I want to turn tonight, if you
will, if you have a copy of the word of God, to the book of Romans,
chapter 7. Chapter 7 of the book of Romans. I want to read, beginning with
the 14th verse, down through verse 25. For we know that the law is spiritual,
but I am carnal, sold under sin. That word carnal there is fleshly.
I am fleshly. I am flesh, sold under sin. For
that which I do, I allow not. For what I would, that do I not,
but what I hate, that do I. 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 the 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 then 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 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. Now I want to read verse 22 and
23 again if you would listen carefully. 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. I want to talk to
you tonight about something that's been on my heart for just a while.
I was doing a considerable amount of meditation on the way over
here and these things kept coming back to my mind. And I really
believe that the Lord is in me talking to you tonight about
this subject. I want to talk about the dual
nature that we have as the children of God and the dual that we have
going on inside of us because we have this dual nature. And this portion of the Word
of God here that we've read tonight is part of the experience of
the Apostle Paul. Now, I recognize that that's
kind of difficult for you to believe when we read such things
as what he had to say here. He said, I find then a law that
when I would do good, evil is present with me. I'm talking
about the Apostle Paul. I'm not talking about a novice.
Paul was no novice in the faith, and this didn't take place before
his conversion. We know that there are many that
believe that that this chapter described Paul's condition before
he was converted or before he was regenerated by the Spirit
of God. Well, we don't believe any such thing as that. Verse
22 says, For I delight in the law of God after the inward man.
Now, beloved, no unregenerate, no lost man, no man who is in
a state of nature loves the law of God in his inward man. We know and recognize that only
a saved man would delight in the law of God in his heart,
in the new man. Paul's talking about when he's
talking about the inward man, he's talking about that new man
that is formed in a child of God. We read in the book of 2
Corinthians chapter 5 verse 17 that if any man be in Christ,
he's a new creation. Old things are passed away and
all things become new. There's a new man that is formed
in a child of God, a child of grace, when he's converted And
that new man is Jesus Christ. That's the inward man. That's
the divine nature. That's the very nature of God.
Now, the Apostle Paul was in the front ranks of believers. He was a writer of scripture.
He was an imminent saint, a man in Christ, whose example we still
follow to this very day. The church of our Lord Jesus
Christ is still following the example and the scriptures as
this man wrote them under the inspiration of the Spirit of
God. Now Paul knows the truth, beloved. He knows the truth about
the flesh and the truth about the Spirit. I recognize that
the religious world today is confused and turned upside down
by what the Apostle Paul says here because the religious world
is big on flesh and big on works religion. The religious world,
that's the thing that they're big about is doing, doing, doing. They don't know much about believing
and trusting the Lord Jesus Christ for full salvation. It's what
can we do. It's what I've done. It's when
I've done it. All of these things, the religious
world is big on that. But I come to say some things
here to you tonight that I hope will be instructive and helpful
to you. Many, many people do not understand
what's going on in this chapter and they do not know what's going
on in themselves. Now, I've come to say that I
question whether any man understands himself, even a lost man. I remember Plato reading where
he said that every man is two men in themselves. And even Mark
Twain made the statement, he said, every man is like the moon. there's a dark side of him he's
never shown to anybody and so we recognize that people suspect
that there is there's you know in every man may be two sides
to the man there's a side that that he you know that he portrays
to everybody and he wants everybody to think he's this kind of a
person and then there's another side of him that he very seldom
ever shows to anybody but nevertheless it's there and Now that's just
an ordinary man, but a child of God has two natures. A child of God is different.
Now a man born into this world, he may be two people, but he
only has one nature. But when a man is born of the
Spirit of God, quickened and regenerated by God's Spirit,
then he has within him two natures. And I'm quite certain that very
few Christians understand anything about what's going on on the
inside of them. And I have made the statement
on a number of occasions that I wish that when I was a young
believer, when I just was converted, that there had been somebody
around to take the seventh chapter of the book of Romans and teach
me something about what to expect as a child of God living in this
world and dealing with this body of sin that I'm living in, what
to expect in this situation. But I didn't have anybody around
to do that, so I stumbled around and made a lot of mistakes and
had an awful lot of experiences that just almost overwhelmed
me because I just couldn't believe that it could be that way with
me and me still be a child of God. But nevertheless, I've come
by the grace of God to this day. Now, the believer is a great
riddle to himself, And he's a riddle to everybody around him. He can't
understand himself. He can't understand why things
are like they are with him. He is deserved of no man, the
Bible says. He's understood of no man. Nobody
can tell exactly what makes him tick. Why he's like he is. But now each Christian, as we
said, is two men in one. And oftentimes to himself, the
evil man within him appears to be uppermost and yet by the grace
of God it never can be for the ultimate victory belongs to the
new man that has been formed in us. There is a victory and
that victory is going to be had ultimately by the new man. There's going to come a time
when this body, which is a body of sin, is going to be worm pudding,
if you please, and this body is going through the sieve of
the worms, and this body is going back to the dust of the earth,
and in the day that your breath leaves your body, that'll be
the end of the old man and the old nature, and it'll be gone.
Thank God it'll be gone forever. The new man is ultimately going
to win. But there's many, many times,
especially as young believers, we don't realize this truth,
we don't know this, And it looks like that the old man's going
to get the victory finally, and that we're actually going to
be overcome. But the Bible says, the elder
shall serve the younger. Now I know that that's talking
about Jacob and Esau, but it's true here too. Because we know
that in this case the old nature was there first. It's the elder,
and the new nature came, it's the younger nature in us. because
it came in when we were born of the Spirit, when we were born
from heaven, when we were born of God. And so it is the younger
nature, and so the elder shall ultimately serve the younger.
But now, this is not always known by believers when we come to
the new life. Now, the believer, he starts
knowing that he's a sinner. He begins knowing that he's a
sinner, but beloved, he soon finds out as he proceeds on that
he's more of a sinner than he thought he was. A whole lot more
of a sinner than he thought he was when he first was converted.
It was then when his eyes were opened. Now he can see what he
is. He can really now begin to see the depth of his sin and
he can begin to understand the grace of God and understand why
it was that God had to save him by grace because he's a rotten,
corrupt sinner and there's no good thing in him. Now then,
many surprises awaits the newborn Christian or the newborn child
of grace. Many, many things happen. Many,
many things come up in their life that they do not understand.
And sometimes, if a Christian be uneducated, untutored, if
he be not instructed in the truth of this chapter here that's before
us tonight, many of these things will stagger him as though some
strange thing was happening to him. Now perhaps tonight this
message may be used of God in your heart as a believer to bring
you to the place where that when these strange things come up
and when these strange things happen in your life and when
these awful things appear before you and you see clearly what
you are that it just won't overwhelm you and do you in. Maybe this
message tonight will help you, that you'll be able to understand
a little bit about what is going on here. And it'll help you to
solve the question which will arise in your mind, sooner or
later. If you be a child of grace, it's
going to arise in your mind, why am I thus? I mean, if I were
a child of God, would it be so with me? I mean, would I be like
I am if I was truly a child of God? I mean, would things be
like they are with me? Sooner or later, that question's
gonna come up in your mind, and it's gonna have to be answered.
And I hope tonight that we're able to answer that, and that
God will bless the truth to your heart, and give you some rest. Not make you complacent, but
give you some rest in your soul, and help you to understand a
little bit, to know your enemy. Now then, number one, the first
thing I want to say, I want to talk about three things tonight,
but number one is that all believers have two principles or two natures
within them. I want to establish that on the
basis of what Paul said here, that every believer has two natures
within them. Now, if you look at verse 23
that Paul said here, but I see another law in my members warring
against the law of my mind. So then there is two wars, or
there is two natures here, or two principles, and the one is
the law that's in his members, and that's the old man, that's
the law of sin, and then the law of my mind, which is the
new man that he spoke of in verse 22, the inward man, and so those
are the two natures. And Paul said in Galatians 5
and 17, he said, For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and
the spirit against the flesh, And these are contrary, the one
to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would.
Now he said the flesh and the spirit, these two things are
contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot do the thing
that you would. Do it unmolested. Do it without
a great effort. Do it without much prayer. Do
it without bucking the current. You can only do it as you walk
in the Spirit, as you stay yourself upon the Lord every day of your
life. So the Apostle speaks here in
Romans 7 about the law of his mind and another law that's in
his members, warring against the law of his mind. Now the
child of God is a new man in Christ Jesus, but the old nature
remains in him. As we said earlier, the first
life in the Christian, as far as in order of time, is the old
Adam nature and it's there from the very first. It was there
when we breathed our first breath of air when we came into this
world. It is born of and it's born with
the flesh and remains in us after we're born of the spirit for
the birth from above or the second birth or the spiritual birth
does not do away with the products of the first birth. It does not.
This old nature with all of its appetites remain in us and will
until, as I said, until we become pudding for the worms. Now, regeneration
brings in a newer and a higher principle, but the old still
remains and it attempts to retain power or authority in the soul. It attempts to continue to sit
on the throne in the heart and in the life of the believer.
It wants to remain in power. Now some people believe that
this old nature, and they fancy that it's so, that this old nature
of the carnal mind, that it can be improved upon, or that it
can be tamed down, and it can be sanctified. Some people say,
well, it can be sanctified, preacher. Well, beloved, it can not be
improved upon. Your own nature will not be one
whit better when you go into the grave than what it is tonight.
It is not one whit better right now than it was the day you were
born again. Not one bit better. It's still
just as vile and corrupt as it was on the day that you were
converted. It is no better. It cannot be
improved upon. It cannot be tamed. You might
just keep it hid a little bit. You might press it down, and
you might hide it. You might keep it a little bit
under control by the power of the new man, but it isn't any
better. It's not tamed, and you can't
tame it. And it cannot be sanctified. You talk about flesh. You know
what sanctified means? It means to be made Holy, it
means to be set apart unto God as a holy thing, and your flesh
will never be holy. It'll never be holy. Somebody
says, does God use unclean vessels? Who would he use if he didn't?
There isn't any clean vessels that I know anything about. Outwardly,
there isn't anybody that's clean before God. Well, we're not clean
except we're washed every whit, and our souls have been washed
in the shed blood of Christ the Redeemer, and they're clean,
but our flesh Our flesh is far from being clean, so I say no.
It's an enmity against God. That is the carnal mind, the
fleshly mind, and it's not reconciled to God. Our souls have been reconciled
unto God by the shed blood of Christ, but our bodies, our old
natures have not, and the old nature is of the earth, and it's
earthy, and must be crucified with Christ and buried with him
by faith. That's the only way you can handle
it. you've got to believe that your old body was hung on the
cross when Jesus hung there and when he died and that when he
was buried it was buried too and you've got to reckon it to
be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ
our Lord now this old corrupt nature lives in our members and
that is to say its nest is in the body and it works through
the body it works through this body The old nature I'm talking
about. And it so affects us that, that
which I do, I allow not. And it affects us in this way,
for what I would, that do I not. I'm not able to, I do things
I shouldn't do, things that I don't really allow, things that I don't
approve of, things that are against the law of God, and he says also,
he says, what I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that
do I end up doing those things that I hate. And that's because
there's an unclean and evil and corrupt nature that lives in
this body. Now there are certain appetites
of our flesh that are legitimate, are very legitimate. For an example,
I believe that it's a legitimate appetite for a man to have and
for him to desire a home. And also for him to desire to
be able to provide for his family. And provide well for his family.
Now that's a legitimate desire. A legitimate appetite. And that's
in the flesh. That's in the mind of the flesh.
But now that can get out of hand. And it often times does. A person
becomes greedy. And not only are they stoned
enough, you know, just to have what they need, but they get
greedy and then they get covetous. Now that's the way the old nature
works in a man. He's got a legitimate appetite
here, but then the old nature, it gets in, and first thing you
know, never has enough. Never has it, don't make any
difference how much he's got, not enough. Gotta have more. And
there's people that are driven, and all they say was, well, all
I want to do is provide that living, that's all I want. But
what they live for is the almighty dollar, and that's all that they're
concerned about, is how much money they can make. And then
also we know that it's legitimate for a man to want to eat and
to drink. There's nothing wrong. That's
a legitimate appetite. God put us in this world. We
have a body that's got to have fuel. And it's legitimate for
a man to eat or drink. But a thousand sins or more have
come out of that one appetite, as you very well know. People
overeat. They indulge in it. It's gluttony.
All of us probably at one time or another have been guilty of
it. Some of us more than others. and then drink. How many people
have been come enslaved with this legitimate bodily appetite
and it was because of the presence, let people say what they want
to about it being a disease, but it's because that the old
nature is present and it just blows that legitimate appetite
out of sorts and it enlarges it and inflames it until it becomes
evil and sin. And then also we know that it's
normal for a man to want a woman. And it's normal for a woman to
want a man. It's normal. That's normal. That's
the way God made it to be. And let people say what they
want to about it. I know there's a lot of people
that they're called various names. We won't get into that, that
don't know nothing about normality. and they don't feel normal and
it's because sin has so possessed them and they're under the demon
of lust, under the influence of demons until they don't know
what normality is. But, now this is an appetite
which is legitimate. It is legitimate. But my friend,
we know that it very seldom stops there. For a man to want a woman,
and a woman to want a man, And every man having his own wife
and every woman having her own husband, it very seldom ever
stops there. You know what I'm talking about.
And this is due to the presence of this evil, lustful, and sinful
nature that dwells in us. And we understand that that's
exactly the problem. That's why that this happens.
Now then, there is a new principle or nature that has been implanted
in us. We've talked about this whole
nature. I told you it's of the earth. I told you you couldn't
improve upon it. I told you that it affects the
legitimate appetites of the body. I told you that it lives in the
body. It nests in the body. And I told
you that the problems that we have as believers, that it comes,
and this old nature can do nothing but sin. That's all it can do. Paul said down here in verse
25, So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with
the flesh the law of sin. All the flesh can do is sin. It cannot worship God. It can't
please God. It can't do that which would
cause God to be in any way, shape, or form blessed by it because
it is evil and corrupt. There is no good thing in this
flesh when we would do good. There is not a justified man
on the face of the earth We read in the Ecclesiastes that doeth
good and sinneth not in the doing of it. Which means that anything
you do with this body, call it good if you want, the evil's
present with you. Every sermon I preach, I've got
to pray over to ask God to forgive me of it. Every prayer we pray,
we've got to be forgiven. It must be sanctified by the
blood or it cannot be accepted before God. Everything must be
purified by the blood of Jesus Christ, washed and made clean
before it can appear before our God. Because we're unclean and
there is no good thing in us. Now then, This new nature is
implanted in us by divine power. God has formed his very nature
in us. It, according to Peter, is the
divine nature. It's God's own nature. And John calls this his seed. He says, his seed remaineth in
us. And he cannot sin because he
is born of God. That part of us, that new nature
that's formed in us, that new man, the inward man, cannot sin
because it is the very nature of God. This nature is the living
and the incorruptible seed of the Word of God. Now this nature
has no tendency to sin. This nature cannot sin because
all its appetites, all of the appetites of the new man, All
the appetites of the divine nature is toward heaven and toward Jesus
Christ. It's all toward heaven and toward
Christ. It never stoops to drink out
of the mud holes of sin. This new nature, no, it will
not stoop down to drink out of the troughs of sin and rebellion. It is always aspiring toward
heaven and toward divine holiness. Now so then you have a nature
that can only sin and you have a nature that cannot sin and
this nature that cannot sin is at deadly enmity with the old
nature and the two war and fight and the two are contrary the
one to the other. Do you get the picture? Now I'd
like that each Christian That's here tonight. Each one of you
that believe that God has laid hold of you. Each one of you
that believe that God has called you by his irresistible grace
and that God has laid hold of you and brought you into a living
union with Jesus Christ our Lord. I want you to be persuaded tonight
and assured that you have this new nature in you. You've got
it in you. This second principle You've
got it in you. Now listen to me. It may be said
of every true Christian that you delight in the law of God
after the inward man. Let them call us what they want
to for preaching free grace. Let them tell us that our message
leads to licentiousness. Let them tell us, if they want,
that our message will eventually wind up causing men to live loosely
in this world. But there's not a true born child
of God that does not love the law of God after the inward man. You cannot be an antinomian if
you're a child of God. Now what do I mean by that? I
mean this, that in the inward man, I don't, I wouldn't want
God to change any law that he's ever made. I don't want God to
take any of the Ten Commandments and change them. I don't want
him to delete them out of the Bible. I don't want him to throw
them away. I don't want him to, not in the
inward man. Now in my flesh I cannot conform to the moral law, I can't
do it. In thought, in word and deed,
spiritually speaking, me conform, if I could do that, I would be
just like God. Because you know what the moral
law does? It reveals the character of God,
that's what it does. Now the new man that's formed
in me, that new man is as holy as the law. The new man is spiritual. The new man loves the law. I
delight in the law of God after the inward man because it's the
very nature of that nature to love the God that is portrayed
in the law. It's the very nature of the new
nature. Don't you see what I'm saying? But that's not in the
flesh. That's not my flesh because my
flesh cannot conform to the law of God. It is not subject to
the law of God and neither indeed can it be. And any man that tries
to tell you that the law is the rule of sanctification for a
believer, he don't know what he's talking about. He's blind
because he don't understand that it's only this new man that loves
the law and that you can talk about making this old man conform
to the law all you want to. It never can. It can't conform
to the spirit of it. It breaks the law every day.
It thumbs its nose at the law every day, your old body there,
your old sinful and corrupt nature. It thumbs its nose at God and
the law every day. And you're a Christian. You're
a professing believer. But it's so, my friend, it's
so. I'm telling you the gospel truth.
Now then, but I want you to know that even though this nature
be struggling in you and seems to be very, very weak, Listen,
and it seems to be struggling for an existence. It's there,
brother, sister. It's there. That new nature is
there if you're His. If you're a child of God, if
you belong to Him, that new nature is definitely in you. Now, it'll
not permit you to be at peace and sin. This new nature won't.
I'm telling you there's a struggle between, and we're going to get
to that and talk about it a little bit, but it'll not allow you
to be at peace and sin. I've heard people say, I'm not
happy either in the church or outside the church. I'm not happy
any place. Now, uh, that's because of the
fact they are children of God and they try to be at home in
the world. They can't be at home in the
world. And somehow or other, they just got enough religion
to make them miserable. They, they, they, they can't
be at peace with God and peace in the world either. But if they
would just get on their face before the Lord and beg God for
grace, and beg God for strength and beg Him to help them and
get into the place where there would be a means of grace to
them under the teaching of a ministry, then, my friend, they would have
some joy in their souls before God. But this new nature makes
it impossible for you to ever be the same again. You can't
do it. You say, well, I want to go back.
You can't go back, not if God has brought you out. I mean,
this is the work of God. He's put something in you to
fix it up so you won't ever be happy in the world. You can't
go back. You say, well, somebody says,
come on, go back with me. Well, I can't go back with you.
I mean, it's impossible for me to go back. How can I go back? God's done something in here.
He's put his own nature in me. And I can't be at peace with
sin. I can't live and be at peace in the world. I can't do it.
There's no way. And you can't either if you're
a child of God. And it'll find no rest, this new nature. It'll
find no rest but in the bosom of God from whom it came and
likeness of that God from whom it sprang. It's only as that
nature fellowships with God and as it has this union with the
living God that this nature is born. Now did you get that? the existence of these two natures
within us, it necessitates a war. It necessitates a conflict. Now
then you just follow with me if you will. Warring against
the law of my mind is the way Paul said. Warring against the
law of my mind. Now the lion will not lie down
with the lamb in us. It will not. Fire will not be
on good terms with water. And what fellowship has light
with darkness? And what fellowship has Christ
with Belial? And shall death parley with life?
And that's the issue. And the answer is no. In no case. The lamb is not going to lie
down with the lion. It's not going to work. And neither
will fire and water get along. One of them's got to be quenched
by the other. One of them's got to be consumed by the other.
And so it is with us. Now, I'm not sure that the conflict
between the two natures, the new and the old, is felt by all
young believers at the very first, when they're just first newly
converted. I rather doubt that they are,
because as I think back on my own experience, there seemed
to be a time And I believe that the Christian life can be divided
up into three stages. Number one of the first stage
of the believer's life would be, I think, when an individual
finds comfort in his soul, in grace, and finds that the Lord
has forgiven him, finds that his sins have been forgiven,
and he begins to rejoice in the Lord and sing unto the Lord and
begins to tell people around him what the Lord's done for
him. And he rejoices in that. And
there's a verse of scripture in Isaiah 55, and I really believe
with all my heart that this verse of scripture It talks about that
it's 55 I say 55 in verse 12 where it says for ye shall go
out with joy and be led forth with peace and the mountains
and the hills shall break forth before you into singing and all
the trees of the field shall clap their hands and I believe
that's That's what happens when the Lord saves a person. I believe
they get that I believe they have that peace and rest And
everything looks different to them and they can't be discouraged
because everything is wonderful and the praise in God is wonderful. God has come down and touched
their souls and he's put his spirit in us and we're rejoicing
in the Lord. And then comes the second stage
of the believer's life and that's what we're talking about here
tonight and that's conflict. That's a war. Now then my friend,
in this stage we must go to war. Nobody can stay home. Everybody's
got to fight in this battle. It's a war that every child of
God has got to participate in. And then there's a third state,
and I want to mention that. And then I'll go on with this
war. But the third is contemplation. That means when the battle is
over and and we get down in the sunset of life and we come to
the place where we feel that we don't have much more time
left in this world and it comes a time of contemplation, a time
of meditation, a time when we sit down and begin to reflect
upon the goodness and the faithfulness of God. that's been toward us
all the days of our life. Maybe some of us were converted
like I was when I was 16, and we've been with the Lord, walking
in the ways of God for a number of years, and the faithfulness
of God, and the goodness of God as we think upon that, and meditate
upon that, and then the sufficiency of His grace, how precious it
will be to us in those closing hours when we see how that God
has brought us through so many many tests and trials and difficulties
and when we were not sufficient in and of ourselves, how that
God enabled us to be sufficient by His grace. And to think upon
all the good things that are in store for us over on the other
side. One old writer put it like this,
he says, this is the land of Beulah. He said it's a line on
the edge of the river and so near to the celestial city that
you can hear the heavenly music across the stream. And when the
wind blows just the right way, he said you can smell the sweet
perfume of the flowers from the garden of the Lord. You can smell
the flowers blooming over the garden. That's at the very end
of our lives as believers. when we're meditating and thanking
upon the goodness of God. Oh, that our end, and you remember
how that old Balaam wanted to die the death of the righteous
because the death of the righteous is blessed. Blessed are the dead
who die in the Lord. John Newton said it like this.
He said, yes, when this heart and flesh shall fail and mortal
life shall cease, I shall possess within the veil a lion. of joy
and peace. And so beloved, that is the third
stage of a believer's life. These three stages, one of comfort,
one of conflict, and one of contemplation. And then we get back to the war.
We must go back to this conflict because brother, sister, the
day is coming, if you haven't already come to it, when you're
going to have to put down the harp and take up the sword. You're
going to have to fight. I tell you, in the name of the
Lord, tonight that you're going to have fights before you. The
day is coming when sin that's lurking in you is going to leap
out. Maybe it hasn't yet leaped out,
but it's going to leap out. And you're going to find that
it's there. Now listen, you see, some people
say, well, it's never leaped out on me, Preacher. Well, listen,
let me say this to you. You see, gunpowder is not always
exploding. But it's always explosive isn't
it? Isn't that right? And so now
listen, it may not be exploding. Sin may not be leaping out all
the time in you, but it's there and the day will come when it
will leap out. Now I know that you think that
you're different than other people. I know you are. And some people
even think that they're even different than Paul the apostle.
Well I know Paul had this problem, but I don't think I'm going to
have this problem And I don't really don't think I'm that bad.
I don't think I'm as bad as that preacher tells me to. Well, I
wish you were right. But in reality, my friend, I
know that you're going to find out that if you live at home,
now I mean if you live at home, you're going to find out that
you're an awful big sinner before this is over with. Now what I
mean by living at home, if a man tells me that he has no propensity
to sin. If a man tells me that he has
no tendency towards sin in his own nature, I tell him they don't
live at home. I tell you that he's a long ways
from home. If you ever get home, friend,
and you know what's going on inside you in reality, and God
ever takes the scales off your eyes so you can see what you
are by nature, you're going to know that you're a big sinner.
You're gonna know that it took the grace of God to save you,
that you couldn't have got out of that mess any other way. And
that if you ever get out of the mess, it'll be what Paul said
in verse 25, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's
the only way to get out of it. You can't get out of it any other
way. Let anybody else take their shoe spoon and help you try to
get out of it, you'll never get out of it. You can't slip out
of this any other way except through the Lord Jesus Christ.
We're in a bad fix. We're sinners and you don't get
out of this any other way but by the Lord Jesus Christ. Are
you living at home? If you live at home, you know
what I'm telling you tonight is the truth. You know it's a
gospel truth and you need to meditate a little on this. There
is in each one of us a law of sin and you need to face it.
Say, Preacher, it's distasteful. I know it's distasteful. You
say, well, I don't want people to think I'm a sinner and that
I hate God and that my nature is contrary to God. I don't want
people to know that. Well, my friend, it's out on
you already. The Word of God makes it clear.
The best Christian that ever walked the face of this earth
had a, he had a, he had this law of sin in him. And it sometimes
brought him into captivity. He said it brought me into the
captivity of the law of sin, which is remember sometimes I
even fell in it. Sometimes I got in it and I was
taken captive by my own nature and I had to beg God for deliverance
and we had to get right with God over in our hearts and beg
the Lord to undertake for us and to lift us up because that
old nature is still there. Now then I warn you in the name
of the Lord, who's holy, there's great deal fights before you
as a child of God. Now the reason for this is plain
to see, beloved, it's very plain to see. Now, the new nature,
listen to me now, listen to me, as I try to explain it, it's
the reason why that we got this war and this conflict, it's very
plain to see, because the new nature comes into our hearts
to rule over our hearts. But the carnal mind or the fleshly
mind is not willing to surrender the power. And a new throne is
set up. The old king is dethroned, and
he's outlawed, if you please, and he's made to stay in holes
and in corners, and he says, I'll not have this. I'll not
have this. This is your old nature speaking.
Now, the new natures come in and he's dethroned the old nature
and he sits up here and he's outlawed the old nature he's
run him into the corners and the crevices and the holes of
your very life he's run him in and he's got him down and the
old man says now he says I'm not going to have this I'm not
going to have this here I am who was once this man's king
and now I'm snubbed and made to hide myself as though I were
a stranger in this house. I once run this place. I once
had free reign in this place. This was my place one time. And now he said, I'm not going
to have this and I'll get the throne back, he says. And so
war breaks out. Now, has any of you ever had
that experience? War breaks out. I mean, all hell
breaks loose because He says, I'm going to have it back. And
he's tricky. He's sly. He's had 6,000 years
experience dealing with people. And your own nature is an ally
of Satan. And they know what to do. They
know how to get this job done, get you into captivity, get you
down. get you discouraged, get you
depressed, get you down to where you just say, well, just throw
in the towel, give it up. There ain't no need to fight
in this thing anymore. Now this is reality I'm talking
about for a child of God. This is reality. You say, is
all this going on, preacher, in our lives? It is. It's going
on in the lives of God's people. You see, we cannot rest in this.
We can't be complacent in this. Somebody said, well, you know,
it's just like this. I got this nature here that hates
sin. And I got this nature that loves
sin. And I guess we just kind of sit in the middle and see
what happens. No, my friend, you can't do that. You can't
do that because it's kind of like a bad marriage. It's kind
of like Steve and Claudia, some friends of mine that I know of. And Steve was a young man in
the Air Force a number of years back over in Great Falls. And
he come to love the truth of grace. But he was yet a young
believer and he went back to Baltimore, Maryland. And he met this girl, Claudia.
And he fell in love with her. And he liked her. She's a beautiful
woman, a beautiful girl, a nice looking attractive woman. And
so he fell in love with her and married her. And just a little
while there was nothing spiritual about the marriage. Nothing spiritual
at all about it, just flesh. That's all it was. He's attracted
to her. She's attracted to him. And so they got married and it
lasted about two and a half years because everything that he wanted
to do, she was against. And everything that she wanted
to do, he couldn't enjoy. And so he couldn't go her way.
She couldn't go his way. And it was all it was, was friction
and problems for two and a half years. And then he finally got
a divorce. He's still single today, but he just was ordained
recently as a preacher of the gospel. And he's a pastor in
a primitive Baptist church in Columbia, Maryland. Good young
man. But he had to learn the hard way. And this old nature
is the same way. Brother, sister, you can't live
three and a half days out of the week for the old nature and
say, well, I'll give in to it three and a half days of the
week. And in three and a half days of the week, I intend to
walk with God and I intend to do what I ought to do. You can't
do that. It won't work that way. And it won't work in a marriage
that way either. It won't work. And so this is what it is. You
can't be complacent. You see there isn't any rest on this
side. John Bunyan said there's no rest on this side of the river
of death. You just simply can't sit down
and say I'm just gonna rest right here. No you can't do it. Because
there's a war going on. There's a conflict. You gotta
watch out because this whole nature is out to get you if it
can. Thanks be to God we've got the
pledge that through Jesus Christ our Lord we will overcome. But
I want you to know that it's only through Jesus Christ that
we're going to overcome, and we must stay alert. And this
is a situation that I hate to tell you, but you've got to face
reality. We're dealing with a problem
here that's not going away, my friend, until you die. And when
you die, it'll go away, but not till then. Okay, now, third thing
and the last thing. I want to say that there's enough
sin in all of us here to create or make another hell. There is. There's that much sin and corruption
in every one of us here. Now, this sin that's in us, if
it wasn't for the grace of God, would send us every one to hell.
If he'd send us to hell, there would be no hope for us. We couldn't
possibly make it to heaven apart from the grace of God. Nobody
in this room, nobody that I know, couldn't make it to heaven apart
from the grace of God. Now I'm talking about, I'm not
talking about weak, stumbling Christians. I'm talking about
the strongest, most dedicated, most faithful people this side
of heaven. That's who I'm talking about.
I'm talking about sin being in God's people. Did you ever read
in the Bible what, what about, you know, you can read it in
the word of God very plainly about Noah. and about Abraham,
and about Lot, and about David? Did you ever read those things
in the scriptures? About these men and their sin? These were
men who we know knew and loved the Lord, but their sins are
recorded in the Word of God. They are notorious for their
sins. Yes, they are. The Bible doesn't
mince any words about it. It just simply tells you about
these men's weakness. It tells you what kind of men
they were. Old law. The Bible says he was a righteous
man, but you'd have never known it unless you'd have never known
it by reading the Old Testament account of it. If God hadn't
told us in Peter that he was a righteous man, you'd have never
known it. You'd have thought he was nothing more than some
kind of a, well, you just wouldn't have known for sure what he was.
You would have maybe one day put him in the camp of the Lord
and the next day you'd have put him in the enemy's camp. You
wouldn't know where he stood. And Abraham, He was the father of
the faithful. But yet, whenever he'd come to
his hide, he was just quick to tell lies to anybody else. And
then old Noah, you know, he got drunk and led one of his sons
into a terrible, dastardly sin. And then, of course, you know
about David. I won't have to say anything about him, but these
people are cut out of the same kind of cloth you're cut out
of. They're made out of the same thing you're made out of. And
I know these men. knew and loved God. Noah, he
was a preacher of righteousness for 120 years. Abraham was the
father of the faithful, called the friend of God. And we know
that Lot, as I said, was called the righteous Lot. Righteous
Lot. Just Lot. And then old David
was a man after God's own heart. Yes, he was. But these men were
all sinners. Now, you know, hearts and lives
we find painfully so. that we're sinful through and
through. We find it is a painful thing, but it's desperately true
we're sinners through and through. Now, who shall deliver us from
the body of this death? Well, we constantly blunder and
stumble and fall, and we do not excuse or justify our stumbling
and our falling before God. But the Bible says the righteous
fall seven times, but the Lord lifts them up. The Lord lifts
them up. Now, then, we condemn ourselves
because of our weaknesses and our failures, but my friend,
it's true that we are through and through sinners. Now, well,
why, and this is what I'm coming to here last, is why does God
allow sin to remain in his people? Why does God allow it? There
had to be a reason. Why does God allow sin to remain
in his redeemed people? Why does He allow this conflict
and this struggle? Why does God open the eyes of
His people to see iniquity? Why does He show them so clearly
what they are and make them to smart and smell the corruption
of the flesh? Why does He do that? Well, there's
some reasons that I want to suggest to you, and there's four of them,
and I'm not going to preach on them to any length, but I just
want to suggest these four reasons before we close tonight. Well,
number one, I believe that it's to constantly remind us that
salvation is totally by the grace of God. It's to constantly remind
us of that. There's no way you can be an
Armenian and believe the seventh chapter of the book of Romans.
You've got to believe in free grace. You've got to believe
that salvation is in the first part, in the middle part, and
in the end part, all of the grace of God. You've got to believe
that. Now listen, my friend. We must
understand that salvation is not in our righteousness, but
it's in the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. It
is His doing and it is His dying. It's sin or nothing due, either
great or small. Jesus did it and did it all long,
long ago. And that needs to be remembered.
And the Lord is going to teach you that truth. that the doing
and the dying that gets you into eternal glory will be done by
your substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ, so that you'll be singing
His praises all the days of your life. None of salvation at any
given time is ever dependent upon my works or my feelings.
Is that clear? None of my salvation at any given
time is dependent upon my doing and my feelings. All is conditioned
on the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work. And so that's
the first reason I suggest to you why you're thus, why you're
like you are, is to remind you that salvation, God's deliverance,
that is totally and wholly of grace and that you have nothing
to do with Now number two is to remind us what Paul said here
in verse 18. For I know that in me that is
in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. It's to constantly remind
you that in you there isn't anything good. So that you'll become sick
of yourself and fond of him. So that you'll loathe looking
at yourself. You ever hear people puff themselves
up, talk about themselves, they don't have an ounce of grace.
Not an ounce of grace! People that know themselves,
that have the grace of God in their hearts, they know what
they are. And they don't talk about what
they are, they talk about Him. I mean, it's Him! They sing about
Him, they praise Him, they're talking about Him, they're fond
of Christ! Because they know there isn't
any good thing dwells in them. And I'll tell you another thing.
This is what kills legalism and phariseeism. Is to know the truth
about yourself. And God shows his people the
truth about their own nature. In order so they won't be puffed
up in their flesh and become legal. Legal. you know, saying,
well, you know, I think that he don't, I think it rained on
my potato patch the other day because I'm a little bit better
than that fellow over there. It didn't rain on his potato
patch, it rained on mine. And that's because I'm better
than he is. You don't know yourself. You don't know nothing about
yourself. You go around talking like that, you're blind as a
bat. You don't have a bit of spiritual sense. None whatsoever. Anything that falls out to the
people of God is because of God's merciful grace. I will be merciful
unto whom I will be merciful. And I'll be gracious to whom
I'll be gracious. It's all because of me and because
I will. Not because of them. So this
picture you got of yourself is to teach you that in your flesh
dwells no good thing. And don't you ever take comfort
and say, well, I'm not quite as bad as somebody else. I'm
not as bad as these other people. Anything these other people can
do, honey, you can do. Every man is a fallen man. Every
woman's a fallen woman. And anything you've got the potential
in you to do anything anybody else does. And you need to remember
that. And that brings me to the third
thing. And that is this. It's to remind us that we ought
not in any shape or form, it is to teach us to be patient
with our brethren. We are never to look down our
nose at our brethren. It is to be patient with our
brethren. Galatians chapter 6, let me read this verse of scripture
to you. The book of Galatians chapter 6 verse 1 through 3.
Now listen to me now. We should never conclude that
a man doesn't have grace just because he commits a sin. because he has a sin in his life. Because he's a sinner, we are
not to conclude that he don't have grace. Now listen to this.
Galatians 6, 1-3, Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault,
ye which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness,
considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. You see somebody
that stumbles and falls, somebody that's overcome. If you're spiritual-minded
yourself and you understand what we're made out of, you understand
the condition that exists in all of us, he said, you restore
that individual, considering yourself while you're doing it,
lest, he says, that you consider yourself lest thou also be tempted
to do the same. Because tomorrow it might be
you. So take it easy. Be patient with your brethren
and restore them. Don't say, well, there ain't
no hope for him. I mean, he's a goner. I mean, look what he's
done. If you lived next door to David, would you give up on
him? Would you have concluded David was a graceless soul? Would
you? Would you have concluded Abraham
was one? Would you have concluded that Noah was a graceless soul
if you lived next door to him? I mean, what about it? No, well,
I mean, we probably woulda. We'da turned thumbs down on,
we'da found out about old David, why he can't be a Christian.
How can old David be a Christian and murder somebody by proxy
and commit adultery? How can he do it? Well, he could
do it because he's made out of the same thing you're made out
of. And so you consider, lest thou also be tempted, you restore
him in the spirit of meekness. Take it easy, be patient. Be
considerate, understand the issue here, understand what's happened
here, and understand that tomorrow somebody might be fishing you
out of the tank, because it may happen to you tomorrow. All right,
now, the fourth thing is this, and
I'm hurrying here to a conclusion, and that is to remind us that
when we do sin, and if any man sin, we're told in 1 John, that
when we do sin, And we do indeed sin because if we say that we
have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Now
we do sin, now listen to me now, that when we do sin that we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. That
we have somebody to go to when we do sin. Now we don't lose
our salvation when we sin. Now, I want you to listen to
me real closely right here, because this is kind of tricky. And I
want you to listen to me, because if you don't listen to me, listen,
I don't know it all by any stretch of the imagination, but I want
to tell you, I've come over some hard ground, and what I know,
I know by experience, and I'm no novice in this thing. I got
white hair, and I got it from dealing with these problems I'm
talking to you about tonight. I know what I'm talking about.
I know what I'm talking about. Now, you listen to me. When a
man sins, he does not lose his salvation. Jesus said, I give
unto them eternal life. They didn't buy it. They didn't
barter for it. I give it to them, and they'll
never perish. I'll see to that. They're not
going to perish. Now, listen to me. Then, we will
not be cast out of God's family if we sin. No! Jesus Christ came
to save poor sinners, and He prays for us and pleads His perfect
righteousness and He shed blood, His atoning blood as a satisfaction
for God's law and God's justice. Now listen to me. We need to
remember this. Every time we sin and are reminded
by the Spirit of God that we have done so, we need to remember
that it was not our works in the beginning that commended
us to God. It was not our works. It was
not your goodness that commended you to God. It was your sin that
commended you to God. It was your sin that gave you
a claim upon the finished work. of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
said, I didn't come to call the righteous. I come to call sinners
to repentance. He said, the whole need not a
physician. It's the sick. And I come to
call the sick. I come to call the sinner. And
if you're not a sinner, then Jesus Christ has nothing for
you. Nothing. And I'm here to make
this statement to you. We need to be reminded of this,
that our sin cannot keep us out of heaven. It cannot keep us
out of heaven. Sin will never keep you out of
heaven if Christ died for you. That's why he died. He died in order to save his
people from their sin. And your sin is not going to
keep you out of heaven. Now your unbelief will keep you
out of heaven and your self-righteousness will keep you out of heaven because
you're so good you know, say, I really don't need a substitute.
I really don't need nobody to save me. I don't need nobody
to die on a bloody cross and shed his blood to save my soul. I'm pretty good the way it is.
I'm alright. You go to hell for sure. Your self-righteousness
will send you straight to the pit. You have got a chance. You're going to hell. Only sinners
go to heaven. Only sinners washed in the blood
of Jesus Christ can enter eternal and pure heaven. Only sinners. And so our sin gives us claim
and it commends us unto the Savior. He's the Savior of sinners. Oh
sinner let me ever be before Him. Because I have no claim
on Him if I'm not a sinner. If I'm not a sinner. That's what
the fellow meant when he said a sinner is a sacred thing. The
Holy Ghost has made him so. Because even a man knows himself
to be a sinner. and knows that he must have Christ,
and he seeks Christ, he loves Christ, and he believes on the
Lord Jesus Christ in order that he might have eternal life. Now then, my friend, I hope that
these things will help you to see why God allows us to have
sin remaining in us. It's to keep us mindful of these
things. It's to give us passion. And
it's to give us compassion. And it's to give us a motive
for standing and preaching to sinners. Because we know something
about all this conflict. We know something about the deliverance
and the victory in the Lord Jesus Christ. We know what it is to
be a sinner. And so we know what it is to
love Christ, praise God, and to Trust Christ and worship Christ.