Romans 7, and I want to begin
reading in verse 14. I'm not going to look at these
verses in particular, but I do want to read them. I don't have
the understanding or the ability to explain these verses, that's
for sure. But like you, I have to a degree
experienced what the Apostle is speaking of here. In verse
14, we know, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am
carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do, I allow
not. For what I would, that do I not,
but what I hate, that I do. If then I do that which I would
not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no
more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that
in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. For to
will is present with me, but how to perform that which is
good I find not. For the good that I would I do
not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that
I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth
in me. I find in a law that when I would do good, evil is present
with me. For I delight in the law of God
after the inward man. But I see another law in my members
warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this dead? I thank
God through Christ Jesus our Lord. So then with a mind I myself
serve the law of God, but with a flesh the law of sin." My comments
mainly tonight will be limited here to verse 25. Verse 22, I delight in the law
of God after the inward man. But I began reading here in verse
12 for this reason, because it's here in verse 12 that the Apostle
Paul, if that's where I began indeed to read, was it? Verse
14. I'm sorry, I should begin in
verse 12. I wanted to do that because you'll notice that the
Apostle Paul changes his tense in verse 12. He had been speaking
in verse 7 through verse 11 in the past tense, and then in verse
12 he comes to the present tense. Therefore, the law is holy, the
commandment is holy and just and good. And what he is telling
us beginning in verse 12, is what he knows now, what he's
experiencing now. In verses 7 through verse 11,
he told us what he did not know and what he had not experienced
before his conversion. Now, the Apostle Paul, Saul the
Apostle, he was an ignorant and deceived man. Now, I've never
called him that, but he calls himself that. He is writing to
Timothy. Brother read it this morning
and he said, I was a blasphemer, I was persecutor and injurious,
but I did it ignorantly. He was an ignorant man. That's
why he did what he did. And he was writing to Titus and
he said, I was disobedient, I was deceived. So he was an ignorant
and deceived man. In verse 7 and through verse
11, he's going to tell us two of the things here that he was
deceived concerning. He was ignorant concerning these
two things. And look here with me right quickly. In verse 8, he was ignorant of
the nature of the moral law. He was ignorant of the nature
of the law of Moses, the ten commandment law. And here's what
he says about it in verse 8. But sin, taken occasion by the
commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence, for
without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law
once. Now when Paul says you're without
the law, When I was without the law, he never was without the
law. When he was eight days old, he was circumcised. This man
was always under the law, but his meaning is he was without
a knowledge of the law. He had no understanding of what
the law had taught him, what it taught. He says that in verse
8, and he says it again there in verse 9. He read the Ten Commandments. He memorized the Ten Commandments.
He no doubt could say them backwards, but he had no knowledge But look here now again in verse
12 and verse 14, and he speaks in the present tense, and you
see here he's gained the knowledge of the law. The law is holy,
the commandment holy, just and good. And he says in verse 14,
we know that the law is spiritual. You mean he didn't know that
before? He did not know that before. When he looked upon the
law before, he looked at it as something weak. I can keep that. He had no idea the law was spiritual,
that it reached the heart of an individual. He was always
looking at the letter. He did not understand the law. And something else he was ignorant
of here, and that was in regard to his sin. He was ignorant,
but he was a sinner. He said in the last portion of
verse 7, look at this, this is an amazing statement. He said
here, what shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. I
had not known sin, but by the law, for I had not known lust,
except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. Here was a man
who continued in his childhood, through his teenage years, and
probably up into his twenties, and he could honestly say, I
have not known lust. I can't relate to that, and you
probably can't either, but here's a man that said, I have not known
lust. And look here again what he says in the last portion of
verse 8. Again, the very last portion.
Without the law, sin was dead. And he says in verse 9, I was
alive once. Now he's not saying this literally. He's not saying sin was dead
literally. It was well alive in this man. He had no sense of it. He had
no knowledge that it was there. Oh, it was alive. It was working
very well in him. But he had no sense of it. He
had no knowledge that he himself was a sinner. Sin was dead. It was dead to him. No conscience
of it. And notice here in verse 14 what
he says now. He's changed his opinion of himself. We know that the law is spiritual,
but I am carnal. He had no sin, no knowledge,
no sense of sin. But now he's changed his mind.
He says, I indeed am carnal. What was it that brought about
this change? Well, he tells us here again
in verse 9. And this is so important, look
at this. Here is what brought about this change in this man's
mind. He says here, I was alive without
the law once, without the knowledge of the law. But when the commandment
came, you see, he had gone to the commandment.
He had gone to the law. He had read the law. He had trusted
in the law for his salvation. He was Moses' disciple. But now
everything changes. Now the law comes to him. Now the law comes to his conscience. Now the law comes to his heart. Before he had gone to the law,
he had read the law and he had interpreted the law. But now
the law comes and interprets itself to his conscience. And
that's altogether different. I don't understand the law. I'll
interpret it according to the letter. But when the law comes
and reaches my heart, it reaches my conscience. What does it do
then? Oh, this man, this man, it's
like Moses, he said, It's like Moses with those flashing eyes
and that thunderous voice. He comes to me and he says, Saul
of Tarshish, you are a lustful man. You are a thief. You are a robber. I've never
taken anything that wasn't mine, but you desired it. You longed
for that which was not lawful for you to have. You are a covetous
man. Saul of Tarshish, you are a murderer. I've never killed anybody. Everyone
I've killed has been out of a just cause. I've had documents that
I could do it. You're a murderer. No. Yes, you're
a murderer. You have hate in your heart. See the difference? Here he was
going along in his self-confidence, boasting how he kept the law
until the law comes to him and interprets itself to his conscience.
And then what happens? He said, when the commandment
came, sin revived. Now he has the sense of it. Now
he sees how exceedingly sinful it is. Now he stands face to
face before God as it were guilty. Guilty before God. And what happens
to him? Well, he uses this language.
I died. Well, Paul? You didn't die? Here you are, you're writing
this epistle to us. You didn't die? What do you mean
you died? I died to my high opinion of myself. I came down. I came down in the dust. My confidence
that I had in my flesh was no more. I died to that. I died
to self-salvation. I died. The reason we have so many people
trying to save themselves to this very day, they have no idea
of the nature of the law of God. And as long as a man is ignorant
of the nature of God's law, he'll be ignorant of the nature of
his own self. And as long as a man stays ignorant
of the nature of himself, he'll never seek the nature of the
Lord Jesus Christ as a complete Savior. I said that he was ignorant of
two things, he was ignorant of three things, he was ignorant
of those two things, but he was also ignorant of how a sinner
who finds himself under this curse who finds himself condemned
and guilty before God. How can that sinner be saved?
How can he be possibly accepted with God who is holy? How can
he be justified if he is guilty of law-breaking? Well, he finds
that out too. And look what he says here in
chapter 8. This is what the Apostle Paul found out. There is therefore
now no condemnation. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh
but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death, for what the law could not do." That's what he learned
with him. What the law could not do. and
that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son
in the likeness of sinful flesh to fulfill the law in the days
of His flesh. Thy law is within my heart. It's
there preserved. It's there honored. It's there
magnified. And as a sacrifice for sin, He
put sin to death in His flesh on that cross. Paul learned how
a condemned sinner is justified. Now, I like this because my experience
is not exactly like this great apostle, but it correlates to
his experience. Because I continued for a while
myself. I had no idea that I was a sinner.
I didn't go as long as this man. God awakened me at an early age. But He just aroused me enough
to make me miserable. And I tried to save myself. I
didn't go to the ten commandments of the law, but I went to my
conscience and worked out my own criteria as to what I thought
God expected me to do before He could save me. And until he
pressed upon my soul my utter hopelessness and helplessness
and misery, and I died to myself. I died to seek salvation to what
I could do, and then's when I found out what Paul found out. That
Jesus Christ, if He's determined to save a man, it's going to
be Him that saves him. You ask me when a man is saved,
he's not saved until the Lord saves him. And the Lord don't
save him by laws. The Lord don't save him by ordinances.
The Lord saves him by Himself. By His grace. By His blood. By His intercession. The Lord
saves a man. The Lord saves a man by Himself. By His grace. And I found that
out. And then I saw what the Apostle
Paul saw. The first time in my life I saw
it. Most joyous thing I ever learned in my life. I was accepted. I was accepted. Oh, I beheld
the angry face of God all my life, but for the first time
I saw He wasn't angry with me anymore. For Christ's sake, He
had received me. I was accepted. The reason I'm
interested in this, not only because of that, But here we have this great man,
this great apostle that tells us how ignorant he was, how deceived
he was, and now that he was in Christ, uncondemned. But he goes
on now to tell us about his daily life in this world. What's it like being a Christian
in this world? What is a Christian? What does
he feel? What's he like? What does he
think? And we learn this from the Apostle
Paul. And this is why I'm a little
bit interested in this this evening. Because I want to see what it
is to be a child of God. Because here was one. He was
converted, and here he was. And the first thing we learn
about a child of God, what is he? What is a child of God? The first thing we learn about
him, he's a very, very mysterious person. He's a very complex person. He's a paradox. He's a mystery. Not to other people so much.
He's not a mystery to his neighbors. They just watch him and he comes
and goes like everybody else. He works, he supports his family.
He goes to worship. He's just a simple man living
a simple life. But he's complex. He's a mystery
to himself. That's what we learn from verse
22. Look at this, verse 22 and verse
24. Look what it says. This is obvious. This man here,
he's obviously a godly man. He's obviously a good man, because
he said in verse 22, I delight in the law of God after the inward
man. An unregenerated man can't say
that, can he? You say, Bruce, there's a lot
of hypocrites who say that, but this man's not a hypocrite. He's
an inspired apostle. And he says, I delight in God. I delight in the law of God.
But then he goes down here now in verse 24 and says, O wretched
man that I am. Well, is he a righteous man who
delights in the law of God? Or is he a miserable wretch?
He's both. He's both. A believer is two
people, and his Father proves you in verse 25 because he tells
us that he serves two masters. Now, that's frightful to think
about that. Because remember what the Master said, no man
can serve two masters. But here's a man who says, I
serve two masters. Is that not what he says in verse
25? I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord, so then with
the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with a carnal nature,
with the old man, I serve the law of sin. At the same time,
he serves God, he serves sin. Now that's a mystery to me. That's
a paradox to me. That's an utter impossibility
to natural reason. He's a man who is spiritual because
he says, I delight in the law of God. Yet, at the same time,
he says, I'm not spiritual at all. I'm carnal. I'm sold unto
sin. At the same time, he says, I
have no condemnation. He says, I'm a slave to sin.
Are you a slave to sin? Are you free? Both. Both. Here in verse 15, let me show
you, let me read this to you and show you what a paradox he
is to himself, what a mystery he is to himself. Let me read
this to you from the Amplified commentary. In verse 15, you
read it here in our version, let me read it to you in the
Amplified. It says this, I do not understand
my actions. I am baffled. I am bewildered. I do not practice or accomplish
what I wish, but I do the very thing that I love. Now let me make this clear. Let's
make this clear. This is nothing going on here
that you can see. This is not talking about you
watching a man. And he's going down to Walmart,
and he says, boy, there's a beautiful watch, and I don't want to take
it, but I can't have it. So he puts it in his pocket and
walks out with it. That's enough of that. This is
going on inside. This is within me, in my members,
a law warring against my mind. It's taking place within a man. It's the warfare going on in
every child of God. You can't explain it. Some of
you dear brothers can explain it pretty well. Most of us just
experience it, don't we? It's verse 22 here mainly that
I want to dwell on. The statement that the Apostle
Paul makes here in the light of what I've been saying. He
says this, I delight in the law of God after the inward man. The inward man. Now you read
a lot about this in the scripture. In other places, in Ephesians
4 and Colossians 3, he's called the new man. In other places,
he's called a new creature. Now, he's called that, and that
is to teach us that he is indeed new. He's never been before. It's not that God comes to a
sinner and remodels him. It's not that he guts out the
building and puts everything new in, in the way of renovation. He is a new man who has never
been there before. A new creation. Now if anybody would object to
this, this new man, all I can do is give scripture for it.
I can't reason this out. I can't give you human logic. I'm not that smart. But I can
give you scripture. New man. Paul's new man here
is James' man who was begotten by the Word of Truth. He's Peter's
hidden man of the heart that's been begotten by the incorruptible
seed. He's John's man that's born of
God. He's Christ's man that's born
of the water and of the Spirit. You see this in shadows and pictures and types and promises
all through the Old Testament. This new man that's never been
there before. When the Lord clothed our parents,
they never had had those clothes on before. That baby that was
cast out, the baby was dead. The life that came was new. This
new man in Ezekiel is Ezekiel's new heart and new spirit. Now, brothers and sisters, there's
only one way to get into this world, and you know this. It's
my birth. There's only one way to get into
the kingdom of God, and that's a new birth. A new birth. A new life. And in that new life
is a new creature, a new man that never was there before. He's new. He's a new man. He
never existed before. He's begotten and born of God. Why does the apostle here call
him a man? Well, I think there's many scriptural
reasons why he's called a man. He has these man-like faculties. He's said to have the mind of
Christ, whatever that means. With a mind, I myself serve the
law of God. We know he has a mind because
he has understanding. The Son of God has come and given
us an understanding. We know He has a mind because
He has knowledge, and He increases in knowledge of Him who created. Secondly, He has not only a mind,
we're told that He has a mouth, because He drinks. He drinks
milk. He eats bread. He eats meat. And he must have a digestive
system because as he drinks the water of life, as he drinks the
milk of the Word, as he eats the bread of life, he grows. He grows. He's capable of growth. And when he's born, he's a baby.
And then he grows up and he's a man. He's a man. He's said
to have eyes. He sees the Son of God and believes
on Him. He looks at things which are
not seen. He's got special eyes. He don't
have eyes like you and I have, but I tell you, he can see. He's
looking for the blessed hope. He's looking unto Jesus, the
author and the finisher of his faith. He had eyes. He has ears
because he hears sounds and voices that those who are in a natural
state never hear. He hears the voice of the shepherd
and he follows him. He has ears. And don't he have
feet? He has feet. He's always running
to Jesus. How can you run without feet?
This man, he's an inner man, but he is a man because he has
feet. He's a follower of God as a dear
child, and he has hands. And with those hands, he feels
after God. And sometimes he finds it, and
oh, he embraces it. He feels after these precious
promises, and he gets ahold of one, and he embraces it. He won't
let them go. He has hands. He's like that
spider that takes a hold with her hands and she's in kings
palace. This new man has hands. And he
has a nose. Because Jesus Christ to him,
to his smell is a sweet bundle of myrrh and a cluster of sweet
camphor. He's a man. And he says something else about
this man here. Not only is he a man, but he's
an inward man as opposed to the outward man. He's a new man as
opposed to the old man. And he says that he's inward
because you can't see him. He's spiritual. He is a spiritual
man. This old man is perishing. Because he's flesh. That which
is born of the flesh is flesh. And you can't make anything else
out of it. He'll never rise above what he is. Flesh. He's carnal. He's tempting. But this inward
man is renewed day by day. Who renews him? But one that
can renew this inward man, and that's Him who created him. He's
a spiritual individual, and the only one who can uphold Him and
strengthen Him and comfort Him is the Spirit Himself. Being strengthened with all might
by His Spirit in the inner man. Why does the inner man have to
be conquered and appalled by the spirit? Nobody else can do
it. Nobody else can do it. Whatever
means God uses, He has to do it. To this man will I look. to him that's poor and of a contract
spirit, and trembles at my word. I'm going to look to him. I have
to. I've created him. I'm his God. I'm his Savior. I'm his Redeemer. And if I don't uphold him, then
he'll fall. Nobody else can. Fear not, for I am with thee.
Don't be dismayed, I'm thy God. Yea, I will strengthen thee,
I'll help thee, I'll uphold thee. Who's he talking about? This
inward man. This inward man. There's something else here about
this too. I want you to look at his disposition, the temperament
of this inward man. He's a man, he's an inward man.
But look at his disposition. I delight, he said. He's a charming
soul, ain't he? I delight. I delight in God. I joy in God. I rejoice in Christ Jesus. He draws water out of the wells
of salvation with joy. He has the peace of God in him. He has peace with God. He's a
gentle soul. He's a loving soul, a tender
soul. I delight. Oh, I tell you, the
children of God are delightful people to be with. If you can
get beyond the flesh, beyond the old carnal man, and you sit
down and really get to talk to this man, oh, you can have such
sweet fellowship. Ain't it sweet meeting like we
are this week? Can you imagine what heaven is
going to be like? Filled with men who delight in
God. John Bunyan said, the Lord indeed
has a few men, He has a few children, that you can't enjoy much in
this world. You're going to have to wait until you get to heaven
to enjoy. He said they take literally the
hidden man of the heart. You can't hardly find him. But
when you find him, Oh, you can delight in Him. He's such a joy. He won't hurt you. He's gentle. He's neat like the master and
lowly. I delight. Delight yourself in
the Lord. I do. Don't you enjoy God? Sometimes you don't enjoy Him
because of this old man. But when the Lord's hid His face
and you weep, but your priority is, oh, let me enjoy you. And
you'll never be satisfied until you behold the face of Him that
created you, will you? That's going to be your chief
joy, being with Him, delighting yourself with Him. I tell you,
if a lost man went to heaven, he wouldn't be happy. He'd be
the most miserable man there. A man told me, you mean we're
not going to fish? He said, you mean all we're going
to do is to sit around and worship God? Oh my, I worship God. Oh my soul leaps to think about
it, I tell you. Worship, worship, delight, delight. His nature, that's His nature.
I delight in the law of God. I delight in God who gave the
law. I delight in the gospel of God,
the law of the spirit of life. I'll tell you, this new man,
he delights in holiness. He's been created in righteousness
and true holiness. He delights in holiness. You
know what? He don't have a pinned-up hand.
God didn't come and say, I'm going to declare you to be holy.
I'm going to put a pin on you that says you are holy. He created
him in righteousness and true holiness. He's in the image of
God who is holy. He loves holiness. He delights
in holiness. Holiness begins here, and it
begins with this inward man. And if he don't begin working
you here, dear soul, to make you holy, you wouldn't enjoy
heaven if you went there. Everything there is holy. The
triune gods there, they sang holy, holy, holy. Holy angels
were there. That's a holy city. Holiness. Holiness. Don't you long never to sin again? Oh, if I had my brothers, if
God grant me one request, it would be this, never let me sin
again. Never let me sin again. Make
me like you. I'll never be satisfied till
I wake in your perfect likeness. Holiness. Holiness. Who is this man? Who is he? We know that he's a man. He has
the faculties of the man. We know he's an inward man. You
can't see him. We know he's a delightful soul.
He's a holy person. But who is he really? And I'll
throw for this, but get this. Who is this inward man? Well, it's you. It's you, Jim. It's me. It's I. I. He's not something apart from
me. He's not somebody apart from me. You don't stand looking within
yourself looking for a new creature. He don't look inside saying,
I'm trying to find this holy man. You won't find him. It's
you. I delight in God. It's me. See that? Well, Bruce, if you're that man
then that delights in God, you are this inward man. You're Him,
really. Then who's this old wretched
man? That's me too. That's me too. I tell you, this first man, this
infant man, it's more difficult to find him. It seems like this
old man is indeed older and more experienced than I am. He's first. Now, you know, Horatius Baumar,
and I love him dearly. He's a better man than I'll ever
be. But he asked a question that should never be asked. in this
gender strife, and he should never have asked it. And he asked
this. He said, if a man indeed has
two natures, and he is two men in one, he said, who sins then? The inward man or the old man? Is it the one who is created
in righteousness and true holiness, or is it the old man who sins?
You see, this is why, brothers and sisters, we stay in the Scriptures.
These two men are so woven together as the body and the soul, as
the joints and the myra. And only the Lord Himself can
completely distinguish these two men. That doesn't surprise
us. We have three in one. Our God,
is He not three in one? In perfect unity? Does it surprise
us that we can have two and one in perfect opposition? Can you
explain the Trinity? Neither can you explain these
two men. And sometimes you can't tell them apart. Is that not so? But let me answer
that question. Who is it that sins then? Who
is it that confesses then? Who is it then that gets pardoned?
Here's the answer to that. I sin. I confess. I get forgiveness. And that's
enough for me to know. Ain't that so? I am the new man. You are the
new man. And you are indeed to me. And
we're content to leave it at that. God bless you.