Looking here in chapter 6 of
1 Corinthians, we began looking at it. And of course, last week
we had talked about the fact that it is among the saints of
God that we are to be our brother's keeper. We are to watch out for
one another and to exhort and rebuke one another, to guide
and direct us in the way. And if a brother is overtaken
in a fault, we are to go to him and to counsel him, considering
ourselves, lest we also be tempted." Well, he goes on to say that among the saints of God, that
if we have been defrauded among, or we feel that we have been
defrauded among saints, then we ought to take our grievances
to the saints, out into the world. There should not be any interaction
between God's people and the court system in solving disputes
and problems among God's people. That is simply what Paul is saying
here. I speak to your shame. Is it
so? There is not a wise man among
you. No, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren.
But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before unbelievers. Now therefore there is utterly
a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why
do you not rather take wrong? Why do you not rather suffer
yourselves to be defrauded?" Well, as he said, it is better
to be defrauded and just lose whatever it is you think is yours
by right than it would be to become embroiled among unbelievers
with the people of God. Let that be handled among the
saints of God. He says, Nay, ye do wrong and
defraud, and that your brethren. In other words, by not willing
to be defrauded yourself, you are defrauding your brethren.
Now, that doesn't sit well with the flesh. It doesn't sit well
with the natural man's thinking, does it? But it's the same thing
that the Lord said, if a man sues you at the law to take away
your coat, give him your cloak also. If he compels you to go
with him a mile, go with him two. If he smites you on the
right cheek, turn to him the left. I mean, that's just not
in keeping, is it, with the law and thinking of men? And that's
very important as Paul comes forward with what he's fixing
to say here, that we know and understand exactly what he is
saying. Now, what he's saying is that
we among the saints of God, those who've been purchased by the
blood of Jesus Christ and set free in Christ from the law of
sin and death, We don't have any business operating in our
mind and in our lives like the world does because we have a
different thought process. Nay, you do wrong and defraud,
and that's your brethren when you are not willing to be defrauded
yourself. Now listen to what he says. Know
ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?
Be not deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters,
nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with
mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers,
nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." Now I am
not going to go into detail about what each one of those things
is. You can look them up and you
can decide, but take my word for it, it covers the gamut of
everything that man could and is guilty of. those things. And so what he is saying here,
as he goes on to say, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards,
nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of
God. It includes all those things. And lest a man think that somebody
out there is going to inherit the kingdom of God by his own
nature, Let him be reminded that that covers everybody. Nobody's
going to inherit the kingdom of God by not being some of these
things. Now those that do those things
will not inherit the kingdom of God. But what he does not
say is, well, don't do those things and you'll inherit the
kingdom of God. Now that's how men think, isn't it? Because
they say, well, I'm not an extortioner. I'm not a drunkard. So, I mean,
that's in my favor, isn't it? Well, what about all the rest
of them? I mean, you know, have you never had any thoughts toward
those things if you've never committed the action? Of course
you have. I mean, that's just the way of
nature. It's the way of men. But then listen to what he says.
And such were some of you. He said that's what you were.
Now, in reality, if He was speaking to them in the flesh, He wouldn't
say, such were some of you. He'd say, such are some of you.
But He's not talking about that. He's talking about what they
are in Christ. He says, such were some of you,
but ye are washed. Now, we're not a bit different. In the flesh, that is, in what
we are by nature, our nature has not changed. We are just
what we have been born to be. We are what we are. But we have
been washed, he said. You have been made clean. He
said something has happened here. You are washed. You are sanctified. You are set apart. You are justified. As far as the law is concerned,
You are not an extortioner. As far as the law is concerned,
you are not a drunkard. As far as the law is concerned,
none of these things apply to you. Why? Because Jesus Christ
has satisfied the claims of the law. You are justified. Now,
if a man is justified before the law, then he can walk free
from the courtroom game. I mean, you can go in there accused
of all kinds of crimes. But if the judge says you are
justified, what does he mean? He said the law can't have any
hold on you. It can't do a thing to you. It
can't condemn you. It can't bring you into condemnation. And that is very important as
we understand what justification is as we read on into this. But ye are justified in the name
of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of God, not only in the
authority of Christ and through the power of the working of the
Spirit of God, who has taken these things that Christ has
done and applied them to us, and brought us out of darkness
and into the light, and such we were. We have left that behind. We are not that anymore. Now,
when we were born again by the Spirit of God and our mind was
brought to a place of belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, we
were taken from darkness and into the light and shown something
that we had not heretofore seen. Something happened. It did happen. It happened that we were made
new creatures in Christ. Now, we didn't cease to be old
creatures, but we became new creatures. That's what we are.
We're new creatures. We're creatures that never existed
before. Because you see, before we were
all those things. Now we're not those things because
of what Christ has done. And now listen to what he says
here. He says, All things are lawful
unto me. Now that's a mouthful. And a
lot of people don't believe that. A lot of people don't think Paul
was wrong. A lot of people think Paul's
overstepped his bounds. But listen to what he's saying.
He says, such were some of you. But He says, now all things are
lawful. Now think about it a minute.
What's He saying? He's saying what He said in Romans
chapter 8 and verse 1. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. Now that's a statement of fact.
Now there is nothing, zero, nada, zilch, there is nothing that
can bring the sons of God into condemnation if they are in Christ. Is that not what he is saying
there? He's not saying now they're sitting in a precarious place.
They're in Christ. But if they do the wrong thing,
you're going to get out of Christ. Is that what he said? No. He said you were that, but you're
not that anymore. Why? Because of something that
Christ did. And if Christ did it, then there's
no condemnation to you. And listen to what he says. All
things are lawful unto me. Now boy, the flesh says, Oh boy! All things are lawful. I'll just
go do anything that my flesh desires. Wait a minute. He said, that's what you were.
He said, that's what used to be the mindset that you had. He said, that's how the flesh
thinks. He says, you were that. He said, but you've been washed.
He says, you've been sanctified. You've been cleansed. You've
been justified. He says, now, whereas before,
all of those things that your flesh delighted in and ran after,
He said, they were things that were bringing condemnation to
you. He said, that's no longer the case. He says, they can't
condemn you. He says, all things are lawful
to you. Now, that all is a big thing. All things are lawful. You mean
it would be lawful for me to go kill somebody? In the context
in which Paul says it right there, it would be. Now, would it be
a violation of God's law, the Ten Commandments, if you went
and killed somebody? Well, of course it would. Paul
is not saying that the Ten Commandments have changed. What he is saying
is that our relationship to those laws have changed. And therefore,
there is no condemnation to us And all things are lawful and
I can't be brought under condemnation by anything that I do because
of the fact that Christ died. Now it's very important that
we keep this in mind. But then he says, but all things
are not expedient. That is, all things are not useful.
All things are not helpful. Now when we walked in the flesh,
the only thing we were concerned about was could we get by with
it. You know, that was what we thought,
wasn't it? I mean, as long as we can get by with it and not
get in trouble, we were willing to do it. Now, you know, it's
amazing that there are many things that restrain men in the world
from committing various things. I mean, some men don't commit
murder because they fear the consequences of it. It's not
because they're not murderous in their heart. I mean, there's
probably been times in your heart that, you know, you've thought
about that you'd just like kill somebody. And you would have
done it, but that was something that restrained you, and that
was the grace of God, we know that. But maybe you feared the
consequences, or there was something that restrained
you. So Paul's saying here, he says, all things are lawful to
you, But all things are not useful to you. They're not beneficial
to you. And so the thinking that the
children of God have is not that we do things because we can do
them. Now some people look at Christian
liberty as being that which a Christian can do. Well, we can do anything.
We've got liberty to do anything. Well, that's not going to bring
you into condemnation. I mean, you know, you can go
drink and get drunk. That's not going to bring you
into condemnation. Now, is that a good thing? Would
you think it would be a good thing? No, it wouldn't be a good
thing. And therefore Paul said, all things are lawful to me,
but they are not expedient. They are not useful. Now, why
am I going to resort to the thinking of the flesh when I've been washed and made
clean? Why am I going to fall under
the deception of doing something because I can do it, rather than
doing things because it's a good thing? See, that's what he's
saying here. All things are lawful unto me,
but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful to me,
but then listen to what he says, but I will not be brought under
the power of any. Now I'm going to use a simple
illustration here, and I'm not picking on this one thing. I
don't think anybody in here even has this problem, addiction or
whatever you want to call it. Let's say smoking. Now, you can
light up as many cigarettes as you want to and smoke them until
you can't hardly breathe anymore. And it's lawful to you. Nothing
is going to bring you into condemnation if you are in Christ. But it's not expedient, is it? Not only that, but listen to
what Paul said, I will not be brought under the power of any. He says, I won't let anything
in the flesh control me. He says, I'll war against it.
Now you see, this is what he's getting at right here. He said,
sure, you can do that. You can do that. It's not going
to bring in condemnation, but it's not helpful. It's not useful. It's not bringing glory to God
in the fact that you become addicted to something. Now, let's talk
about something that everybody does have a problem with. Since
we talked about something maybe most everybody don't have a problem
with, let's talk about something everybody does have a problem
with. What about eating? Now, eating is a good thing.
I mean, the Lord made good food for our benefit. You know, just
think, what if we had to eat sawdust? I mean, what if that
was what we lived off of? That wouldn't be very enjoyable.
It would be pretty easy not to eat much, would it? But the Lord
gave us good food. Now, is the problem the good
food? No, the problem is not the good
food. What's the problem? It's how
we think about it, is it not? And so because I can go and eat
a whole cake, and it's not going to bring me
into condemnation, but it's not expedient for me to eat a whole
cake, is it? It's not useful. Not only that,
it's not good to be brought under the power of it, is it? To just
eat because we want to eat, not eat because we need to eat. And
so there's what the difference is. So Paul says all things are
lawful to me, but all things are not expedient. All things
are lawful, but I will not be brought under the power of any."
I'm not going to be controlled by the flesh, is basically what
he says here. He's going to war against it.
Now, here's the thing. You see, God's people are stirred
by the Spirit of God to war against the flesh. Paul said, I don't
always do what I know to do. Sometimes we do the wrong thing
in spite of all these warnings, don't we? That's why he says,
I cannot be brought under the power of any of these things.
You see, the power to condemn is not in any of those things,
for there is no law against the sons of God. All things are lawful. Then he says, meats for the belly
and the belly for meats. Now he's using food here as an
illustration of all things having to do with the flesh. He is saying,
meats for the belly and the belly for meats. I mean, the flesh
has got certain needs and things, desires and that sort of thing,
and these things can be fulfilled. But He said, that is not what
we live for. But God shall destroy both it
and them. Because you see, the power of
the flesh is not the power of our life. The power of the flesh
is not that which controls the children of God. We have a nobler
calling, do we not? I mean, are the sons of God called
to be drunkards and extortioners and all of those things? No.
You see, because there is a law against those things, But against
the children of God there are no laws. There is no law against
love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness,
temperance. Against such there is no law. There is no condemnation
to the people of God. God shall destroy both it and
them. The flesh is going to be destroyed. Now listen to what
he is saying. Now remember that the issue that he had with them
was over the subject, the matter of fornication, sexual impurity. He says, listen to what he said,
now the body is not for fornication. The Lord didn't create sexuality
for the purpose of misusing it and abusing it. He created it
for His own purpose, which was for the good of men, the good
of mankind. Now the body is not for fornication,
but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. Now remember, He's talking about
what's expedient. He's talking about what's proper.
He's talking about what's right. He's not talking about something
that can bring us into condemnation. I mean, can a child of God be
brought into condemnation by sexual impurity? Not according
to what Paul said. He said, all things are lawful
to me. But he said the body is not for
fornication. That's not why the Lord made
us, and that's certainly not why Jesus Christ cleansed us
and washed us in His blood. It is not so that we could freely
have sexual impurity among us of whatever type it might be.
Because you see, men like to try to categorize this, and they
like to say, well, this type of sexual impurity, I mean, looking
at pornographic pictures or whatever, that's okay. That's not anything
wrong with that. But now if you go over here and
you commit adultery with another person's wife or husband, now
there's something wrong with that. But you see, as far as
what the Scripture is speaking about here and how God is doing
these things, all of this does the same thing. It doesn't make
any difference what the activity is or to what degree a person
goes into it. It's wrong before God. But dear brethren, Now, Paul's
making a distinction here, but he said, and he's using this
particular thing as the distinction. Now, it's as if he said fornication
is not unlawful. Now, that'll get you thrown out
of a lot of places. It's not unlawful. But, dear
brethren, we're not concerned with what is lawful as far as
what can I get by with. and not go to hell. See, that's
how a lot of people look at it. Oh, well, you better not do that
because God's wrath will come down on you and you'll be sent
to hell. No. That's not how we're looking
at this, dear brethren, because we've been washed. We've been
sanctified. We've been cleansed by the Spirit
of God. Our mind's been renewed in Christ. And though all things are lawful
to us, all things are not expedient, and certainly not those type
things, They are not expedient. And so why on earth would we
be brought under the power of them, he is saying? The body
is not for fornication, but for the Lord and the Lord for the
body. And God hath both raised up the
Lord and will also raise us up by His own power. Know ye not
that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take
the members of Christ and make them members of an harlot? God forbid. So listen to what he's saying.
He says, all things are lawful to me. He says, it's not a matter
of law as to whether or not you could go and lay with a harlot. Now, that's pretty straightforward. But in essence, that's what he's
saying. It's not that you cannot do that. But he said it's not
expedient and it's most certainly not in keeping with the life
that is expected and demanded by the Spirit of God of those
who are walking in the Spirit of Christ. Your body is not to
be made members of a harlot. You don't have any business doing
that. And when you do that, you've been overtaken in a fault. No,
you can't be brought into condemnation, but that's not what you're...
We're not going to be sitting around thinking, well, what can
I do now that I can avoid condemnation, but I can go on and I can go
just up to the edge. See, that's how the flesh thinks,
isn't it? You know, I don't want to step over the line. Well,
what Paul is saying is there is no line. There's no line. You can't step over the line. There's no line. The directive
is what's expedient, what's good, what brings glory to Christ.
What is it that would cause us to praise God more? That's why He saved us there,
brethren. That's why He brought us out
of darkness and into the light. So we don't live under the cloud
of the law. And we don't put restrictions
on God's people. We exhort God's people to remember
who they are and to walk in such a fashion as is becoming the
gospel of Christ. You see, that's the law of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Because you see, there's no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the law but
after the Spirit. Now that's a statement of fact.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, that's
what he's talking about right here. The law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death. I'm not under that law anymore. I'm not under the cloud
of it. But because I'm not under the
cloud of it doesn't mean, well, now I kick off the traces and
just let my flesh run wild. Why would I do that? Would that be expedient? Would
that be useful? Would that bring glory to God?
Would going to law against my brother, would that be useful?
How would that help anything? Oh, I might get my possession,
but what would I be doing? All I'd be doing would be justifying
myself in the world, in the flesh, but not before Christ. Because
you see, if I would be like Christ, I would be those who, when I
was accused, I didn't say anything. When I was threatened, I didn't
turn back. I prayed for those that threatened
me, those that misused me. I desired their best. You see,
that's what Christ has called His people to be. That's what
He demands of us. Now, He didn't demand it of us
and He says, if you don't do it, I'll kill you. No. He says, I expect that of you.
He said, because you're washed. You're cleansed. See, there's
a different perspective that God's people are to have about
how they walk in this world. Not as though the law is hanging
over their head and they can go right up to a certain edge
as long as they don't go past. You know, a kid, if you tell
him, don't mess with that over there, and he'll get over there
and you'll say, now don't touch it. And he'll get down there
and his hand will get going down, you know, and when he thinks
you're not looking, he'll reach out there and do that. And then
he's thinking, well, I did all right. Well, no. See, that's
not the thinking of the children of God, is thinking, well, how
far can we go up? We can do this. I mean, that's
not how we're to be thinking about things, but rather, is
it profitable? Is it useful? Does it bring glory
to God? Is it that which would magnify
the name of Christ? And that is, dear brethren, the
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.