All stand together. Hymn number
33. Stand up and bless the Lord.
Number 33. Stand up and bless the Lord,
ye people of his choice. Stand up and bless the Lord your
God with heart and soul and voice. O high above all praise, above
all blessing high, who would not fear his holy name, and laud
and magnify? Oh, for the living flame from
his own altar brought to touch our lips, our minds inspire and
wing to heaven our thought. God is our strength and song,
and His salvation ours. Then be His love in Christ proclaim,
with all our ransomed powers. Stand up and bless the Lord,
the Lord your God adore. Stand up and bless his glorious
name, henceforth forevermore. Please be seated. Good morning. We're going to be looking at
the passage of scripture in Romans chapter seven this morning. If
you'd like to turn with me there in your Bibles, Romans chapter
seven. I got a text from Jerry Salzberg
on the way here this morning, letting me know that, um, that,
uh, rich Petrovsky was taken into the hospital this morning.
He is currently in ICU. They suspect that he's having
some problems with his heart, but Jerry assured me that he's
stable and not in any immediate danger, is what he said. So I
want us to pray for Rich and if we get an update. Jerry asked not to try to contact
Mary Ann at the hospital, but If you have Jerry's cell phone,
you can get in touch with him for updates later on. All right, let's let's pray together. Our merciful heavenly father,
thank you for this opportunity to gather together in this place. For the blessing of being able
to open your word and to to call upon you, Lord, to send your
Holy Spirit, to enlighten the eyes of our understanding, to
speak to our hearts, to reveal to us the glory of thy dear son
and cause us to find all the hope of our salvation in him.
Lord, we pray for that blessing this morning. We thank you for
our brother Rich. We ask, Lord, that You would
strengthen him. We pray for those that minister
physically to him now. And we ask Lord that you would
give to them all that they need in order to be able to treat
him. Well, we know Lord that you are the source of all healing.
And we, we pray Lord that you'd be merciful to us and to him
and that you would, um, restore his health for we ask it in Christ's
name. Amen. I've entitled this study of Romans
chapter 7, a sinner's confession. A sinner's confession. And I
want to introduce this by asking you if God has made you a sinner. Has God made you a sinner? Now,
I suspect that somebody may be thinking, why would he do that? I thought God was against sin.
Well, he is. But until he's pleased to make
you To know your sin, you'll not need the Lord Jesus Christ
as your Savior. This God making you a sinner
is a work of grace. It's a miracle of grace that
the Holy Spirit Himself does in the hearts of His people when
He causes them to see that in them, that is in their flesh,
dwelleth no good thing. Someone else might be thinking,
well, are you suggesting that God is responsible for my sin?
No, I'm not in any way. The scripture makes it clear
in James 1, let no man say when he is tempted that he is tempted
of God, for God tempteth no man. He tempteth no man to evil, neither
tempteth he any man, but every man is tempted when he is drawn
away of his own lust. And when lust is conceived, it
bringeth forth sin, and sin bringeth forth death. No, we are fully
responsible for our own sin. And yet again, it is necessary
that the Lord open the eyes of our understanding as to our condition
before God. All men are sinners, no question
about it. We come into this world at enmity
with God and yet only those for whom God has done a work of grace
in their hearts believe themselves to be sinners. Now someone might
be thinking, can't we talk about something more positive than
sin? I don't know of a more positive
subject. The scripture says this is a faithful saying, and worthy
of all acceptation, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,
of whom I am chief. Now that was the Apostle Paul
that wrote that at the end of his life. In Romans chapter 7,
we have his confession as a sinner. The positive thing of being a
sinner is that God only saves sinners. He only saves sinners. And He saves every one of them.
If the Lord's made you to be a sinner, that's the evidence
that He's done a work of grace in saving you. Oh, Lord, would
you cause me to believe what you have said about my sin. Romans chapter 7 is so honest. It is the confession of the Apostle
Paul when he considers his natural condition outside of Christ. Religious people don't talk like
this. They don't. A religious person would read
this. As a matter of fact, most commentaries that you read on
Romans chapter 7 will tell you that the Apostle Paul was describing
his condition before conversion. That is not the case. It is absolutely
clear, not only in the text, because Paul uses the present
tense when he speaks of his condition, but it's also absolutely clear
in any believer's experience that this is my confession. The religious man might read
this or the irreligious might read it and say, well, this sounds
like the confession of a psychopath. That would be a conclusion that
an irreligious person might come to when they read these words
in Romans chapter 7. The believer, on the other hand,
knows this is my experience. This is my experience and this
is clearly the teaching of Scripture. The Apostle Paul was not a psychopath. To the
contrary. No man ever lived had a better
understanding of the truth. God used him to pin over half
of the New Testament. He of his own confession tells
of being caught up into the third heaven and seeing things that
were unspeakable. Paul knew God. He knew God. And he knew the truth. He knew
the truth about who God is. He knew the truth about who he
was. He knew the truth about how it is that God saves sinners. He knew the truth. And aside
from that, he was inspired infallibly, inherently, by the Spirit of
God to pen these words for our benefit, for our encouragement,
for our instruction. This is the honest confession
of every child of God. This is the testimony of the
Apostle Paul. More important than all of that,
this is the Word of God. This is the Word of God. Now,
unless you've been converted, unless you have two natures,
I don't think it'd be possible to enter into any understanding
whatsoever as to what the Apostle Paul is talking about here. And
so my hope is that if that's not yet been your experience,
that the Lord would use these words in order to cause you to
see your need for Christ. Paul put it like this in Galatians
chapter 5 verse 17, For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and
the Spirit against the flesh, and they are contrary one to
another, so that you cannot do the things that you would. We
come into this world with one nature. That's our Adamic nature. Our nature that we inherited
from Adam, our father, we are spiritually dead in that nature. In the miracle of the new birth,
God gives us a new nature. And in doing so, he doesn't change
the old nature. The new birth doesn't make any
part of the old man holy. and the new birth does not make
any part of the old man holy and the new birth does not leave
any part of the new man unholy. So we have two natures as believers
and we don't know anything about this conflict between the flesh
and the spirit until the Lord gives us a new nature. But if
he has, this is our experience. Now, we can't see the old man
until the Lord is pleased to reveal himself to us. That's
the, we preach Christ. The natural man goes about his
life comparing himself to himself, hoping desperately that he's
getting better. Or he goes through life comparing
himself to other men, believing that he's better than most. If
the Lord ever does a work of grace in our hearts, He will
separate us from all of that and cause us to stand by ourselves
naked in the presence of God. And in that place, we will be
forced to say with Brother Job, behold, behold, oh, I see something
I never saw before. It wasn't until Job. Job said,
I had heard of thee by the hearing of my ear. He knew a lot of things
about God. But now mine eyes have seen thee,
and I repent in dust and ashes. When the Lord was pleased to
make himself known to Job, Job responded by saying, behold,
I am vile. I'm vile. Now that's what Paul's
talking about here in Romans chapter 7. Daniel, the prophet
of God, saw the Lord and his response was, my comeliness,
my beauty, my strength, my righteousness has been turned into corruption. Isaiah, the prophet of God, The
first five chapters of Isaiah points his finger to Israel and
says, woe unto you, woe unto you, woe unto you. And then in
chapter six, I saw the Lord high and lifted up. His train filled
the temple. I saw the seraphim hovering over
the throne of God and they were crying, holy, holy, holy is the
Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth is filled with
his glory. And what's the first words out
of Isaiah's mouth? Woe is me, for I am undone. It's not woe unto you anymore,
now it's woe unto me. For I am undone. I'm a man of
unclean lips. I live among a people of unclean
lips. Here's what I'm encouraging you to do. Ask the Lord in your
heart to reveal Christ to you. And in so doing, there'll only
be one conclusion that you'll come to about yourself. That
you're a vile, mercy-begging sinner with no righteousness
whatsoever to offer God for your salvation. If we spend our time
trying to discover that wretchedness outside of Christ, then we will
only be brought to a false humility. That's all we'll be brought to.
Oh, I know I'm supposed to be humble, I'm supposed to be religious,
and I know I'm vile, I know I'm a sinner, I know I'm a mercy
beggar. No. Ask the Lord to show Christ to
you. If He does, you'll be like Job,
You'll be like Daniel. You'll be like Isaiah. You'll
be like that Syrophoenician woman who, when the Lord revealed himself
to her, said, truth, Lord, yes, I am a dog. But Lord, would you
feed this dog with the scraps of the master's table? Ask the
Lord to show you the one who is holy, harmless, undefiled,
and separate from sinners. If the Lord shows you a glimpse
of His glory, you will come to the same conclusion that every
child of God has ever come to. You will come to the same conclusion
that the Apostle Paul comes to in Romans chapter 7. Let's begin
reading in verse 7, Romans 7, 7. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? And he's talking about it was
a time when he's under the law. And now he's not under the law
anymore. That first husband has died.
Now I'm married to another. Now I serve in newness of the
spirit, not by the letter of the law. Was the problem with
the law? No, the problem wasn't with the
law. God forbid, nay, I had not known
sin, but by the law, for I had not known lust, except the law
had said thou shall not covet. Now, we don't preach the law
in order to get men to see their sin. But the problem that the
Apostle Paul had is the problem that every natural man has. When he hears the law of God,
what did the children of Israel say when Moses brought the Ten
Commandments down off of Mount Sinai? Here's what they said. All the words which the Lord
hath said we will do. We're going to do it." And what
did Moses say to them? You can't keep the law of God. Man hears the law and they say,
well, I can do that. I can do that. What did the rich
young ruler say? I've kept those things since my youth. You know,
Paul in another place says, concerning righteousness I was blameless.
You see, man by nature thinks that he can keep the law of God.
He thinks that he can perform it up to some level of acceptance. And he has no idea. The law of
God portrays the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now this is
a silly illustration, but I hope that it will be memorable. What
if I stood here and started jumping up and down? Now I've got about
a six inch vertical leap. I don't jump very high. And perhaps
there's other people that could slam dunk a basketball. Maybe
you've got a two foot vertical leap. I don't know. But if you ask me what I was
doing, jumping up and down, and I said to you, well, I'm trying
to jump over the moon. I'm trying to jump over the moon.
You'd laugh at me. You can't jump over the moon.
And the guy that can slam dunk a basketball has not gotten any
closer to jumping over the moon than I have, has he? What the
Lord Jesus Christ did was He jumped over the moon. He did that which you and I could
never... I asked somebody recently, I said, well, what is it that
you believe? And he said, I believe in the Ten Commandments. And
I said, well, how are you doing with them? And he said, well,
I'm doing my best. I'm trying to keep the law of
God. And I think that my efforts,
this is a conversation I had with somebody recently, I think
that my efforts will be sufficient. God will be pleased. He's not
pleased. He's not pleased. He's pleased
with Christ. He's pleased with perfect obedience. Paul thought that his attempts
to keep the law of God which were nothing really more than
trying to impress other men, were impressing God. And it wasn't. It wasn't. So now he's experienced
the new birth. And he's saying the problem wasn't
with the law. The problem was with me, it was
with my inability to keep the law. What shall we say then,
is the law sin? God forbid, for I had not known
sin but by the law, for I had not known lust, except the law
had said thou shalt not covet. Now here's the problem with the
law. The natural man thinks, well the law of God has to do
with my outward behavior. No, the law of God speaks to
the heart. You have heard it said of old. that if you take your neighbor's
wife, you're guilty of adultery. I say unto you, if you look upon
a woman lustfully, you can, you see, God's, man looks at the
outward appearance, God's looking at the heart. You've heard that
it was said that if you take your brother's life, you're guilty
of murder. I say unto you that if you have anger in your heart
towards them without a cause, you have any feelings of animosity
towards another person, you've murdered them in your heart.
God's looking at the heart. That's what Paul's saying. There
was a time when I thought that my sin problem was an outward
behavior problem. But when the law came effectually
to my heart, God showed me that I've never been able to keep
one of God's laws one time. Someone says, well, you know,
some people think, well, their sin problem has to do with outward
behavior. And then someone says, no, my
sin problem has to do with the wicked desires of my heart. Well, I'm here to tell you this
morning, it's worse than that. It's worse than that. God says
that every, every, Genesis 6-6, every imagination of the thoughts
of the heart are only evil continually. Now that's what Paul's talking
about here. You and I have never had a holy thought. And anything
that falls short of the glory of God, God calls sin. So what in your life has measured
up to the glory of God? Everything. Nothing. Nothing
has measured up to the glory. Everything falls short of the
glory of God, doesn't it? The best thought you've ever
had. The best prayer you've ever prayed. The best thing you've
ever done. Man, at his very best state is
altogether vanity. All our righteousnesses, the
best things that we've done, God says, are filthy rags. You
see, this isn't a matter of comparing yourself to yourself. It's not
a matter of comparing yourself to other men. It's a matter of
standing naked in the presence of God and realizing that in
me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. Nothing. I have no righteousness. I have
no goodness. I'm completely dependent upon
the Lord Jesus Christ for all my acceptance before God. God's
pleased with him. God demands perfection. And the closest you can get to
it is jumping about six inches off the ground compared to jumping
over the moon. You just can't do it. Can't do
it. But sin, taking occasion by the
commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For
without the law, sin was dead." I wasn't a sinner
until God brought the law to my heart and caused me to realize
that this law is a picture of the perfection of Christ. And
I've never been able to keep it, not for a moment. Not for
a single moment. For I was alive without the law
once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. I thought I was doing pretty
good. I thought I had something to offer God. But when the Spirit
of God brought the law of God to my heart, sin revived, I realized
everything about me is sinful, I'm dead. I'm spiritually dead. And the commandment which was
ordained to life I found to be unto death. What anything wrong
with the commandment? For sin taking occasion by the
commandment deceived me and it slew me. Sin's the one that killed
me. Sin killed me. Wherefore the law is holy and
the commandment holy, just and good. The law of God's holy. My first response to the person
I was talking to recently, when I asked them, what do they believe?
They said, well, I believe in Ten Commandments. I said, I believe in them too.
I believe in them too. I'm not hoping for my observance
of them for my salvation, but I know they're holy. But the
commandments of God has never made anyone holy. I know they're
just, but the commandments of God is never justified to anyone. I know that the commandment of
God is good, but it's never added any goodness to any person. The
problem's not with the commandment. The commandment is holy, just,
and good. It's perfect. It's the problem's with me. I
can't keep it. Was then that which is good made
death unto me? Did the law of God, is the law
of God at fault here? God forbid. But sin, that it
might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good,
that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. The more I saw of what God required,
the more I saw of what the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished, fulfilling
all righteousness, the more sinful I became. That's why believers
can say, as they grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ, they can say, I'm getting worse. I am. I'm seeing more and more of my
sin. The more the Lord is pleased to make himself known, Someone
said, well, maybe you should just say it seems like you're
getting worse. Well, it does. I mean, I'm not
advocating bad behavior. You know that. But more and more
of my unrighteousness is revealed as we see more and more of Christ.
Look what he says in verse 14. For we know that the law is spiritual,
but I am carnal, sold under sin. Notice the verb tense. I am, carnal, sold under sin. He's talking about that old man.
He's saying that old man is a, that sold under sin is a term
of slavery. What Paul is saying is, I am
a slave to sin. I cannot not sin. Everything I do is sinful. I
can't have a holy thought. I can't have a pure motive. I
would if I could, but I can't. Why? Because I'm carrying about...
Let's read on. He describes it in better detail
than I could possibly. So look at verse 15. For that
which I do, I allow not. And what I would, that I do not. But what I hate, that do I. You see, it sounds like a very
confused person. If then I do that which I would
not, I consent that the law, that it's good. See, the fact
that I see that there's nothing in me, in my flesh, other than
sin, gives consent to the law that it's good. It's holy. It's just. I can't keep it. Now then, it is no more I that
do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." Now he's identifying
himself with the Lord Jesus Christ. He's seeing that the real me
is the new man. The real me is the new man. That's
my only hope. The real me can't sin. The old man, all he can do is
sin. For I know that in me, that is
in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. Nothing. Has the Lord made you a sinner?
This is the confession of a sinner who's trusting the Lord Jesus
Christ for all their righteousness. All their righteousness. I know,
do you know this? I know that in me, that is in
my flesh, my old man dwelleth no good thing. For to will is
present with me. I wish I could be good. I wish
I could be holy. I wish I could be perfect, but
how to perform that which is good, I find not, I can't do
it. I just can't do it. Why? He goes on to describe it. Look what he says. For the good
that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that
I do. Now if I do that which I would
not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in
me. Now don't misunderstand, he's not saying the devil made
me do it. He's not saying, he's not shirking his responsibility.
He's admitting his condition for what it is. I'm not capable
of being perfect, and God requires perfect, and all, here's the best definition
of sin that I can think of, that I know of in the scriptures,
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The only
question that you and I have to ask is, what in my life falls
short of the glory of God? What falls short of God's glory?
And whatever your answer to that is, God says, it's sin. It's
sin. You say, well, what's not sin?
The scripture answers that question. Whatever is not of faith is sin. Whatever is not of faith is sin. The only thing God's pleased
with is for you and I to cast all our hope on the Lord Jesus
Christ for all our salvation, all our righteousness, all our
redemption, all our sanctification, all our justification before
God. That's what faith is. Faith is looking to, trusting
in, resting on the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ
for all the hope of our salvation. And God says, whatever's not
of faith is sin. I find, verse 21, I find then
a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me. Can't get rid of it. It's always
there. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man.
That's the new man. I do delight in God's law, every
bit of it. 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. Oh, wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? Romans were very good at torture.
That's what crucifixion was all about. And one of the means of
torture that they would inflict on a criminal who had committed
murder was they would strap that dead body to his back. And it
was there decaying on his back. The smell, the weight, the presence. He'd wake up in the morning and
it was there. He'd try to sleep at night, it
was there. He'd try to get around her and
they could never get rid of her. You talk about a monkey on your
back. I mean, that's, can you imagine? Yes, you can. If you're a child of God, you
can imagine it very well, because you wake up with the stench of
your own sin. You go to bed with the stench
of your own sin. You toss and turn at night with
that dead man strapped to you who's worried and fearful and
all the problems that keep you awake at night. You know what it's like to carry
that dead man around with you, don't you? What's our hope? What's our hope? Look, verse 25 and chapter 8,
verse 1, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord, so them
with the mind I myself serve the law of God. That's the new
man. I bow to the law of God. I submit to the fact that the
Lord Jesus Christ is the only one that ever kept it. He's the
end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. I'm
not trying to establish my own righteousness before God. That's
what the natural man does. I understand that I have no righteousness. So then with the mind, with the
old man, with the new man, I serve the law of God, but with the
flesh, I'm a slave to sin. My flesh can't do anything but
sin. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh
but after the spirit. Now don't misunderstand that.
Don't think that that walking after the flesh and after the
spirit has something to do with your behavior. It has everything
to do with faith. If you're looking If you're looking
to your behavior for your righteousness, if you're looking to your pure
thoughts, if you're looking to anything other than the Lord
Jesus Christ for your righteousness before God, you're walking after
the flesh. But if you have the Spirit of God, you know that
in your flesh dwelleth no good thing and that your hope before
God is that the Lord Jesus Christ has successfully put away all
your sin. All your sin. Every thought. Oh yes, the wicked thoughts were
full of them. The wicked words, the wicked
actions, and the accuser of the brethren is always there. But
it's worse than that. It's worse than that. You start
looking at the things that you feel guilty about as your sin,
and you're going to miss the meaning of Romans chapter 7. Your sin goes far beyond the
things that make you feel guilty. Your tears of repentance must
be washed in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ to be accepted
before God. They, because you did it, Because you thought it, because
you were involved with it, because you're flesh, you're not acceptable. Christ is acceptable. And faith
believes that. And faith is the only thing that's
not sin. It's the only thing that's not
sin. Whatever's not of faith is sin. Alright, let's take a
break. Thank you.