If you will, turn with me in
your Bibles to Romans chapter 7. Romans chapter 7. And my text
is verse 18. For I know that in me That is,
in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. For the will is present
with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. That will be our text, but let's
begin reading in verse 14 the context. For we know that the
law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which
I do, I allow not. For what I would, that do I not,
but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would
not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then, it is no
more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that
in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. For to will is
present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would, I
do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now, if I do
that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth
in me. I find then a law that when 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 then with the mind I
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. For the
law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free
from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do,
in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son
in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in
the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. The title of my message is Flesh
Versus Spirit. Flesh versus spirit. And let
me define these three terms. What is meant by flesh? What
does the Apostle Paul mean by flesh in our text this morning?
For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh dwelleth no good
thing. You see, he had to qualify what
he meant in saying that in him dwelt no good thing. Because
the Apostle Paul, as he wrote this passage, as he wrote all
of the Word of God that God inspired him to write, he did so as a
saved person, not as a lost person. And he's not given his experience
before he was saved in this passage of Scripture. And so he had to
qualify when he said, I know that in me dwelleth no good thing,
but yet in Paul There was a good work of grace already in Paul. There was a good work of grace.
There was a good word of God in Paul. And there was a good
spirit, God the Holy Spirit, who dwells in every believer. Now if Paul had not been writing
as a saved man, he would not have needed to qualify his statement
because A lost person is nothing but flesh, nothing other than
flesh. But it was in his flesh that
he said dwelt no good thing. Now by flesh, he doesn't mean
the physical body. That's the problem that many
times people have when they read the word flesh, they automatically
think of the physical body. But that's not what Paul means
here, that in him, that is in his flesh, dwelt no good thing. By flesh, he means that fallen,
corrupt nature that all of us inherit from our father Adam,
and all of us bring with us when we come into this world. Flesh, that corrupt nature. Well, number two, what is meant
by spirit? By spirit is meant that new man,
that new man, the new nature, the new nature called spirit,
which is created in every person when they are born again, when
they're born of the spirit of God. You remember the Lord Jesus
told Nicodemus, that which is born of the flesh is flesh. And that which is born of the
spirit is spirit. In Ephesians chapter four and
verse 24, Paul speaks of the new man, just as in Romans six,
he speaks of the old man, which would be the flesh, that corrupt
nature. But then he speaks of the new
man, the spirit, which after God is created in righteousness
and true holiness. Now if we had no other reason
to know, not just to believe, but to know that salvation is
of the Lord, this one word, create, creation, would be enough. Because
no one but God may create. Men may build, men may make things,
but they cannot create. Only God creates this new nature,
this new principle that is put into every person when they are
born of the Spirit of God. Creation is the work of God,
and it is a creation. It's not a reformation. You see,
that's the thing that religion, so much religion does. It just
reforms a person. And it always starts on the outside. The way we dress, the way we
walk, the way we comb our hair, all of these things. But the
truth, the gospel, it begins on the inside and works its way
out. It's with the heart. We receive
a new heart. a new nature, the spirit, that
which is born of the spirit is spirit. And then what is meant
by versus, the flesh versus the spirit. I saw after I prepared
these notes, I saw the other night a boxing match that's coming
up evidently and it was so-and-so versus. So-and-so versus, I think
it was 3G2, whoever that is. GGG2. I don't remember the name
of the other person, but I knew they're going to battle. They're
going to fight. There's going to be a warfare
versus. And that's what we're talking
about here today. We're talking about a warfare.
a warfare that begins the very moment, the very moment that
a person believes the gospel, believes in the Lord Jesus Christ,
there's a warfare, there's a tension that will always go in, go on
rather, in the believer and it will continue until the words
of that hymn we just sang are true, this robe of flesh I'll
drop. and rise to seize the everlasting
prize. This warfare is going to go on
until we leave this world, until we leave this body, and then
we will be with Christ, we will be like Christ, and we will be
rid of the old man, the flesh. Now I want us to thank this morning
of the flesh versus the spirit and see how this works out in
our experience. First, those who are born again
have spiritual life, spiritual life. We read that verse at the
beginning of the service, and you hath he quickened who were
dead in trespasses and sins. in union with Christ. And remember,
we are in union with Him by faith. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. And He is in union with us by
His Spirit. Christ in you, that is God the
Holy Spirit. Christ in you, the hope of glory. And because He is life, He's
our life. And when a person is brought
into union with Christ, we have spiritual life. Remember, he
said, I am come that they might have life and that they might
have it more abundantly. Well, among other things, this
means that once a person is saved and has spiritual life, we now
have communion and fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Spiritual
life allows us to enjoy his presence, his presence in prayer, in worship,
and when we read the Word of God now, we have understanding. Now, we do experience these things,
but not always. Not always. See if you can understand
what I'm saying. Having spiritual life allows
me to have fellowship and communion with God. And yes, thank God,
I do experience that, but not always. Not always. Sometimes I may come to the worship
service and not experience that fellowship and communion. Sometimes
I may pray, and it just seems like my prayer, if it hits the
ceiling, it's gonna bounce right back down. Why is that? Why is it? Why is it that we
do not, if we're saved and have spiritual life and we do, then
why is it that we do not always have this fellowship? Why is
it that we do not always enjoy this fellowship and communion
with God Almighty? It's because of the flesh. The
flesh is still part of us with its deadness. with its deadness. And so it lusts, it wars against
the Spirit. There are times when we begin
to read the Bible and we can't concentrate on five verses. You say, well, I never experienced
that. Well, I'm talking for myself and I know I'll have an amen
with some people here today. I mean you just open up the Bible
and sometimes you just can't wait to get just on and on and
sometimes you can't concentrate on two or three verses of scripture. Or we go to the Lord in prayer
and sometimes our mind is way off over here somewhere and we're
thinking about something we're going to do next week or tomorrow. Sunday morning comes and Before
some Sundays, we're so thankful it's Sunday. Oh boy, it's Sunday
today and we can go and worship the Lord. And sometimes on Sunday,
oh me, it's Sunday. It's Sunday. It's a chore now
to go and worship the Lord. What's going on? What's happening? Well, the flesh, with its deadness,
hateth, lusteth, warth against the Spirit. And remember Paul
said in our text here, no, N-O, in my flesh dwelleth no good
thing. The flesh with all of its deadness,
it wars against the Spirit, the new man with his spiritual life. And it is true that we are given
spiritual life But the flesh that we still have, it remains
with us with its deadness. You read through the Psalms and
you find many times, and here's David, a man of God, a man after
God's own heart, no question, a man who knew God as his Lord
and Savior. And yet in many texts, and here's
one of them, he said, my soul cleaveth to the dust. Well, what's
the dust? It's the earth, isn't it? The
ground. My soul, he said, cleaveth to
the dust. You mean a child of God, a person
who knows the Lord Jesus Christ may experience something like
that when his soul is all wrapped up and concerned about this world
of dust? But that wasn't all he said.
Quicken thou me according to thy word. Yes, my soul cleaveth
unto the dust, but quicken thou me according to thy word. So first of all, there's life
and there's deadness. There's spirit and there's flesh. The spirit is life, the flesh
comes or remains with all of its deadness. A second thing,
those born again have spiritual light. Paul said, you were sometimes
darkness. That doesn't mean you were partially
dark, partially light. No, you were sometimes darkness. That's when we were lost. That's
before the Lord Jesus found us and regenerated us and quickened
us and gave us life, gave us life and gave us light. You were
sometimes darkness, but now are you light in the Lord. And he
said this in 2 Corinthians, God who commanded the light to shine
out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But listen, no sooner does light
shine into the soul than that warfare with darkness is engaged. Just as soon as light comes into
the soul, that darkness, that flesh, with all of its darkness,
is engaged to lust, to war against the light. You know, when it
gets daylight, when the sun comes up in the morning, the first
light of day, it's mixed with a lot of darkness. And sometimes
it's hard to tell where darkness ends and light begins. They seem almost to be mingled
together, light and darkness. And in the experience of a person
when born of God, many times there's light, always there's
light, but there's still darkness. And it's hard to tell between
the light and the darkness. But one thing will always be
so. No matter how small the light
is, it will be sufficient, it will be enough that you know
that Jesus Christ is the only Savior. No matter how small that
light may be and how much against it, that darkness that is still
part of us, the flesh, comes against the light, yet that little
light, if it's just a little, it's enough that you'll never
be convinced that Jesus Christ is not the only Savior. But this is a warfare, and darkness
The flesh will continue to lust after the spirit. At times, we
can see so clearly, we can read our title clear, as that hymn
writer said. We can read our title clear. The truth of the word of God
is so plain, so obvious, and we can see how that Christ is
all our righteousness. that salvation is by grace and
by grace alone, but darkness hasn't given up. Darkness hasn't
given up, and then it seems sometimes that all we have seen and felt
has just swept away. It's just gone. All of a sudden,
where there was assurance and confidence, there's fear and
there's unbelief. Light and darkness. like spirit
and flesh are two opposing principles, and they must continue to work. Neither one of them, light or
darkness, is inert. They will struggle. Light will
struggle for the mastery, and darkness will struggle for the
mastery. Paul said, the flesh lusteth
against the spirit. sort of what I've been concentrating
on, but he also reminded us, the spirit lusteth against the
flesh. The battle is engaged both by
the spirit and the flesh. That constant battle, that constant
warfare. You know, one writer pointed
out that a child of God, a true child of God, carries about with
him assurance of salvation. Because if we experience this
battle, if you know something about what I'm speaking this
morning, that is an assurance of salvation to you. That you
know something about this struggle, this battle that's going on.
If a person is all flesh, he doesn't know anything about this
struggle. He doesn't know what I'm talking
about. And I know there are people here this morning, in all probability,
you don't know. You don't know what I'm talking
about. You have a conscience, maybe, that's been trained, but
here's the difference between the flesh lusting against the
spirit and the spirit against the flesh. If you just have a
conscience, you don't have the spirit of God, your conscience
will be defeated by the flesh. Because the conscience alone
can be trained. A person may be taught something's
wrong. He shouldn't do that. He knows
it, but he does it anyway, and he feels convicted in his conscience.
But you know, the next time he does it, he doesn't feel that
conviction quite as strong. And the third time, and the fourth
time, and the fifth time, and now the conscience has been trained
sees nothing wrong with whatever that was. But in this battle
between flesh and spirit, there's no truce. There's no truce between
flesh and spirit. This battle is going to go on
as long as we remain in this world. Third, those born again have
the fear of God. The fear of God. The fear of
the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And everyone that is
born again is given this grace, the fear of the Lord. And here
are two Proverbs which speak to us about the fear of the Lord.
Proverbs 8, 13 says, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. You see, if a person just has
flesh, no spirit, he doesn't hate evil. He doesn't hate evil. But the fear of the Lord is to
hate evil. And then Proverbs 16, 6, By the
fear of the Lord men depart from evil. The flesh lusteth against
the Spirit. The flesh loves sin, and the
Spirit, because it has the fear of the Lord, hates evil. There are two contrary principles
or laws, as Paul says in this passage of scripture, which mean
there's a constant warfare, constant conflict in every child of God. And a child of God cannot understand
how that part of him loves sin. A child of God can't understand
this, how that there's a part of him that loves sin and yet
at the same time hates it. It's a mystery. How is it possible
that I can have desires after sin and at the same time I'm
praying and asking God to keep me from sin? How is that possible? It's possible because of the
flesh versus the spirit. I've heard people say, well,
when the Lord saved me, he just gave me a hatred of all sin. Well, the spirit hates sin. The spirit cannot sin. But the
flesh, don't tell me that there's nothing in you that doesn't still
love sin, that there's no attraction to you by something, some temptation
that still doesn't appeal to you. What is it? It's the flesh.
It doesn't appeal to the spirit. That which is born of God cannot
sin, John tells us. That new nature, that new principle
that is put within us, And I'm so thankful for that
man in the Gospels who made that statement. When the Lord said,
if thou canst believe, all things are possible unto thee, he said,
Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. He's saying the same
person, there was faith, living faith, but at the same time,
there was unbelief. Unbelief. I heard a preacher
make this statement one time, and he said, since I was saved,
I've never had a doubt. And I take that man at his word,
but I would say this, if that's true, he's the exception to the
rule. He's the exception to the rule.
Another man said, a man that never doubted, never believed. There is that tension always,
that struggle, that fight. The flesh with its unbelief,
the spirit with its faith. And you don't outgrow this. Let
me tell you, you don't outgrow this. In the last several years,
I've had some of the worst thoughts of unbelief that I can remember
ever having. What is that? That's the flesh.
That's the flesh that lusteth, warth against the spirit, that
new man, that new nature that God has given me. And let me
say this, what is true of the grace of faith is true of every
other grace that is given to a child of God. We're given love,
don't we? Aren't we? We're given love. If a man doesn't love, he doesn't
know God. But are you telling me that you
never have any animosity in your heart toward anyone? I don't believe that. Are you telling me you never
have any rising of jealousy or envy or anything like that in
your heart? Yes. We love. We have love. The Spirit of God That new nature
loves, loves God and loves our brothers and sisters in Christ
and loves all men. But at the same time, that flesh
can have animosity and jealousy and envy and hatred. The works
of the flesh are these. And those things are mentioned
there in Galatians chapter five. We have the grace of hope given
unto us, expectation. We have a great expectation,
a good hope through grace. We expect one day to be with
the Lord and to enjoy Him forever. But does that mean we never have
any despondency? It doesn't for me. Well, what What is the answer? What is the answer? Well, the
answer is to remember this. The Spirit will win this victory. It's always good to know when
you're going to battle if you're already going to win. If you
already are assured victory when you begin, that's good, isn't
it? And as we battle, and the scripture
speaks of it, as mortified, that is put to death, the deeds of
the body, the body there represents the flesh again, just another
term for the flesh, not the physical body, but that old man that is
presented in the Word of God as though he had a body with
members like our physical bodies have. but mortify the deeds of
the body. Put them to death. And you do
not put them to death, my friends, by punishing the flesh. You know,
that's something that has caused some people trouble back over
the years when they thought they would mortify the deeds of the
flesh by laying out in the cold or by taking a whip and beating
themselves on the back. and doing harm to their body,
their flesh? That's not the answer. The answer
is to feed. Feed the spirit. Feed the spirit. Always feed the spirit, giving
you the grace and the strength to put to death the deeds of
the body. Romans chapter 8, we're told,
in spite of all that Satan and the world and the flesh may bring
against a child of God, we are more than conquerors through
him that loved us. We must continue as we began. We began our Christian experience
by looking to Christ, so we must live day by day, hour by hour,
looking to Christ. We feed the Spirit. How do we feed the Spirit? The
Word of God. This is what God uses, isn't
it? To strengthen us and to feed us that we may grow in grace
and knowledge of the Lord. The services that we have where
we are allowed to come together and hear the preaching of the
Word of God. This is the way we feed the Spirit. And then we take the time to
meditate. And meditation is probably something
that most of us do very little of. And I'm speaking for myself. I'm confessing my own fault,
my sins. But I believe meditation is one
of the most needful things that any of us have as we go through this world. to read the word of God and to
meditate and to think upon what the Lord tells us. Well, I pray that the Lord would
bless this word, this message to all of us here today and maybe
you're here and you think, well, that kind of helps me. Well,
I hope it does. I hope it does. Just to be reminded
that what you experience is common to all of God's children, if
you are one of His children. That is that constant warfare. And many times we think of this
as falling into outward sins, falling into drunkenness, idolatry, adultery, Things like that, and
certainly that is the flesh, no doubt that would lead us into
those things, but the warfare really goes on within. It's more within. Has to do with
these things that I've mentioned here this morning. Life versus
death. light versus darkness, the fear
of the Lord versus the love of sin, and living faith versus
that dead faith. May the Lord bless His word to
all of us here today.