Brethren, let's go to Romans
chapter 7. Romans chapter 7. Now, Paul had
been declaring how that the believer is free from sin and free from
the law. this in Romans 6 and the beginning
of Romans 7. And he even illustrated our freedom
from the law by portraying the law as a strict husband. So that we could understand this. And so, it makes you picture
in your mind a strict husband that never shows his wife love,
never shows her mercy or forgiveness But he only points out everything
that she's guilty of, everything she does wrong. And so we see
the law in that light. That's what the law does to us.
But in case somebody might think that makes the law to be bad,
the Holy Spirit moved Paul to ask this question. Verse 7, What
shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. No, I had not known sin but by
the law, for I had not known lust except the law had said
thou shall not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the
commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence, desire
which the law forbids. Look at that again and read it
this way, but sin wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. You see that? He was just using
the law in an unlawful way. It was sin that was bringing,
that was the unlawful desire, sin that was in him. He says,
for without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law
once. But when the commandment came,
sin revived and I died. And the commandment which was
ordained to life I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion
by the commandment, deceived me and by it slew me." Again,
we can take out the parentheses and read it this way. It was
because sin deceived me and it was by sin that I was slain. Verse 12, Wherefore the law is
holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then
that which is good made death unto me? 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. So I want to answer this
question. Is the law sin? Paul says, God
forbid. First of all, the law is not
sin. The law makes us to know our
sin. He says there in verse 7, he
says, No, I had not known sin, but by the law. For I had not
known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. See, God gave the law. No matter
what people say, no matter what What men argue, the scriptures
clearly bear this out, that God gave the law for one reason. For one reason. Paul said, I
had not known sin but by the law. That's why God gave the
law, to make His people know our sin. The law was not given
to be a code of moral ethics to be the believer's rule of
life. It was not given for that. Believers walk by faith. We walk by faith looking to Christ,
trusting Christ, depending upon Christ. We wait for the hope
of righteousness by faith. We wait with this good hope that
Christ our righteousness is going to return and one day we're going
to be perfectly conformed to His image. But we don't wait
for that hope by law, by walking under the law we wait for it
by faith, believing on Christ. The just shall live by faith. The justified, those that Christ
justified shall live by faith and the law is not of faith. The law does not deal in the
realm of faith whatsoever. This is where the law works. He says, the man that doeth them
shall live in them. If you want to live in the law,
you have to do the law. So really, men who claim that
they're walking by the rule of law, they're not really walking
by the rule of law because they're not doing the whole law. Not
a single person on the face of this earth ever has. except for
Christ. God didn't give the law to motivate
believers to serve Him. The law is not a motivator to
cause us to serve Him. We're constrained by the love
of Christ. It's that newness of spirit. It's being united to Christ and
seeing what He's done for us that makes us want to walk before
Him and look to Him. We're constrained by Him. God
didn't give the law as a measure of our sanctification. That's
what most churches use the law for, what most religious folks
use it for. They go over and look at the
law and say, well, I've done this pretty well. I've accomplished
this, now I need to work on this point right here and get better
at this. If that's what a man uses the
law for, we're going to see he's still in the condition Paul was
in before he heard the law. Because the law doesn't say you've
done pretty good in this area at any point in our lives. As
long as we're in this flesh, brethren, there's going to be
sin mixed with all we do. And the law still only says one
thing to you. If you want to try to go back
to the law and see how well you're doing, the law says, you haven't
kept me at all. You're guilty. The only purpose
of God's law The only purpose of God's law is to identify and
expose and condemn sin in God's people. That's the only purpose
for it. It's to shut us up to Christ
for all our acceptance with God. That's what Paul means. I had
not known sin but by the law I had not known lust except the
law has said thou shall not covet. We saw in Romans 3. We know what
things whoever the law saith, it saith to them who are under
the law. Now Paul's been teaching you and I who believe in Romans
6 and Romans 7, we're not under the law. So he says we're free
from it. The law only speaks to them who
are still under it. Whatever the law says, it says
to them who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped
and all the world become guilty before God. and therefore by
the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his
sight for by the law is the knowledge of sin. That's why it was given. That's why it was given. Now,
secondly, due to the fact that we're born the first time dead
in sins with no spiritual discernment, We can't hear the law. Our sin makes us so that we cannot
hear the law and therefore we use the law unlawfully by nature. He says in verse 8, sin, taking
occasion by the commandment, you can read it this way, sin
wrought in me all manner of concupiscence and used the law to do it. was
using the law to do it. For without the law, sin was
dead, for I was alive without the law once. When you read this,
be sure to understand that it was not the law that worked in
Paul this evil desire, this concupiscent. It was his sin. Sin wrought in
me all manner of covetousness. for the very things the law forbids. Sin was what made me want to
do all the things the law forbids me to do. It was Paul's sin working
in him. And his covetousness here, he's
talking about this concupiscence that the law forbid that he was
desiring to do. This thing the law was forbidding
him to do was number one, making himself his God. That was the number one thing
it was forbidding him to do and that was what he was trying to
do. That's what he was doing. Let me read this. When a sinner
tries to justify and sanctify and save himself by the law,
he's breaking every law because he breaks the last commandment
by coveting the very thing the first commandment forbids. which
is to have no other gods but God alone. To make no idols. And what he's doing is by coveting
the glory that belongs to God to His Son in being the only
one that established that law. The man's coveting that glory
when he tries to come to God in the law. So he's breaking
the very first commandment. He's making himself God. And
you go right down the line and look at every commandment you
can see. By trying to come to God in the law, he's doing exactly
what the law tells him not to do. That's our sin nature. We're dead in sin. We can't hear
the law. We can't understand what the
law is saying. Paul says sin took occasion by
the commandment. It was sin that made him do it.
But he was using the law unlawfully. Sin made him use it unlawfully.
Made him attempt to save himself by the law. And worse than that,
sin deceived him into thinking he was doing a really good job.
He thought he had really done it. He said, for without the
law, sin was dead. For I was alive without the law
once. What's he talking about? Without the law? Didn't Paul
have the law? He always had the law. From his
youth up, he had the law. What does it mean then? It means
Paul couldn't hear what the law was saying. He didn't have spiritual
discernment to hear what the law was saying to him. When he
says he was alive without the law once, it means there was
a time that Paul thought he was alive to God. He thought he was. The problem was he just couldn't
hear the law. Look over Philippians 3 and verse
4. When Paul talks about evil concupiscence,
It includes everything the law forbids including, you know,
lewd, immoral, back alley sin. It includes that too. But Paul,
that wasn't what Paul was desiring and what the law was forbidding
him to do. Paul was, he was a Pharisee of Pharisees. Look at this. Verse 4, Though I might also
have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinks that
he has whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more. Circumcise
the eighth day. That was according to the law
of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of
the Hebrews. As touching the law, I was a
Pharisee. Concerning zeal, persecuting
the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law, I was blameless,
he said. If you looked at Paul outwardly,
you would have said, there's not another man on the top side
of this earth that keeps the law as well as Paul does. outwardly. Just as far as keeping the letter
of the law and what it says don't do, Paul says, I was doing that. I was doing that. Go over to
Matthew 23. I was down in New Orleans with
my family once and we parked near a cemetery and I wanted
to go to that cemetery because I wanted something immediately
came to my mind. You know in New Orleans the sepulchers
are above ground and so there's this cemetery with all these
sepulchers above ground and we walked around out there and sure
enough we come across one that was just as whitewashed as it
could be. It was somebody freshly painted
the sepulcher and there was a crack in it in the front of it right
there where you open it there was a crack in it. And I shined
a light in there and I said, look inside there. And it was
just cobwebs and dust and dirty and dank and dark and just nasty
inside there. Look here what the Lord said,
Matthew 23, verse 27. This was Paul's problem when
he thought he was keeping the law. The Lord said, woe unto
you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, For you are like unto whited
sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but within
are full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even
so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within you're full
of hypocrisy and iniquity. And it's within where God's looking. That's where God's looking. So
we might could fool men outwardly, but we're not going to fool God.
He's looking on the heart. Amen. Turn that fan up, those
fans up right there. They don't circulate the air
well enough when they're like that. So he's saying like the
rest of the Pharisees, Paul thought that the law only regarded the
outward. He thought that's all it regarded
was the outward. The law looks on the heart. The
law deals with the heart. says that even if you just think
it, you've done it. If you think it, you've done
it. It declares our nature corrupt, our heart, our very inward man. Now, all of us are born dead
like Paul was. We all come to this world dead
and trespassing sin. And so a man can become religious
without being born of God. He can become religious without
being born of God and he can think that he's keeping the law.
He can think that he's pleasing God in all of these things and
be using the law unlawfully just like Paul was doing. And that's
all a man can do when he's in his flesh. Go over to Romans
8 there and look at this with me. He says, Romans 8, 5, They that
are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. That's all
they want to hear. They want to hear about what
I'm to do. And that's all they focus on,
is what am I to do? What am I to do? And so He says,
for that reason, verse 6, to be carnally minded is death.
Death, verse 7, because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for
it's not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. It
can't be. The law says to us that every
imagination of the thoughts of our hearts are only evil continually. That's what the law says. It
declares us guilty, guilty, guilty. And it's this inability to hear
the law, brethren, that is what causes men in religion to be
self-righteous, to exalt themselves and look down on others, and
to commend themselves and overlook their sin, but always expose
the sin of others. It's this very thing of not being
able to hear the law. When you can hear the law, You'll
be like that publican that smote upon his breast and wouldn't
so much as lift up his eyes to God but said, have mercy on me,
Lord, the sinner. You won't see yourself worthy
and having arrived enough to condemn anybody because you see
yourself as the sinner, the sinner. So the problem is not the law,
brethren. The problem is not the law. The
problem is that man is by nature dead in sin and so he uses the
law unlawfully. Paul told Timothy the law is
good if a man uses it lawfully. if you use it lawfully. Because
the law was not made for a righteous man. The law was made for the
lawless and disobedient, for ungodly, for sinners, for unholy
and profane, murderers and those that are murderers of fathers
and mothers, men-stealers, man-slayers, whoremongers, defilers of themselves
with mankind, perjured persons, and everything that is contrary
to sound doctrine. That's who the law is made for.
The law is made for a lost man. To condemn him and shut his mouth,
that's who the law is made for. And if we use it for any other
reason, we're using it unlawfully. Now, thirdly, when God makes
us hear the law, then we see our sin and we see our guilt
before God. And there is a sure and certain
result that God accomplishes. Look here in verse 11, Romans
7-11. He says, I'm sorry, verse 9, the middle
part of verse 9. He says, But when the commandment
came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment which was
ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking
occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. What does he mean when the commandment
came? Whenever God came forth, the Holy Spirit of God came forth
into his heart and gave him life and spiritual understanding and
made him hear the law for the first time. Made him hear what
the law said about him for the first time. When he does that,
brethren, sin is going to revive. He said, sin revived and I died. Now before he heard the law,
he says, I was alive. I was alive and my sin was dead. What I is he talking about? That
was that proud, self-righteous, arrogant Pharisee. I was alive and my sin was dead. You ever met anybody like that?
They've conquered their sin. I went all day today without
sinning once. Well, you just did because you
lied. Well, he said, when the commandment
came, that big eye died. He said, I was alive and sin
was dead. He said, but when the law came,
sin revived and I died. all those self-righteous deeds
that he thought was his righteousness and his holiness before God,
he saw it was all nothing but filthy rags, every bit of it.
So, you hear a man, you ask a religious person, what's your hope of salvation? And a well-worshipper is going
to almost always begin with the word, I. I. And what God does
is He gives spiritual discernment and He kills I. He kills I. I's got to die and be slain. Sin's got to be alive and I's
got to die. And when He gives discernment,
that's what's going to happen. Then we find out the true purpose
of the law. We find out what the law was
really made for then. And look what Paul found out,
verse 10. He says, He says, the commandment
which was ordained to life I found to be unto death. He thought
the law was ordained to give him eternal life by his obedience
to it. But he found out that he was
wrong, that the law was given as administration of death. Why
did he think that in the first place? Verse 11, for sin My sin,
taken occasion by the commandment, deceived me and by my sin it
slew me. It was all along deceiving me.
It was deceiving me. Now look at Galatians 3.21. I
want to show you a few things that God says about the law.
When a man is dead in sin, his sin deceives him to thinking
that the law was ordained to give us eternal life. The law
was not ordained to give us eternal life, brethren. Look here, Galatians
3.21. Galatians 3.21. Is the law then
against the promises of God? God forbid. If there had been
a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness
should have been by the law. But the scripture had concluded
all under sin that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might
be given to them that believe. Go to 2 Corinthians 3. I'll show
you Paul's description of the law. And this is a good place
because you see it right next to the New Covenant. And you
see the difference right here. Clearly juxtaposed against one
another. 2 Corinthians 3 and verse 6. He says, God has made us able
ministers of the New Covenant. New Testament. Not of the letter,
but of the Spirit. For the letter killeth. That's
what it's sent to do. The letter killeth. But the Spirit
giveth life. But if the ministration of death,
engraven, written and engraven in stones was glorious, that's
what he says, it's the ministration of death. It's given to kill
you, to minister death unto God's people. for that big self-righteous
eye to die. That's what it's given for. And
he says, but if it was glorious so that the children of Israel
could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory
of his countenance, and that glory was to be done away, the
glory of that law was to be replaced by the new covenant, how shall
not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious? Now look,
he gives it another name. If the ministration of condemnation
be glory, That's what it's for, to condemn us. It was to minister
to us condemnation. It teaches that we stand condemned
before God. And if it's glorious, much more
does the, here's the new covenant, is the ministration of righteousness. The ministration of Christ's
righteousness freely given to us. The righteousness of that
law we couldn't keep. So you see, it was a killing
letter, it was a ministration of death, it was a ministration
of condemnation. So Paul says, the fault wasn't
the law. I thought it was ordained to
life. Sin deceived me into thinking it was ordained to life and I
was trying to come to God by it. But it wasn't the law's fault. It was not the law's fault. So
here's his conclusion back in our text, Romans 7.12. Wherefore the law is holy and
the commandment holy and just and good. There's nothing wrong
with God's law. God's law is like God who gave
it. Holy, just, and good. God doesn't
have a law. The law is the character of God. It's your nature that rules you.
And the nature of God is holy, just, and good. That was the
nature of our substitute when he walked this earth. Holy, just,
and good. And God's chief attribute is
His holiness. It's His justice, brethren. And
so that's why He sends this law. He gives this letter of the law
to show me and you that we're not holy and just and good. We
can't measure up to the law in any way. So then He answers this
other question. Now look at verse 13. Was then
that which is good make death unto me? First He said, Sin to
me now? Was it made death unto me? God
forbid! Here's what we're talking about,
about the killing letter and the ministration of death, the
ministration of condemnation. Here's what we're talking about.
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. Nothing about the law changes.
Before we're converted, the law is holy, just, and good. After
we're converted, the law is holy, just, and good. The law hasn't
changed. The law was the same. It's us that's gone through a
change. We've been shown what we are.
We're not holy, just, and good. We have to die. That man's got
to die. By that which is good, my sin
was made to appear sin. Sin revived. And by that which
was good, death was worked in me. I died. And by the commandment,
my sin became exceeding sinful. You talk to people and most all
religious people will say, well yeah, I'm a sinner. We're all
sinners. That's not what we're talking
about. We're talking about your sin becoming exceedingly sinful. Exceedingly sinful. Has God used His law to make
your sin exceedingly sinful to you? When God makes us to behold ourselves
to be the sinner, to be the sinful wretch, that's when He reveals
that His holy, just, and good law is established for us by
His Son, by the Lord Jesus Christ, by His perfect, holy, just, and
good obedience. He says back there in Romans
5, go back there with me real quick, Romans 5 verse 19, The second part says, by the
obedience of one shall many be made righteous. By the obedience
of one. That means there's only one person,
one man that ever walked this earth that kept God's law. That's
what that means. There's one. When you hear men
say, well I can keep God's law now. Okay, you don't need Christ
then. Because there's only one man
in scripture that God says has ever obeyed and that's Christ. And He did it. Now look at, keep
reading there Romans 5 20. Moreover the law entered that
the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life. By Jesus Christ our Lord. Whenever
Christ came, The very reason He had to be made of a woman
and He had to be made flesh like unto His brethren and made under
the Law was so that He could redeem us from the curse of the
Law. That's why He came. We couldn't
keep it. If there's anybody, believer
or unbeliever, who could keep the Law themselves, there would
have been no need for Christ to come. Christ had to come to
obey the law for God's people. And if you want to see one who's
holy, just and good as the law, just as holy and just and good
as the law, look at Christ. He's the one. He's the one. And if you want to see what the
holiness, justice and goodness of God requires, loving God and
your neighbor as yourself, look to the cross. That's what He
was doing. He was willing to be made the
least ever of any. To be made the least
for God and His people. That's love. Men want to talk
about their humility and their pride being abased. Nobody's
ever made themselves that least. He that's least shall be greatest
in the Kingdom of God. Who do you think that's talking
about? It's Christ. He gave Himself to be made sin
and to die under the justice of God because that's the righteous
fulfillment of the holiness, justice and goodness of God.
That's the righteous love. That's the fulfillment of the
law. To love God and your neighbor with all your heart, soul and
mind. That's it. You couldn't love
more perfectly. Where does it manifest? In that
one who was willing to take all our iniquities and be made the
least. Do you realize at one point in
time, the Son of God on that cross was forsaken by everybody? His people left Him. God turned
His back on Him. And the rest already hated Him.
The devil and all his seed. And on that cross, when He says
He tried the winepress alone, He did it alone. He did it alone. And that was Him actively obeying
God so that He might justify His people and declare God just
and justified. That's the fulfillment of the
law. And so now when He brings you to call on Him and cast all
your care on Him, He reveals to you that you're dead to sin,
And he says, as he said in Romans 7-4, My brethren, you also become
dead to the law by the body of Christ, that you might be married
to another, even to him that is raised from the dead, that
we should bring forth fruit unto God. Now, is anybody here that's
been slain by this law? Anybody here that you just can't
even lift up your head to God because you see your sin is so
exceedingly sinful? I've got good news for you. That's
who Christ came to save. To find a sinner like that, God's
got to make him. God's got to make him. God's
got to make this commandment come and God's got to make that
kind of sinner. I don't mean God makes you to
be the sinner. I mean He makes you to own it
and to see that you are the guilty one. And God's got to do that.
It's a rare, rare thing to come across somebody that is a real
sinner. A real sinner. Christ said, those
that are whole don't need a physician, but those that are sick. I did
not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. That's who He came to call. So
if He does that, go to Philippians 3. If He's revealed Himself and
God's revealed His Son to you, I'm going to show you what you're
going to do. With all your law keeping, with all your fleshly,
the things you put obedience in, look at verse 7. What things
were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ. All those former
things, Paul said, that I had all this confidence in, he said,
I count them all lost for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all
things but lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus,
my Lord, for whom I've suffered the loss of all things, and I
don't count it to be a loss at all. I don't count them anything
but dumb. That's all they ever were. that
I might win Christ. And be found in Him, not having
mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which
is through the faith of Christ. That's the purpose of the law.
The law was our schoolmaster until we've been brought to Christ,
and after we've been brought to faith in Christ, Paul's been
showing us all through his, we're not under that schoolmaster anymore.
We're children of God by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Now
if He's brought you to that place where you see your sin and you
see there's nothing you can do to please God, I guarantee you
if you call on Him and ask for mercy, He'll shed mercy on you
and He will save you. I guarantee it. Because if you
can confess that, He brought you there. He brought you there
and He'll complete the work. Let's stand together. Father, thank You for this Word.
I pray, Lord, now You bless it to the hearts of Your people.
Make us to know our sin and never again look to our flesh or to
our works, but keep us constantly looking to Christ in whom we're
complete. Lord, forgive us that wicked desire to always lift
up our ugly self-righteous head and look down on others. Kill
that man, Lord, in us. Keep us at Your feet, lowly,
looking up to You. We thank You for Christ's sake,
in His glorious name we pray. Amen.