So then it is no longer I that
do it, but sin which dwells within me.
And you know, loved ones, that's exactly what
we say.
We say, you see, it isn't me.
It's sin which dwells within me.
And then the verse 18, for I know
that nothing good dwells within me that is
in my flesh.
And some of us call it our flesh,
you see.
So we divide ourselves into a good nature
and a sinful nature.
We divide ourselves into spirit and flesh.
We divide ourselves into the bit that's born
of God and the bit that's not born
of God.
And we plant all on the old Mr.
Hyde.
We say, alright, the bad temper, the anger,
the jealousy comes from Mr. Hyde.
That monster within me that will not be
touched by God and cannot be touched until
I get to heaven.
That sinful nature, my flesh, that's the stuff
that's making me sin.
I myself, I'm Dr. Jekyll.
I am born of God.
And the real me wants to be good
and wants to obey, and that bit is
good.
Of course, one of the tragedies is the
pervy souls outside the church, they haven't learned
that kind of tricky logic.
And they don't distinguish between you and yourself.
And they don't make any distinction between Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
And when you lose your temper in the
office or you indulge in kind of gossip
and criticism, it's all one to them, you
know.
It's you.
It's you, the Christian.
But loved ones, you know that we tend
to align ourselves with old Paul here.
And we say, now that's right, in verse
19, boy, that is me.
I do not do the good I want,
but the evil I do not want is
what I do.
Now, if I do what I do not
want, it is no longer I that do
it, but sin which dwells within me.
And we all get back to that, it's
sin that's doing this, it's not me.
I myself am born of God, but sin
is still evil, and that still dwells within
me, and it will dwell within me until
we meet God face to face.
And then we can describe it, of course,
in great detail in 21.
So I find it to be a law
that when I want to do right, evil
lies close at hand.
So I want to love somebody, but I
find another kind of spirit rising up inside
me, well, what's so precious about them?
And you find another kind of critical spirit
rising up.
For I delight in the law of God
in my inmost self, and inside I want
to love them, but I see in my
members, in my personality, in my mind, my
emotions, in my arms, my legs, and my
whole personality, I see another law at war
with the law of my mind, and making
me captive to the law of sin which
dwells in my members.
It's as if, you know, I'm trying to
work from inside, from God, but my whole
personality is still working from outside, still looking
at the other people, still trying to get
satisfaction from them, trying to get pleasure from
them, trying to get them to look up
to me.
I know it doesn't really matter what they
think of me, and I believe that.
I believe it from my inside heart that
it's only what God thinks is important, but
I find another law at work in my
members.
Even my little eye is kind of looking
out to see, are they praising me?
Are they approving me?
So I see in my members, in my
eyes, in my head, in my arms, in
my legs, they seem to act without my
direction, and they're always acting on the old
plan, where I used to treat the world
as God and other people's opinions as God.
And that's what he means, you see, and
I think many of us say that.
I find a law at work in my
members that is at war with the law
of my mind.
And then in verse 24, wretched man that
I am, who will deliver me from this
body of death?
And loved ones, there are thousands of children
of God that say, there it is in
black and white.
That's my life.
Oh, sure, I'll get to heaven, and I
have my sins forgiven, and I have a
measure of victory outside.
But I so often feel with Paul, wretched
man that I am, who will deliver me
from this body of death?
And so many of us believe that's it.
That is it.
That's the best the Christian life has to
offer.
It's what Paul experienced.
It's what I experienced.
It's what everybody that I've ever talked to
who know Jesus, it's what they experienced.
Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver
me from this body of death?
There's no way out of this except death
itself.
That'll take the body away, maybe.
And then I'll be clear of it.
And nobody ever seems to see that that's
verse 24.
And that there is, in fact, a verse
25.
But there is something in our hearts, loved
ones, that wants to pretend that verse 24
is the end.
You know, there is.
It's not just an intellectual misunderstanding.
Really, it isn't.
We misunderstand what we want to misunderstand, you
know.
But it's not the end of the chapter,
loved ones.
Verse 25.
Who shall deliver me from this body of
death?
Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our
Lord.
But if you say that to anybody, especially
if you say it to yourself, yourself will
come back and say, yeah, yeah, but you
see, that's 25A.
Look at 25B.
So then, I of myself serve the law
of God with my mind, but with my
flesh I serve the law of sin.
And so most of us say, you see,
when he said, thanks be to God, through
Jesus Christ our Lord, he didn't mean that
you were saved and delivered from this power
of sin inside you.
He just meant, you see, I'm still in
the same situation.
I of myself serve the law of God
with my mind, but with my flesh I
serve the law of sin.
But because Jesus died for me, God forgives
the whole lot.
That's it.
So it doesn't actually change the situation.
It just means I keep on being bound
by this sin within me, but I'm forgiven
because of Jesus.
So that's why I say, thanks be to
God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Now, it doesn't seem to occur to us
too much that his question actually is, who
will deliver me from this body of death?
It's not, who will forgive me for being
in this body of death?
Who will accept me despite the fact that
I'm bearing the agony of this body of
death?
He's asking the question, who will deliver me
from this body of death?
And he replies, thanks be to God, through
our Lord Jesus Christ.
But because of 25B, so many of us
say, well, you see, I mean, he's just
saying I'm in the same boat.
It's just that God forgives me because of
Jesus.
But loved ones, if 25B is the normal
Christian life, now look at it.
So then I of myself serve the law
of God with my mind, but with my
flesh I serve the law of sin.
If that's the normal Christian life, then all
such Christians will die according to what Paul
says a few verses later in Romans 8.
Now look, Romans 8 and verse 13.
Romans 8 and 13.
For if you live according to the flesh,
you will die.
And there you see in 25B of the
previous chapter he says, I of myself serve
the law of God with my mind, but
with my flesh I serve the law of
sin.
And he says in Romans 8 and 13,
if you live according to the flesh, you
will die.
But if by the Spirit you put to
death the deeds of the body, you will
live.
So you have a problem.
Paul says the normal Christian life is you
live in the flesh, and then a few
verses later he says anybody who lives in
the flesh will die.
But not only loved ones have your problems
with Romans 8, but you have gross problems
with Romans 6.
Now look at Romans 7 for instance, verse
23.
See the description there.
Verse 23 of Romans 7.
But I see in my members another law
at war with the law of my mind,
and making me captive to the law of
sin which dwells in my members.
Now that's a description of captivity, of enslavement
to sin.
Now look back at Romans 6 and look
at verse 15.
What then?
Are we to sin because we are not
under law but under grace?
By no means.
Do you not know that if you yield
yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, as captives,
you are slaves of the one whom you
obey, either of sin which leads to death,
or of obedience which leads to righteousness.
And then verse 17.
But thanks be to God that you who
were once slaves of sin have become obedient
from the heart to the standard of teaching
to which you were committed.
And having been set free from sin, have
become slaves of righteousness.
Now loved ones, that's a direct contradiction to
what he says in Romans 7.
I see a law at work making me
captive to the law of sin.
And in Romans 6 he says you've become
free from sin.
So this poor guy, he's drunk.
He does not know what he's talking about.
Romans 6 he says you're free from sin.
Romans 7 he says you're a slave from
sin.
And Romans 8 he says if you're a
slave to sin, you'll die.
I mean, the man, inspired by God, you
don't need to be inspired by God to
write that stuff.
You just need to be schizophrenic.
Insane.
So loved ones, do you see there's a
difficulty?
There's a difficulty.
If you're going to say that in Romans
6 Paul teaches freedom from this monster of
sin within us, and then Romans 7 he
says no, you're not really free, you're back
in it and that's the best that I've
got.
And then Romans 8 he says if that's
the best you've got, you're going to die.
It doesn't make sense.
There's no sense to it at all.
I mean, you look at Romans 6 and
it's an entirely different story.
Look at Romans 6 and verse 1.
Here there's no, you know, I do not
understand my own actions.
I do not do the good I want.
Here it's completely the opposite.
Verse 1, what shall we say then?
Are we to continue in sin that grace
may bind?
By no means.
How can we who died to sin still
live in it?
Do you not know that all of us
who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were
baptized into his death?
We were buried therefore with him by baptism
into death, so that as Christ was raised
from the dead by the glory of the
Father, we too might walk in newness of
life.
For if we have been united with him
in a death like his, we shall certainly
be united with him in a resurrection like
his.
We know that our old self was crucified
with him so that the sinful body might
be destroyed and we might no longer be
enslaved to sin.
He says that's the whole purpose of Jesus
dying, that we would be freed from sin.
Now, what's the explanation?
How do you explain those contradictions?
Well, if this book of Romans is a
chronological autobiography of Paul's own experience, it makes
no sense.
It doesn't.
Because in Romans 6 he says, I was
freed from this power of anger and irritability
within me.
And then Romans 7 he says, now I
live right in the middle of it.
And then Romans 8 he says, if I
do that I'm going to die.
It doesn't make any sense if it's a
chronological autobiography of Paul's life.
And that's where many of us get caught.
We say that.
But no one, no theologian, no exegete says
that the book of Romans is an autobiography
of Paul.
None.
Everybody that you speak to will say Romans
is the most logical presentation of reality that
exists in this world.
It's the best theological treatise you could get
your hands on.
Nobody will say it's an autobiography of Paul's
own personal experience.
Well then why does he talk of freedom
from this power within us in 6?
And then in Romans 7 he seems to
give us all the reinforcement for remaining under
this sin in our own lives.
Well, it's easy.
It's simple.
In Romans 6 Paul is talking about how
Jesus died for us and how we died
with him.
And how through that death we were freed
from the power of the old self.
That's what he says.
We know that our old self was crucified
with Christ.
Those little eyes that go out looking for
the boss's favor, that little eye and that
trend of that little eye was crucified with
Christ.
And we can experience freedom from it in
a moment by faith.
That little bit of you that wants to
go out and enjoy lascivious thoughts and lustful
feelings, that bit was crucified with Christ and
you can have victory over it by believing
that in a moment.
And that's what he says in Romans 6.
And then you see who he turns to
in Romans 7 in verse 1.
Do you not know brethren?
For I am speaking to those who know
the law.
Now who were those?
Well they were Christians who had been Jews.
Do you not know brethren?
For I am speaking to those who know
the law.
You Jews.
That the law is binding on a person
only during his life.
And in Romans 7 he proceeds to show
them how Jesus' death delivered them from the
power of evil within them.
But now in Romans 7 he shows them
how it delivers them from the power of
the law to show them how to do
good.
And he says you're delivered from the old
power of self, you're also now that you're
dead with Christ, delivered from the law as
the primary guide in your life.
Because God is going to put a spirit
inside you as he promised in Ezekiel.
I'm going to make a new covenant he
said in Jeremiah.
I'm going to make a new covenant.
Not like the covenant I had with your
fathers.
I'm going to write my law in your
hearts.
And Paul is saying in Romans 6, God
through Jesus' death and our death with Christ
has delivered us from the power of evil
self.
And now in Romans 7 he says, and
you know, you don't have to now keep
looking up the laws to see how to
be good.
God has put the spirit of his son
inside you and you're going to find that
your heart wants to do certain things that
will please God and you're free now from
the law also.
And then he says, now don't say, oh
the law was useless then.
And he moves into what we call in
English writing, you remember in literature, a parenthesis.
And he says, no, no, don't say the
law was useless.
You don't need it now that the spirit
of God is inside you.
But I'm putting a parenthesis, now don't say
that it was useless.
I'll tell you what it did.
And the parenthesis begins in verse 7 of
Romans 7.
What then shall we say?
That the law is sin?
By no means.
And he, it's a flashback to his days
as a Jew living under the law.
It's not the report or the account of
a Christian at all.
It's a flashback to when he was a
Jew.
That the law is sin?
By no means.
Yet if it had not been for the
law, that's the pre-perfect, that's the past.
If it had not been for the law,
I should not have known sin.
As a Jew it was the law that
brought the hideousness of that monster sin inside
me home to my heart.
I should not have known sin.
I should not have known what it is
to covet.
If the law had not said you shall
not covet.
But sin, and he then goes on in
the parenthesis to describe the hideous situation that
a Jew under the law finds himself in.
But sin finding opportunity in the commandment wrought
in me all kinds of covetousness.
Because of course what the old covenant had,
it had no power to enable people to
live the way God wanted them to.
It had only a law that brought home
to them their own hideous, hopeless situation without
God.
Apart from the law, sin lies dead.
I was once alive apart from the law
before I was aware of the law, and
many of us as natural men.
But when the commandment came sin revived and
I died.
The very commandment which promised life proved to
be death to me.
For sin finding opportunity in the commandment deceived
me and back killed me.
So the law is holy and the commandment
is holy and just and good.
Don't say it's useless.
The law is essential and here's how it's
essential.
Verse 13.
Did that which is good then bring death
to me?
By no means.
It was sin working death in me when
I was a Jew through what is good.
In order that sin might be shown to
be sin and through the commandment might become
sinful beyond measure.
And that's all the law can do.
It can make you realize this is beyond
me.
I cannot control this evil self inside me.
We know that the law is spiritual but
I am carnal, soul under sin.
I do not understand my own actions for
I do not do what I want but
I do the very thing I hate.
And he goes on to describe the hideous
situation of a Jew under the law.
And then he says who will deliver me
from this body of death?
That's what I thought as a Jew.
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our
Lord.
And then he summarizes the thing.
So then I of myself, I on my
own, uncrucified, I of myself serve the law
of God with my mind, with my flesh
I serve the law of sin.
And then he ends the parenthesis and he
goes on in Romans 8 and it continues
right on from verse 6 of Romans 7.
You don't need the law to tell you
what is good because there is therefore now
no condemnation for those who are in Christ
Jesus.
For the law of the spirit of life
in Christ Jesus has set me free from
the law of sin and death.
And he goes on to describe the life
of the spirit.
And loved ones, it is a trick of
Satan reinforced by so many of our dear
churches that has persuaded you and me that
Romans 7 is the normal Christian life.
It isn't.
The last part of Romans 7 is a
great parenthesis describing the situation of a Jew
struggling under the law.
And if you say to me, well how
come so many of us who are children
of God identify with it?
Because we're often living under the old covenant.
We respect the law, we try to obey
it, but we cannot obey it.
We have had our sins forgiven, but we
have not been delivered from these sinful natures.
And we haven't been delivered from our sinful
nature because we have never really seen that
that's what Christ did for us.
When we came to God at the beginning,
he said, I've given my son to die
for you.
We said, we don't know why, but we
believe that and we thank you for your
forgiveness.
Now, God allows these things to come up
in our lives so that we'll see why
Jesus died for us.
He died to deliver us from that old
self inside you and me that makes us
get irritable and angry, that makes us disobey
God, that makes us eventually fall from our
own best ideals.
Loved ones, the glory of the gospel is
that not only are our sins forgiven by
faith, but our hearts are cleansed by faith.
Not only are we freed from the guilt
of sin by faith, but we are saved
from the power of sin.
And the error that you and I make
is we think we're saved from the guilt
of sin by faith, but we're saved from
the power of sin by reading good books,
or by exercising our willpower, or by getting
into more Bible study groups, or by getting
into a better church.
And the fact is, we're delivered from the
power of sin by the same simple method
by which we receive the forgiveness of our
sins, by faith.
By faith that we were crucified with Christ
and completely remade.
And loved ones, you don't have to labor
under that sinful nature.
And that is not the normal Christian life,
and it is not a right interpretation of
Scripture.
And if you say, brother, why do so
many believe it?
Loved ones, there are thousands down through the
centuries that have never believed it.
And to be honest with you, those of
us who believe it who want to believe
it.
If we want to stay with the right
to lose our temper or to get angry
or to do our own thing or to
do what we want with our lives, well,
even Satan will wrest Scripture for his own
purposes, you know.
So I would encourage your dear hearts to,
even if you get the tape of this
thing and you go over it again, I
don't want you to believe me.
I want you to look over it and
study the Bible and get it for your
own self and your own heart so that
you're on solid ground when you come before
God and say, Lord, I want to be
delivered from this self inside me.
And I believe that it was crucified with
Jesus through your Holy Spirit.
Will you bring me into this by your
own power?
And God will, you know.
He will.
Let us pray.
Dear Lord, I pray for my brothers and
sisters, and we pray for each other here
because we've been under the burden of these
misinterpretations for years, and it takes a long
while to just get it straight in our
minds.
And then, Lord, we don't want it to
take a long time to get it straight
in our own hearts.
Lord, we believe that whatever can be received
by faith can be received in a moment.
And, O Father, if you destroyed this old
self inside me that gives me so much
trouble and enables the power of sin to
work through my life as if I wasn't
born at all of God, then, Lord, will
you, by your Holy Spirit, begin to bring
me into this this very day.
Lord, if all that I have been up
to this moment was crucified with Christ, then,
thank you, I accept that.
I regard it as dead now and buried,
and no self for me to look after
but just this body and this mind of
which I am the custodian.
And, Lord, I intend to treat it like
that for your glory.
Amen.