The 22nd verse says, 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 this body of this death. I thank God through
Jesus Christ our Lord, so then with the mind I myself serve
the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. First off,
let me say that a believer in Christ Jesus is to be known not
only by his peace and joy, but by his warfare and distress. Now, you must see that and think
about that for a little bit or what we're about to say will
not make too much sense to you. A believer, one who's been called
of God from heaven, born of his spirit, brought to embrace his
son, the Lord Jesus, is not only to be known by his peace and
joy that comes from being a believer and meditating upon the promises
of God. But he is also, another distinguishing
characteristic about the believer is that he is known by his warfare
and distress. His peace and joy is certainly
peculiar. It flows from God. It's heavenly. His warfare is a deep-seated
agony, and it doesn't cease or quit until death. A believer
delights in the law of God after the inward man. the 22nd verse
of this 7th chapter. A believer delights in the law
of God after the inward man. Now, let's talk about man's attitude towards this law prior to him
becoming a believer. And by doing so, it will help
us to see a little bit I believe as to what this verse is talking
about when it talks about 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. Now before a man comes to the
Lord Jesus, he hates the law of God. In all truth now, and I'm not
just trying to compose sentences with
words without meaning, but in all truth, before a man comes
to God in Christ, he actually hates the law of God. In fact,
his whole soul rises up against it. Notice in this 7th verse
of the 8th chapter and see if this does not verify what I've
said. It says, because the carnal mind
is enmity, that enmity is contrary or all that would be in opposition,
hostile, Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it
is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. Now, we have said that his whole
soul rises against the law of God. Now, there is a reason why.
And let me give you a few of these reasons this morning why
the natural man, the unconverted man, the unsaved man, the unregenerate
man, the man who's lost, why his soul rises up against the
law of God. Well, the reason for this, number
one, is because or on the account of the purity of the law of God. The law of God is wholesome and
absolutely In fact, the law of God can be defined this way.
It is the breathing of God's pure and holy mind. It is infinitely
opposed to all impurity and sin. And every, listen to me now,
every line of God's law is against sin. Therefore, that is one reason
why the unregenerate man, or the man prior to his coming to
the Lord Jesus, hates, literally hates, the law of God. Now, natural
men, unsaved men, love sin and therefore they hate the law because
the law opposes all that they love. Now, I know that there
are not many that believe that or many that even understand
that. And it's a sorry state that the religious community
is in, in our day, when the things that I've said to you thus far,
in the heart and the mind of the average Christian, they do
not register. They feel that he's disinterested
or he's not interested in his discourse And we don't understand
it, and we'd rather hear something that we could understand. But
these things are vital, vital to our well-being, vital to our
welfare. We must know these things. We
must learn these things. Every line of law is against
sin, and the natural man, he loves sin and therefore hates
the law because all that he loves the law opposes. Now, you've
heard the old proverb that the bat in the dark cave hates light
and flies against it. The unconverted man, he hates
the pure light of God's law and he flies against it. Now, there's
another reason why. that men hate the law of God,
a reason why their whole soul rises up against it. If you can hurriedly find the
book of Job and turn there to about the thirty-first chapter,
I'll read something to you. Well, it's not the 31st chapter,
it's the 33rd chapter. Now, I've said that a reason
for man's hostility is because the Word of God is pure, pure. And another reason why the unconverted
man hates the law of God is because of the authority and the sovereignty
of that law as well as of God. In this 33rd chapter of the book
of Job, it tells us about a young man whose name was Elihu. Elihu was a young man who had
kind of stood in the background in this contending between the
three so-called friends of Job and Job himself. And they had
heard all that the three friends had to say, or he had, and he
had listened to all of Job's answers to the accusations and
insinuations of these three. And finally, He comes onto the
scene. And of course, this 32nd chapter
as well as the 33rd chapter is a very good chapter. I'm going
to talk about it one of these days. But just to kind of keep
this in context, I do want to read the 8th verse of the 32nd
chapter where it says, now this is Elihu talking, and he says,
But there is a Spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty
giveth them understanding. Then in the fourth verse of the
33rd chapter, he says, The Spirit of God hath made me, and the
breath of the Almighty hath given me life. And in other words,
he's telling Job here, speak to you, Job, is that which I
received from the Lord." It's not hearsay. It's not just mere
reasoning or reckoning, but it's the truth. I've got this from
the Lord, and He said, I've got the answer to your problem. He
said, Job, listen. In this 8th verse, He says, Job,
surely thou hast spoken in mine hearing, and I have heard the
voice of thy words. I've heard what you've said.
Here's what you said, Job. You said, I am clean without
transgression. You said, I am innocent, neither
is there iniquity in me. This is what Job said when his
friends accused him of hypocrisy and accused him of other things. He said, well, it can't be. I'm
clean without transgression. There's no transgression in me.
I've never transgressed. I'm innocent. There's no iniquity
in me. And this young fellow reminds
Job of what he said. Now, in the 10th verse, Before
he findeth occasion against me, he counteth me for his enemy.
This is still Job's testimony. He says, He putteth my feet in
the stalks, he marketh all my paths. That's Job charging God
with this folly. Behold, in this thou art not
just. Eli, whose conversation now.
He says, Job, in your testimony in regard to yourself, he says,
you are not just. I will answer thee that God is
greater than man. Now, I've said all that to come
to that line there in the 12th verse. God is greater than man. Now, because God is greater than
man, man's hostility vents itself toward the very words of God
in His law. They are hostile, hostile towards
God because God is greater than man. Now listen, if God is greater
than man, then it is obvious that God must be the judge of
what is right and not man. Does that make sense? It does,
doesn't it? If God is greater than man, this
is what Elihu said to Job. Job says, You said that you didn't
have any transgression, that you was innocent, no iniquity
found in you. Why? He said, You are not right,
you are dead wrong. He says, God is greater than
man. So if God is greater than man, which He is, that's obvious,
then it is God who must be the judge of what is right and what
is wrong. Now, God is the judge in that
he hath declared in his law what is right. Now, man flies against
that. Man in his unconverted state
flies against that which is right because he knows in his heart
that God Almighty is absolutely pure and absolutely right in
all of his actions. But as a bat hates light and
flies against it, so the unconverted man hates the pure light of God
and he flies against it. Number two now, another reason
why man, prior to his conversion, hates the law of God. He hates
it for its scope, or he hates it for its breadth, or he hates
it for its broadness. Why? Because it reaches to all
of his outward actions, seen and unseen. Every action that
the unsaved man moves toward or actually does, that he is
contrary to the standard of absolute perfection, the law of God flies
on this man and condemns him and curses him. Here, by way of example, the
law of God says that I demand out of you, this is not just
courtesy on the part of God trying to trying to be diplomatic towards
his creatures in what he says in the commandments, but he says,
I command you that you shall love the Lord thy God with all
of your heart and all of your strength and all of your soul.
I command that every fiber of your being outwardly and inwardly
be in absolute submission to Me and to worship Me supremely
over all and above all. I command you to do that. That's
what God says. Now, any time that command is
violated, which it's violated by this sinful human race about
every time that we breathe, then the law of God condemns us and
curses us and tells us this. You keep that law. If you don't
keep that law, I'll send you to hell. I'll punish you for
not keeping my command." Now, man hates the law of God for
its breadth because it condemns every one of his outward actions,
condemns him and curses him. Well, not only does it reach
to all of his outward actions, but it extends to every idle
word that he speaks. Now, when you tell a group of
individuals that God has said that he will judge you for your
foolish gestures, for your idleness, for your foolish talk, then they
become offended. But God hath said that every
idle word that men shall speak they shall give account of in
the day thereof. Every idle word. My soul, this
morning, brethren, how many idle words have you and I spoken in
our lifetime? Idle words. Our conversations
are filled with idle words without meaning. with just jest and foolishness. The law of God says that it extends
to the idle words that men shall speak, and God shall bring them
into judgment, and they must give account thereof. Not only
does it extend to every idle word that men shall speak, but
it extends to the look of a man's eye. The Bible says that he... Well, first off, let me say that
one of the commandments is that thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not commit... Well, there's not much use even
talking about that in most social circles now, whether it be in
colleges, universities, high schools, or on the television,
or in family life, because it's People so look down upon that. We've bred and raised a generation
of sophisticated, intelligent idiots that they have actually
looked upon the commands of God, in particular this one, they've
looked upon it in lightness, in lightness, and disregarded. They do not even disrespect or
despise it. They look upon it with likeness
and jest and make fun of it. Now, a lady just the other day
opened the newspaper, well, I think it was Sister McDougall, I visited
her the other day and I think she opened the newspaper and
showed me, and she said, here's the headlines on the second page
or the third page of the paper about women. modern women, liberated
women. What do they want? They want
to have children. They want to have babies, but
they want to have them out of wedlock. They don't want to get
married. See, this is adultery. Whether it's committed by the
man or the woman, it's adultery. And God is opposed to it. But
if I was to have access to national television this afternoon, and
I preached on that, and I said, well, you women are wrong, and
you men are wrong. God will curse you for it. God will damn you for it. God
will bring you into account for it. Why, this generation, you
know, they would just laugh. They would just laugh. Outwardly,
anyhow, but inwardly, in their heart, their very souls would
seethe against them. They hate the law of God, for
it extends not only to their words, but even to the look of
their eyes, where it says, now listen, where it says, He that
looketh upon a woman with lust in his heart hath committed adultery
already. Every time that a man looks upon
a woman, with the wrong intention and wrong motive, he hath broken
the law of God and is worthy of damnation." No wonder man
hates this law. Unconverted men hate it. That
is the reason that for the most part we see no genuine conversions,
is because the law of God is not free. Men will never be converted
from their sins, converted from this world to the Lord Jesus
Christ until the law of God is laid heavy upon them. There can
be no conviction of sin apart from the law of God. Well, it
extends to the looks of their eyes, It extends to the deepest
part of their heart and it condemns the most secret sin and lust
that's found in this black, depraved heart. Now, unconverted men quarrel
with the law of God because of its strictness. The law of God
is strict. Now, if it extended only to outward
actions, we could handle it, couldn't we? If that's as far
as it went, we could handle it. That is, if it just said, Thou
shalt not commit adultery, we could handle that. We'd break
it off. We'd say, All right, we won't do it. We won't do it.
We'll stop right there. We will not outwardly commit
that terrible crime and sin against God. We won't do it. But when
it says that thou shalt not look upon a woman with thee wrong
intentions or lust, say, you not do that, then that's something
else, that's something we can't handle, see. We can't handle
that. But when it condemns most secret
actions, thoughts, and desires which you and I cannot prevent,
then we hate it. You can't prevent it. You can't
prevent it. Don't let anybody tell you that
they can prevent it. They can't do it. There's not
a man on the top side of God's green earth and there's not a
young man or a young woman or there's not a young girl or a
lady that can prevent these thoughts and desires in their hearts. They can't do it. They can't
prevent them, therefore, In hostility, they hate the law of God that
prohibits them from doing it. They hate it. Well, another reason now. The third reason why unconverted
men hate the law of God. They hate it because of its unchangeableness. Now, heaven and earth, the Scriptures
say, may pass away, but my word shall never pass away. That which
we see, these trees, the leaves, the water, space, all of this,
all of this, God says, is going to pass away. Heaven and earth
are going to pass away, but he said, my word, my word shall
never pass away. Well, I'll tell you, the law
of God, will not change. God will not
change, so the law of God will not change, or it will not let
down its requirements, or it will not die. That is, I'm sure,
would be pleasing to unconverted men if they heard that the law
of God had changed its requirements. But the law is as unchangeable
as God himself, and it's written on the heart of God with whom
there is no variableness or shadow of turning. It cannot change
unless God changes. What do you think of that? The
law of God cannot change unless God changes. It cannot die unless
God dies. It's here to stay. It's here
to stay. It's not going to, just because
the world is in violation and in rebellion toward the God of
glory and the God of purity, the unchangeable God, it's still
a little avail, it's still a little avail, simply because the heathen
rage and the kings and the princes of this world have set themselves
against God and against His law and against His people. Let's
sit a little bit here. It will not change anything.
God is unchangeable. His law is unchangeable. God
is not going to die and the law is not going to die. It is here
to stay. Even in hell, its demands and curses will be the same. It is an unchangeable law for
He is an unchangeable God. Now when men come to the Lord,
this is all changed. And they say, for I delight in
the law of God. When they come to the Lord Jesus,
they say, I no longer hate that law, but I delight in that law. Now there are two reasons for
this, two reasons for the testimony of the apostle Paul here. where
he says, For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. Number one, because the law is
no longer his enemy. Instead of being his enemy, the
law is his friend. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ
paid the price demanded by this unchangeable, inflexible law. He paid the price. He paid the
price that this law demands. This law demanded that I be perfect. That's what this law demands.
You read those Ten Commandments, and you'll see the essence of
the Ten Commandments is absolute perfection, and that's what God
demands, that man be perfect. And He also demands that if you're
not perfect, I'm going to punish you with an everlasting punishment. I'm going to send you to hell,
or something equivalent to it. So you need a substitute. You
need someone to stand in your stead. Listen, let me read this
in the book of Galatians chapter 3. Turn there with me, if you
will. Galatians chapter 3 and verse
13, I believe it is. Listen to this now. And you can
understand, if we have any spiritual intelligence about us at all,
why the law is no longer the believer's enemy. The thirteenth
verse says, Christ, that's the Lord Jesus Christ, the man, Christ
Jesus. That's the man that the Scriptures
write about. That's the man that Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John, that they traveled with for three years
and penned all of his happenings down. That's who he's talking
about, the Christ, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, a
man. He's a man, God-man. Christ has redeemed us from the
curse of the law. He's redeemed us from the curse
of the law. That is, He paid the price. You
see on the television here, the day before yesterday, where an
executive of the General Motors Corporation somewhere in Michigan,
where they kidnapped a couple of fellows, come along and they
kidnapped his boy, and they demanded $150,000 ransom. And they told the man,
they said, you come up with $150,000 ransom. Or he said, we're going
to do harm to your boy. So that fellow went to the General
Motors Corporation and he told them, he said, I haven't got
the money. And they're going to kill my boy. So he said, can
we do something about this? And so the executives They said,
well, yes, we'll come up with $150,000. They sent the $150,000
to those two kidnappers, and the next morning, the boy's 15-year-old
boy was turned loose, and they went and got him and brought
him home. Why? Because that man paid what he
demanded. The Lord Jesus Christ redeemed
us. He redeemed us from the curse
of the law because he paid what that law demanded. You see that?
He paid what the law demanded. The law demanded death. Jesus
died. He paid the price, shed his own
blood in our stead, and gave unto us his righteousness. God demands an absolute righteousness. Our redemption has to do with
the absolute righteousness of the Lord Jesus. God gave it to
us freely. He gave us the righteous life
of the Lord Jesus. He gave it to us. He applied
it to our account. He put it there on that page. Our names there and all of those
sins, idle words and all those sins, tacked up to our name.
But when we come to the Lord Jesus Christ, His death, is applied
to our account. And God says, I pronounce him
free and innocent because another died in his stead. But over here
it says, well, what about all these sins that he has committed
and will commit? I put the righteous life of the
Lord Jesus Christ to his account. Does not the Scripture say in
the third chapter of the book of Colossians, does it not say,
for your life is hid in Christ who is God? He is no longer then
His enemy, paid the price demanded by the law. He has made a curse
for me, made a curse for every believer. Why then should you
fear the law? Christ satisfied. I am not afraid
of the law. I am not afraid of those commandments
anymore. Why? Because Christ stood in
my stead. He became the curse for me." Well, thirdly then, because the
Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ writes the law on the heart,
there's the promise there. Well, anyhow, if we come to the
Lord Jesus Christ, if we've come to Him, convicted of our sin
and our nothingness and littleness before him, receive him, well
then, by so coming, he puts that in our heart and we have no fear
from then on in regard to the law. But if a man doesn't come to the
Lord Jesus, that's something else. Well, there's something
else that I want you to see in this Book of Romans. In this seventh chapter now,
in that twenty-third verse, it says, But I see another law
in my members. I see another law. I want you
to observe that. There is another law, Paul says. It's different from the law of
God. It's contrary to the law of God. Verse 25 says, I'll read it,
it says, it's the law of sin. Verse 25, so then with the mind
I myself serve the law of God, but listen to this now, but with
the flesh the law of sin. Now, another law, as Paul says,
another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, it
is a law of sin. That is a law that commands me
to sin. It commands me to do it. It urges
me to do it by offering me rewards and threatenings if I do not
do it. verse of the 8th chapter of the
book of Romans, listen to what it's called there. It's called
the law of sin and death. For the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death, a law that leads to sin and also to death, an eternal
death. Scriptures say that the wages
of sin is death. It's the same law which is called
in the book of Ephesians, the flesh. Chapter 5, turn with me. Chapter 5 of the book of Ephesians, verse
17. Stay with me now. Verse 17. It
says, For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against
the flesh, And these are contrary, the one to the other, so that
ye cannot do the things that ye would. It's called the flesh. Then again in Ephesians, turn
with me right over now to the book of Ephesians chapter 4 and
verse 22, it's called the old man. Verse 22, that ye put off
concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt
according to the deceitful lusts. And then in the book of Romans
again, it talks about this body of death. Now, notice what this
law is doing. We found out what this law is.
It is a law of sin and death. It's the flesh. Now, what is
this law doing? It says, but I see another law
in my members, And it's warring, it's warring against the law
of my mind. Now, this law in the members
is not resting quiet, but it's always fighting. It sees that
there can never be any peace in the bosom of a believer. Now,
there's peace with God, I'm not saying that. There's peace with
God, but there is a constant war with sin, a constant war,
continuously. There is an army there in our
very being that constantly wages against the law of God, and it
sometimes lies in ambush to spring out and get me. and bring me
into captivity, that's what Paul says, and bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin which is in my members. Rages of war, this inbred sin,
that's what it is, inbred sin, this is our depraved nature,
that's what the flesh is, the body of death, that's what this
old sinful nature. And I said, it will not cease
until death. And I started out by saying this,
that the people of God are not only known by the joy and peace
that's in their heart, it comes from God, it's heavenly, it flows
from God, but they're also known for their warfare. And this warfare
does not cease until they die. There is a warfare. Paul says,
another. There is another law in my members
that wars against the law of God, and it brings me into captivity. It commands that I sin. And there is a war, and I fight
against it. I constantly am on guard. I am fighting, I am fighting,
I am fighting against this army of depraved flesh that this body
is composed of, lest it lest it down me." See? There's a fight. There's a warfare. And if a man
doesn't know anything about that warfare, he doesn't know anything
about what I'm talking about, and he doesn't know anything
about the Gospel, see? I say that it's there. Sometimes
that fire acts like it goes out. It's kind of smolders, you know?
But there's still smoke there, and that fire, if flamed just
a little bit, will break out. flesh lusteth against the Spirit,
and these two are contrary one to the other." So you cannot
do the thing that you would, Paul says. Now, is this another
law? Is the devil ever successful? Well, yes. Sometimes the devil
is successful in the deep wisdom of God, God sometimes permits
man to be brought into captivity. You know the story of Noah. He
was a perfect man, yet led into captivity by the devil. He became drunken. He built him
a vineyard and he became drunken and was led into captivity. Abraham,
faithful Abraham, the father of the faithful, when questioned
by this wicked king who would do his wife harm and do him harm,
he lied for fear of his own life. He said, this woman here, Sarah,
she's not my wife, she's only my sister. Job, cursed the day
he was born. had his problems. David had his
troubles. Solomon had his troubles. Hezekiah
had his troubles. Peter had his troubles. Oh, brethren,
they all have had their troubles. Have you ever experienced the
warfare that I'm talking about? Not only knowing, you see, from
the peace and joy, but knowing for the warfare, warfare, the
fight, there's a battle. You battle against the world,
you battle against the flesh. battle against the devil. What
I'm talking about this morning is battling against the flesh,
this body of sin and death. Well, listen, I'm going to tell
you about the feelings, and then I'm going to quit. The feelings
of the believer during this warfare. Well, he feels, in verse 24,
characterizes his feelings. He says, O wretched man that
I am! Oh, wretched man that I am! Now,
nobody in the world is as happy as a believer in Christ. He has
found rest, pardon, forgiveness for all of his sins. He can approach
God as his child, know that God is with him, but there are times
when he cries out, Oh, wretched man that I am! The apostle Paul
knew that his sins were under the blood. He knew that he was
a saved man. He knew that he was going to
heaven when he died. But he had a war there in his members. This old flesh felt, Oh, I'm
downcast. I'm defeated. Somehow the devil has even taken
the sense of forgiveness away from me. The dark cloud comes
upon his soul and he says, how can I be a Christian with the
thoughts that I have and the feelings that I have? How can
I be a Christian when my attitude is like that? And finally, not
in despair, now this is not a cry of despair, but this is a cry
of victory. He says, O wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? That's not
a cry of despair, that's a cry of victory. Listen, you cannot
have the cry of victory unless you have the cry of despair.
Did you know that? You can't have it. There's got
to be a cry of despair. Before you can sing the song
of victory, you've got to sing the song of despair. Oh, Richard,
you know what I'm talking about. Most of you have felt that. You've
felt the flesh, the body, this old body that would defeat you. and say, oh, I'm so miserable
and undone and I've done so many things that's not right. Thought,
wrong thoughts and all that. How in the world could I go back
to the Lord Jesus? Well, you see, to a natural man,
he's often miserable now because of his sins, the natural man,
but he never feels the loathsomeness of sin. He is miserable. People in the penitentiary right
today are miserable because of their sins, and they already
admit that they were wrong. But they do not have an attitude
of loathsomeness towards that which they did. But the believer
does. He is a new creature in Christ
Jesus, and to him the least violation of the commands of God are a
vile thing to him. Well, lastly now, he seeks deliverance,
this fellow. He seeks deliverance. He says,
Who shall deliver me? And then he gives thanks even
before the victory has been completed. He said, I thank God through
Jesus Christ our Lord. He, the Lord Jesus Christ, gives
me the victory. He delivers me. He gives thanks
before the fight is done. Even in the thickest battle,
he's able to say, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
He'll deliver me. He'll deliver me. That is, he
says, he'll deliver me as if it was already done. See? He has that much confidence.
It's already done. See? This is song of praise. Song
of praise. O wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me? I don't think I'm a Christian.
I feel so mean and despisable. Oh, my soul! What makes me do
the things that I do and say the things that I do? Oh, wretched
man that I am!" And then he sees the Lord Jesus. He remembers
the spotless, substitutionary work of the Lord Jesus down in
his stead, and he says, "...thanks be unto God!" I have the victory
through the Lord Jesus. I have it! I have it! It's already
there! I have it!" That's the song of
praise. So you see, a believer is characteristic
by, known by these characteristics, by his joy and by his peace and
by his warring against sin. He wars against sin daily, the
struggle, the battle. They say that Some say that Paul
had in mind here, I don't know whether he did or not, but they
say when he talks about this body of death, who should deliver
me from this body of death, that in old times, during the Roman
Empire rule, that they used to, if a fellow was a criminal, if he'd been taken for some charge
and tried and found guilty, they took a dead man, maybe the man
that he killed, if it was for murder, They took that man and
they tied him to the live individual. They tied him to him, just tied
him that he couldn't get away. He couldn't get loose from him.
And everywhere he went, he drugged this dead man with him. This
putrefying, this corrupt, polluted corpse that was decaying hour
by hour in the putrid stench of that dead man. And Paul likened
this body of flesh to that dead man. Who shall deliver me from
this domineering, this body of flesh that brings me into captivity? Who shall do that? Oh, I long
to get rid of it. Thanks be unto God, it's already
happened. All right, let's stand. That lead us into him will be
this man.