I want to read with you a verse in Job chapter twenty-six to begin with. Twenty-six chapter of Job. Then we'll come to consider Romans afterwards. Job twenty-six in verse seven. He stretches out the north over the empty place Hangeth here upon nothing." There is the last sentence of that verse that I want to just leave with you in connection with our service for God in southwest India. It may seem like a strange verse, but it was a verse which God gave to us as a promise. During our early years in India, And on one occasion, we were faced with a kind of peculiar need. And I was before the Lord, seeking for some guidance and help, seeking for a word from God to give some confidence as to the future. And this was the scripture that came to my mind. He hung at the earth. on nothing. I could not have told you at the time where it was found, but I soon found out. Because the scripture came to me with such force. And the ways it appealed to me was this. Because God can take a world up fling it out into space and keep it traveling in its orbit for all these thousands upon thousands of years that it's been rolling around in space. Then God can take up his servants and he can fling them out into the far ends of the earth and keep them going without any physical means of support. Visible means of support, there are words which we heard very often in our early years in India. Very often we had questions asked us by friends, have you any visible means of support? Or what are your visible means of support? They couldn't just understand the way we had gone to India. I hadn't been brought up in assembly. knew nothing about them. I came to this country fifty years ago this last July and went out to Montana. And then through the goodness of God there, I was brought into touch with a man who was the Presbyterian who knew the Lord. And he was a preacher in a little village, the village of Potomac near Missoula. And through him, I was brought to understand a little more of God's salvation. I had professed to be saved before coming to this country, and had never had any teaching, I had never had any ground put beneath my feet. And through his instrumentality, I went from there to Chicago in nineteen fifteen, and to study at the Bully Bible Institute for That man was a graduate of the Institute. And while studying at the Institute, I came in touch with the assemblies in Chicago. Lake was Stroudford Mace. It was the first one I ever heard amongst, ministering the word amongst the assembly. And in nineteen sixteen, I was welcome to remember the Lord in the assembly that then met in Austin. But how was one to serve the law? I had nearly joined up with a mission society to go to India, a faith mission society. Then one day in conversation, or rather as I passed by, I heard two young men conversing together about Acts thirteen and saying rather sarcastically that when Paul and Barnabas went out, there was a A mission society formed in Antioch to look after them. That was about all I heard. And it was not intended for my ears. They were just talking together. But I have no doubt that God intended me to hear those words. But when I went to the scriptures across, there was no such a thing. There were two men commended to the grace of God, and they went out to serve. But then the question was, if that was all right in apostolic days, is it all right now? Is that which obtained then, is that possible today? It's a very good deal of exercise. There was a man named Sutcliffe at the time in the Institute. He was a Presbyterian, too. but was very fond of assemblies and very fond of coming to conferences. I had a conversation with him one day, and he said, David, don't join that mission. And his own words were stick to the breath. With the tears run down his cheeks, those were the words of counsel he gave me. From years later, it was my privilege to meet him out in Fort Lauderdale, and to remind him of the conversation and to tell him that I wished he had carried out, taken the advice that he gave me to himself. He was then teaching at the Multnomah Bible School. And so it was after a good deal of exercise with regard to what the scriptures teach us, the service that we set out for India in nineteen twenty. My father said to me, as we called our home on our way out. Have you anybody in America that you care to write to, supposing you're ever in need? You won't join the Baptist Society and you won't join the Faith Mission Society. Supposing you're ever in need when you get to India, have you anybody that you care to write to or anybody that you can write to? I said, well, there's nobody that I care, but I would care to write you if we are ever in need. The scriptures make it clear that he will not send forth soldiers at their own charges, that he will send forth, he will supply those seeds to the store and bread to the eater. And on that promise, I said, we are going out to India. He looked at me and shook his head, and he anticipated that before very long there would be some SOS appeals for some succor and help from his son that had so foolishly gone out in this seeming foolhardy way out to India. During those first years, it was the time when God gave us on one occasion this verse. Many a time did one pray, then, that God would give us the opportunity to bear witness to his faithfulness, to his trustworthyness, to the validity of his promises, and to give us the opportunity of getting back to one's people to bear witness to the fact that God is free. And over the forty-five years since we first went out, these are the words one would like to write that God has been faithful. In spite of much unfaithfulness as far as we have concerned and our service is concerned. And the experience that I went through myself was an experience which enabled me to try to lead others into the same path when we got to India. with a large number of assemblies and a number of young men keen to serve the Lord, there wasn't always the spiritual apprehension of what the scriptural path of service is. There were many who thought that possibly the missionary should support them. When we got there, the work had been started by a German brother. God had blessed his testimony and half a dozen or more assemblies had been brought into being. And the first troops to the work had given themselves to the gospel. And in those days, the support of these brethren was a very small amount. Their cost was very little. And the Sonagel had fellowship with them in a very simple way, as he served the Lord. He was home in Germany when we arrived in nineteen twenty, and we found a number of Indian brethren who were then dependent as far as their support was concerned, dependent entirely on what was received through missionary. We found it rather difficult. It was quite a heavy burden, along with our own needs very often. the needs of other responsibilities. And here were brethren who were seeking to serve the Lord and there were a great help. And as Henry Grove said, partial dependence upon man is better than an unreal dependence upon God. An unreal dependence upon God can be a snare. Partial dependence upon man may be better than an unreal dependence upon God. And we came to the conclusion that as far as these brethren were concerned, we couldn't bring about any change. But as far as any new brethren going out to serve the Lord was concerned, we could only encourage them to go out in the same way as we had gone ourselves. And as I was telling some brethren yesterday and today, One young brother came, who was anxious to serve the Lord. I was asked to interview him. And after a long interview, warning him clearly, that he shouldn't depend upon us. If God helped us, we'd be glad to help him. But we had not the slightest idea where our needs were going to be supplied from. And if ever he was in need, he must not in any way find fault with us. If God had called him, then he must look to God to supply his need. And he stepped out, his independence upon God, into this place where there was no assembly. He went there to live. He rented a house. There he sought to live and he sought to labor. There were times when we were able to help him, times when we were not able to help him. One Indian brother came to me one day. He thought that missionaries should support all preachers. He said, brother, he said, I think we should think a little more about the needs of our brother so-and-so, mentioning him by name. I knew this brother was in fairly good way in business. So I said, well, brother, if you'll give me a tithe of your income, I'll be very glad to look after him and look after many others too. So he smiled and never said any more. But I hope that he thought to exercise his responsibility with regard to what God gave. But it hasn't been easy to teach Christians in India to give. It hasn't been easy to teach them that they have a responsibility towards the support of Indian brethren who serve the Lord in the gospel. We started in nineteen... forty or so to have the offering once a month given entirely to the furtherance of the gospel. Not in connection with expense in our own area, but in other parts. And it has been very interesting to see how God is blessed that there is small beginning. We had mentioned the week before that the offering the following Lord's Day would be taken up for brethren whose names were mentioned, laboring in a certain path. And it was interesting to see the way the Christians responded to this appeal to give to the work of the law. And the blessing of God came upon that work. Today in that area, and also in Bombay, and further south, and where we live, there are brethren, group of brethren, responsible brethren, who give themselves to the work of distributing gifts received for the work of the gospel. And we are very thankful for a number of men who are today seeking to serve the Lord in total dependence upon himself. We must remember the people in the country are poor. A great many of them The great majority of them never get as much as a dollar a day. A dollar a day to day would be a very high wage for the majority of the people. The great majority of them would get about twenty-five to fifty cents a day. Teachers in the day schools, they get about two hundred, hundred and fifty dollars, hundred and fifty rupees a month, maybe not that much. And that's about fifty dollars a month is what the school teachers would get. We had about twenty of those. We had a day school with about eight hundred children. We had an orphanage with about forty girls that we looked after. During the last seven years we were there. And I was manager of this day school as well. There was no personal expense in connection with a day school, only it meant a good deal of responsibility. with regard to the government. The government paid in full the teacher's salary. There were other expenses, of course, in connection with it. The opportunity, of course, was something that was supplied and supported entirely by the gifts received from the Lord's feet. But this work has gone on. And we are very thankful to say that in spite of the poverty, of much of the people there. The work has gone on with a good deal of blessing. There are today some thirty brethren who have gone from our area. We are right in the southwest. If you get a map of India, we are right down in the, you see a little place called Cochin, Cochine. Cochine. We are very near there. The Apostle Thomas is supposed to have labored in that area of India, and Christianity has been there ever since Apostolic days. And we have today, as I mentioned last night, about two hundred assemblies of the Lord's people there. Of late years, Pentecostalism has been a great difficulty, and they have come along with tongues and professed healings and And they, of course, are divided. There are six or seven brands of Pentecostalism there. Sometimes in a small village, you'll have six or seven different and varying groups of Pentecostalism. But they're very aggressive, and some of them preach the gospel very clearly, and see souls same. But they're very disturbing in the way they preach and teach regarding tongues and healing. And one has had to... give counteracting ministry to that all over the past years. That's why I don't know if any of you saw the two booklets I had printed on tongues, one on tongues and one on healing. I'm hoping that before a few months are over, there will be a book with a much full of teaching on the subject printed there now with the printers. I haven't yet heard definitely that Erdmann's will accept them for publication, but I'm hoping that they will. But these thirty brethren that I refer to have gone to other parts of India. Many of them are graduates, many of them are men who could have good positions if they stayed in their home country, as school teachers, government employees, and they've gone with their families. and they've lived and learned the language, and they're laboring and carrying on a witness for God in these very difficult parts of India. Some have seen the good little blessing in souls being saved and an assembly being gathered together where they are. Others are largely still occupied with pioneer gospel work. Our son, is still out in India. He went out this last January for his second period out there. He went the first time out in nineteen fifty-six. He and his wife, he has married a girl from Vancouver, and he has been connected with a hospital in Tiruvalla. And at present time they are very much in need of a nurse. One of the nurses has had to leave. Of course, there are a large number of Indian nurses. I'm speaking now of missionary nurses. There are only two and one of them has had to leave. The hospital has about three hundred beds, three branch hospitals, and I suppose about a thousand operations per annum. A very large work and a very heavy responsibility. Along with that, of course, there is the privilege of teaching the gospel and ministering the word of God in the surrounding assemblies in connection with the conventions and we'd value prayer for them. Now we'll turn to the word of God in connection with Romans six. We'd value prayer for ourselves. This is what the future holds for us. We don't know in the mercy of God. All our family are in Christ. We're all married now and scattered, seven of them. Three boys and four girls, two girls in Canada, in Vancouver, one boy in India, one son in Africa, and three in London. They're rather a scattered family. But in the mercy of God, all are saved and all in a family fellowship. Just what our future path is to be, we don't... I don't see very far ahead at the present time. Now yesterday evening we were looking at chapter six verses one to ten, pointing out that in this section the apostle answered the question asked in verse one, what then? Should we sin because we are in order that shall we should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? The answer is given in verse two, very brief, very unequivocal, very definite statement. God forbid, how shall we who died to sin live any longer there is? Now that answer is explained and enlarged in verses three to ten. In verses three, four and five, we have the illustration. Then in verses six, seven, and eight, We have a reference to the believer's identification with Christ in death. And in verses nine and ten, we have a reference to the once for all character of the death of Christ. The answer of the Apostle seems like this. For a Christian to continue in sin is a denial of what we have in verses nine and ten. a denial of the once for all character of the death of Christ. Christ died and to sin once. That's something that never will be repeated, never needs to be repeated and never will be repeated. There is something that is final in his character. For a Christian to continue in sin after having died to sin would be a denial of the once for all character of the death of Christ. In verses six to eight, he answers that it would be a denial of the once for all character of the believer's union with Christ in death, knowing this that our old man was crucified with death. The believer's union with Christ doesn't take place in baptism. It takes place in crucifixion. Baptism is burial, and death must take place before burial. They can't bury people alive. Must be death before burial. And so the union of the believer with Christ in death is what you have in verse six. Our old man was crucified with him. And again in verse eight, now if we dive with him, the old man is the same as the first man. In that he set a new covenant he saw, he makes it the first old. The first covenant became old because a new covenant came into being. And the first man became the old man because God was brought into being a new man. in Christ. And we have been, we have died with Christ. And if we have actually died with Christ, then we have come under the judgment of God, during the death of Christ. And having died with Christ, we are declared free, we are justified, we are discharged from every charge of death, as he says in verse seven. Then in verses three, four and five, he views it as a like a baptism. You see, in verses nine and ten, as I said, it's the death of Christ and the death of Christ alone. In verses six, seven and eight, it's the believer's union with Christ in death and resurrection only. But in verses three, four and five, it's The believers' union with Christ in death, burial, and resurrection, are illustrated in baptism. You see the different note, an added note, in each of these three. The death of Christ and that alone, verses nine and ten. The believers' union with Christ in death and resurrection, verses six, seven, and eight. The believers' union with Christ in death and burial, and resurrection in verses three, four, and five. Now in verse eleven, the apostle says, Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, or in Christ Jesus. I want you to notice that change things. In chapter five, all our blessings are through Jesus Christ our Lord. In verse one, for instance, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. In verse eleven, we have joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And verse twenty one, grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life, thy or through Jesus Christ our Lord. But now for the first time we have this reign. in Christ Jesus. And this is the phrase that is found from now on to the end of chapter eight. In verse twenty three, the gift of God, this eternal life in Christ Jesus. In verse one of chapter eight, there is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. Verse two, for the law of the spirit of life, in Christ Jesus. And you have the last verse of chapter eight. Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our law. Now here, it's not something we receive through Christ, but a position which is ours by virtue of our identification with Christ. We are viewed as in Christ. identified with Christ. Now how are we to reckon ourselves dead and to sin? In what way are we to reckon ourselves dead indeed and to sin? Are we dead to the temptations of sin? Are we exhausted here to reckon ourselves dead to the temptations, to the allurements of sin, or dead to the inward sense of inward sin? None of us are dead to the sense of inward sin. And none of us are dead to the allurements of sin. And there is not a single Christian that is dead to the temptations of sin. And yet here we are told to reckon ourselves to have died unto sin. In what sense then are we to reckon that we have died unto sin? Does it mean that we have got to reckon that we have died and to sin or reckon that we are dead and to sin even though we are not dead to sin? Does God call upon us to reckon upon something which is not true to facts? Would God ask us to do that? Could God ask me to reckon upon something as a fact which is not a fact? No. The answer to it must be found in two words. In verse ten we read that Christ died unto sin. Or verse nine. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more. In that he died, he died unto sin. Once. And then in connection with that you have verse eleven. The first word, even so. Even so. That is, in the way, in whatever way we understand that Christ died unto sin, in that way you could reckon that you've died unto sin. So the way we have died unto sin, if we are going to understand that, we must know how Christ died unto sin. Did he die to the allurements of sin? Of course not. Did he die to the temptations of sin? That would be blasphemous. Did he die to the inward sense of sin? Of course not. He had no sense of inward sin. He was without sin. He was holy. There's only one way in which we can interpret those words. But he died unto sin once. He died to put sin away. He died on account of sin. He died to meet sin's penalty. That's the only way in which we can interpret those words that Christ died unto sin. There's no other way in which we can interpret those words. No other meaning can be given to them than that Christ died to put sin away. He died to meet sin's penalty, to meet sin's doom. Now the Apostle says, in that way, record you have died. In Christ you die. Just as Christ died to sin penalty, just as Christ died to sin's doom, you died to sin's doom. God never asked any Christian to reckon that he's dead to the sense of inward sin. God never asked any Christian to reckon that he's dead to the temptations of sin, nor to reckon that he's dead to the allurements of sin. For we are not. I've heard very people say, now, it means that you've got to reckon it. In spite of the fact that you are actually not dead to sin, in spite of the fact that you're not dead to the sense of inward sin, you've got to reckon that you are. Well, it's a queer kind of reckon. You've got no money in the bank, but you've got to reckon that you have, and you can write other checks for a thousand dollars. Well, the police will soon be out to you. No, you can't reckon on something... that is not a fact. But here is something which is a fact. We have died to the penalty of sin. That's why he says in verse seven, he that has died is freed, legally freed, is discharged from the guilt of sin. We've had people in India teaching us, and I was taught it by a man in nineteen fifteen, that it was possible to get rid of the flesh. possible to get rid of the old nature. It was a very tempting Delilah, very attractive doctrine, to dangle in front of a young Christian anxious to walk with the Lord. That it's possible to get rid of this old nature root and branch. Any year since you trusted Christ, you haven't got rid of that yet, have you? No. But I tried to believe that. And it was teaching given by Mr. Ross, as I mentioned last night, the Chicago conference in nineteen sixteen that helped me to understand something of Roman six. But when I got to India, I learned something of the reason why God let me go through that school. Because I found some Indian brethren who had been taught this. One of the men who came to preach in our house, the Christians met in our home. He began preaching this. He took, brought with him a little plant into the meeting. And he said, now some people believe it's enough just to take off the leaves. Slip the leaves. Some people think they can slip the plants like that, level with the ground. But he said, I believe it's best to take it up roots and branch and throw it out. He says, and he threw it out till the back door. The next morning I asked, I called an Indian brother who could interpret and I tried to help him. But he was beyond being helped. He had reached the plateau in Christian experience from which he could look down upon the poor mortals that were living in what he thought were the misty flats down below. But years later I was over in this area and I was ministering on Romans seven. And he went to the back of the hall. I knew what had happened in the intervening years. He had learned that he hadn't got rid of the roots. He had learned by bitter experience that the roots were still there. And then he acted. And I said to one of the brethren, tell him to come up to the house with him. So he came up. And as he came into my room, he threw his arms around my neck. And he said, oh, brother, if I'd only learned this, I've only learned this two years ago. No, it's a deceptive deliner that would lead a Christian astray to believe. He decides to believe that he's got rid of the old nature. Or to reckon that he's dead to it. We're not dead to it. And God never asks me to reckon that I'm dead to something that I'm not dead to. Now the next verse says, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body. You see, if I'm dead to it altogether, and I reckon that I am dead to it, the exhortation of verse twelve would be of absolutely no purpose. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body. Here is a monarch that has been deposed. And it doesn't say don't let it dwell. For later in chapter seven, he speaks of indwelling things. But here he says don't let it reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in its lust over you. And then he goes on to the positive. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness. and to sin. But yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as weapons of war. The margin puts it there as weapons of righteousness. The word righteousness used five times in this chapter. It's rather suggestive. It has to do with right character. It's not merely righteousness in the sense of justification. The right conduct, right way of living. That's the word he would hear. And the Apostle urges the believer to yield himself to God and his members as instruments for right way of conduct and the right way of living unto God, unto righteousness. You see, Darby in his translation of the New Testament, He has verses one to eleven in one paragraph. And then verses twelve, thirteen and fourteen come together. And he puts verses one to eleven as positional truth. And then verses twelve, thirteen and fourteen as practical outcome of that. But verse eleven deals with our position in Christ. Likewise reckon ye yourselves, God died indeed and the sinned. That's our position in Christ. Consequent upon that, he says, Therefore, therefore, let not sin reign in your mortal body. And if sin is not to reign in the mortal body, then the individual must yield himself to God. And his members must be yielded as instruments of righteousness unto God. But I have to go on to the remaining portion. Look at verse fifteen. For then, shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Perfection grows out of the statement of verse fourteen. Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. Very well, said the objector. Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? He said, Paul, you are very wrong in not putting people under law. When Israel came upon the vichits, God gave them the law, and he put them under law. And here you're telling us we are not under law. And these Gentiles saved from idolatry, you're not going to put them under law. You're only going to allow them to live a life of sin. You're giving them a license to live in sin by not putting them under law. So the apostle, he answers that in two ways. In verses sixteen to verse twenty three of chapter six, he shows the fallacy of such an argument. And then in chapter seven, he shows the futility of putting a person under law. You notice the words in verse sixteen, know ye not. And again in verse one of chapter seven, know ye not. So the verse sixteen of chapter six, right to the end of chapter seven deals with, they contain the answer to this question of shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace. First the Pharisee, the folly of such a contention. Look what it says in verse sixteen. Know enough that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are, to whom ye obey, whether of sin and of death or of obedience and of righteousness. The apostle says here, is virtually said by our Lord, no man can serve two masters. Service for two masters is an impossibility. It's not forbidden. When the Lord says no man can serve two masters, he's not giving, he's not forbidding such a thing. He's stating that such a thing is an impossibility. When the Apostle says you cannot eat to the Lord's table and to the table of demons, that's not a prohibition. That's a statement of an actual fact. It's impossible to have both. You cannot look east and west at the same time. It's not a prohibition. That's a statement of fact. You can't walk forward and backward at the same time. The thing is an impossibility. And when the Lord says no man can serve two masters, he is stating what is an absolute impossibility. Now that's the teaching which the Apostle gives us here. You say a man, now because he's saved and is under grace, he is going to sin because he's under grace. Well then that shows that he's not under grace at all, that he's ever known the Lord. Test him by the law of liberty. You've got lions in the zoo. They're all kinds of wild animals in the zoo. But they're not tested by the law of liberty. Some of them have never, never done any harm to anybody in their lives. They were born in captivity. And they've been reared in captivity. And some of them lived to become old animals still in captivity. And they've never become anybody. But that's because they're behind iron bars. Just because they're tested by the law of liberty and then see what will happen to them. They won't be long before they show that they've got the lion nature there still. They'll test it by the law of liberty. Let the raven out. Test it by the law of liberty. It doesn't come back. It's got plenty to eat outside. It's tired of having lived in the ark for over twelve months. Glad to get the chance to get out and feed on the carrion that was floating around. So Noah learned his lesson and when he let the pigeon out, when he let the dove bounce, he tied a long piece of string to its legs. He said, now here, I'm not going to let you go. I'll see that you come back alright. And the dove goes. And Noah gets a little bit afraid that he's not going to come back and he says, yeah. And he begins to pull in the kite. Does it? No, no, no. That's a dove free. Give it its liberty. Give it its liberty. And it proves that it's a dove by the way it exercises its liberty. You see, that's the argument here. No man can serve true masters. A man with either a servant of obedience. Or he's a servant of sin. Either one or the other. That's the first argument. The second argument is this. He said, you don't realize what it means to be converted. God be sanctified, says in verse six, seventeen, that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that mold of doctrine to which you were delivered. Not so much the mold of doctrine that would deliver to you. but that mold into which you were delivered. You've taken on that mold. The doctrine which you heard has become formative of Christian character. And the mold, undoubtedly, is a reference to baptism, of death, union with Christ in death, burial and resurrection. That's the mold. And you've taken on that form, the form of that mold. I watched them in Ford factory. And they put a piece of hot metal. upon that iron table and they come down with a die upon it, very hard, tremendous weight, and then in a few minutes they lift it and there comes out the handle of the car, of the door car. And it's taken on the form of the mold. Now that's what the apostle is here. Conversion is a very radical thing, does the apostle. You don't realize that conversion is not merely the acceptance of some truth, or merely the accent of the mind or something. That conversion is a radical revolution in a person's life. If the orientation of man's life, you obey from the heart that mode of doctrine to which you are delivered. There has been a real conversion. And when a man talks about liberty to sin, even though it's not under law, he is betraying the fact that possibly he's never had a real conversion in his experience. A real conversion. You know, a real conversion is a marvelous miracle, isn't it? It's wonderful to see somebody really and genuinely convert. A brother older than I was converted when we were on our way out to India, and I was saying a few weeks of home. And he was very genuinely converted. He worked on the farm. And every once in a while they'd miss him. And they'd find him sitting by the hearing, reading his New Testament. Carried a New Testament in the hip pocket. Why, for years he wouldn't have looked at a Bible for anything. step into the open air, into the little town where we live, and there on his own carry on a gospel meeting. I wish he would do the same today, but he's not doing that now. He's a respectable Baptist preacher today. But a conversion is a wonderful change. A complete reorientation. A complete change in a man's character, in a man's life. And when a man talks about, shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace. Why? He betrays the fact that he's ignorant to the real power of conversion, of true obedience from the house. You notice that it's not so much faith that the apostle used is here. But obedience. He starts the epistle with the obedience of faith, and he ends with the obedience of faith. Not the obedience to the faith, as our offer, I put it. But it said, we have been given grace and apostleship for the obedience of faith. Faith always begets obedience. If there's real faith, there will be obedience. Go and wash in the pool, as I know of. And when a real faith, it turned out into obedience. Faith and obedience are synonymous. Unbelief and disobedience are synonymous. in the word of God. Look at the next, at the apostle. The next argument he brings, I speak out to the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. Here the apostle is speaking of the fact that they were still, still possessed of the flesh. If you go through Young's Concordance, you'll find that there are some twenty-eight references to the flesh and the official to the Romans. And the word is used in a variety of ways, in very many variety of ways. But here it is used of that which characterized the weakness. It's not so much the wickedness, but the weakness, the moral weakness that characterized the people to whom he was writing. They lived a properly laid life. They have lived a life such as this picture that's portrayed for us in the first chapter. Saved out of idolatry and rose. And the life lives like that. When they once got converted, there's only one cure. There's only one way to go on for God, and that's by keeping going on. When Israel came up out of Egypt, we are told there wasn't a feeble person amongst us. Not a feeble man amongst them. They all kept that. But after a while, there were some feeble persons. And they began to lag behind in the Amalekite gospel. The Amalekite gospel. Such as were feeble amongst them. And it's when the children of God begin to lose their spiritual vitality and their spiritual vigor. That the Amalekite comes behind and trips them. And they leave and go somewhere else. There's the apostle. There's only one secret in connection with the Christian life. In view of the infirmity of your flesh. In view of the weakness of that flesh. In view of the tremendous strength of that flesh to take you back into a past life. There's only one part he says. Yield your members. Don't yield them as instruments. of unrighteousness to iniquity unto iniquity. But yield them, he says. Yield your members, servants to righteousness, unto holiness. You see, there is a word in verse eighteen that we should look at. It's used again in verse twenty-two. But being made free. It's the second time we have the word freedom in this epistle, in these three chapters. Five times. People talk about the fine freedom. There are five freedoms in these three chapters. The first in chapter six, verse seven is freedom from the guilt of sin. But here is freedom from the power of sin. Being made free. Being made free. Here is the work of God. Here is the person that's been liberated by the power of the gospel. Being made free. Not that you freed yourself, but being made free. God liberated you by the gospel. You became the recipients of the power of God. God worked in your life, and God said you are delivered. The individual is made. He is spoken of here as being passive. Not that you, you became free in that sense, but you are made free. God said you are delivered. God broke the shackles of sin. Then you read in verse, in verse twenty-two, the other great argument that the Apostle brings before us in that scene. He views the future, the far distant horizon, the land of our distances. And he says here in verse twenty-two, be made free from sin and become servants unto God. You have your fruit and your holiness. and the end is everlasting life. The believer, of course, is in possession of eternal life now, but on the other hand, Romans always views everlasting life as the end of the journey. It's the end of the road, and the end is everlasting life. Here's the glory of conservation. What marvelous arguments the Apostle brings to bear upon this question. then can we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Well, if you say so, it means that you can only serve one master, either sin or righteousness. You obey the one or the other. And if you say so, it means that you don't realize what true conversion really means. And if you say so, it means that you've never known what true consecration is. And if you say so, it means that you don't realize the true, the end, the consummation of it all. There has been something very lacking in your experience, if that's the way you look at it. And the Apostle, this message would urge them, anybody who had held such a view, such a low view, to really examine themselves to see if they were not reprobate. Now we come in chapter seven to view the futility of such a statement. Not the fallacy of it, but the utter futility of putting a man under the law. And chapter seven, which should occupy much more than the time I want to give it tonight, you have it in three sections. You have in verses one to six the law of its authority. He says the law has power over a man as long as he live it. long as he lives. That's not until a man is in the mortuary and his body is in a coffin ready to be buried. That's not the idea. But until he finds his place with Christ in death. As we look what he says in verse four. Wherefore, my brethren, ye have become dead to the law by the body of Christ. It's only until a person has taken his place with Christ in death. It's only until then that the law has authority over it. For the moment a man takes his place with Christ in death, that moment the law teaches to have any authority over him. It teaches to have any dominion over him. It cannot condemn him. It cannot curse him. It can do nothing with him. He is dying. Now from verses seven to thirteen, here we have the law and its ministry. It's a ministry of condemnation. Now I want you to notice the verbs here. They're all in the past tense. Look at verse six, verse seven, thou? I had not known sin. I had not known lust. Sin wrought in me all manner of lusting. Verse nine, I was alive. Sin revived and I died. Verse eleven, sin took occasion by the commandments, deceived me and slew me. You see, all those are in the past tense. Here is Paul's unconverted experience in his unconverted day. Here is Paul's experience with the law before he was converted. You say, well, that's different to Philippians three. He says there concerning the righteousness that was in the law blameless. But you see, you notice the commandment, the apostle draws attention to here, thou shalt not covet. It's not what he did, it's what he was. It's not what men saw that he did, it's what he was inwardly. That's what the law pointed out. Here was an X-ray that revealed to him a covetous nature, showed to him what he was, showed him clearly what a nature he had. We'll never understand Romans seven unless we emphasize the words here. Paul was up against the fact that he was always wanting to do the wrong thing. And he groaned because he wanted to do the wrong thing. Now I suppose we've confessed having done the wrong thing. But I wonder how many of us were groaned because we wanted to do the wrong thing. Because we've committed something. And we looked at a man's car or a man's house, or we heard of something that he had, and from our other friends and we said, Ma'a. And we've never said, Ma'a, that's the old nature again, covet. It's what we are. It's the sinful nature that we have. The wrong desires. that we take to have. The law of sin engraved upon our members. That's what he speaks of is later in the chapter. It's a ministry of condemnation, a ministry of death. I don't know how some day Adventists get on with Romans seven at all. Some people try to say that it's not the law of ten commandments here because in verse one and in some other verses You have the words law without any get-in-it article. Just the term law without any article. And therefore it's just the principle of law. But then we have the get-in-it article several times. And we have the law of God several times. And we have six times the commandment. The word the commandment. There's no doubt here that the law of God, the ten commandments, are before the mind of the apostles. He quotes the one of them, which I refer to, thou shalt not travel. And he says, by that law I die. It flew it. It put me to death. It's a ministry of condemnation. That's the law in its ministry. What a futile thing, then, is to put a Christian under a law like that. Now look at verses fourteen to twenty-five. Here we have the law and its inability. The law and its inability to help the Christian. And I want you to notice the change in the tenses of the verb here. Verse fourteen, I am calm. That which I do, I allow not. If then I do that which I would not. It is all the present tense. Now a great deal of discussion and arguments and treatises have been written on Romans seven, fourteen to twenty-five. And a great many people have said it's not the experience of a Christian at all. It's the experience of the unconverted. It's not the experience of a believer. He says, for instance, I am carnal. How can a believer say I am carnal? How could Paul say I am carnal? Sold under sin. How could Paul say in verse twenty-four, O wretched man that I am? Can a Christian say that? Are words like that true to a Christian's experience? Well, the answer to that is very simple. The word carnal here is different, only by one letter, but it's different to the word used in First Corinthians three, where the Apostle says, you are carnal. carnally minded. Paul is not saying here, I am carnally minded. Paul is merely saying, using the word that he uses in Second Corinthians three, the fleshy tables of the house. I am of flesh. My body is still of flesh. And I am sold under sin. The body is not yet revealed. That's the simple explanation of what we have in verse fourteen. The Apostle recognizes that his body is still unredeemed. Chapter eight goes on to tell us that he is waiting for the redemption of the body. Then verse twenty-four, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? That's the third reference to the body in these two chapters. There are four in chapter eight. Now the picture there is the picture of a man who has committed a crime. He has killed a man. And he's got the dead body of his victim tied to his shoulders. And he's walking around with that corpse tied to his back. And he says, oh wretched man that I am, I've got this corpse tied to my back. Who shall deliver me from this body of death? You see, Paul is not looking. nearly for deliverance from the law of sin. Paul is looking for deliverance from the body. He's looking for deliverance from this body of death. And as I shall point out briefly, chapter eight is the answer to that. Three reasons or four why I believe what we have got here refers to a Christian's experience. First is the, what I've already referred to, It's the present sense of the verb. It's not some experience weighing a different path. It's what I am, what I do. The law of sin is in my members. It's a present experience all the way through. The second, he says, I delight in the law of God after the inward man in verse twenty-two. Now the inward man is an expression which you only find twice elsewhere in the New Testament in Colossians and in Ephesians and undoubtedly refers to a believer. The inward man, the inner man, which is renewed in righteousness and through holiness. No unconverted man has what they call what the Scripture speak of as an inward man. Our outward man perishes, says the apostle, but the inward man is renewed day by day. That's a Christian who has the inward man. And the third, you have in the last sentence, the last verse, so then with the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. Here is his conclusion. He comes to this conclusion. Here is the final discovery. He makes three discoveries, three of all discoveries, in this chapter. The last conclusion he comes to is this, that the flesh will serve nothing but sin. That the flesh will own no master but sin. As the famous said in chapter eight, he owns that the flesh will recognize no authority, But the authority is saved. It's enmity against God. But let me understand. In the Old Testament we have Israel in Egypt. And we have Israel in the wilderness. And Israel in the land. They literally and physically came out of Egypt into the wilderness, isn't they? Literally and physically they got out of the wilderness and into the land. But do we literally get out of the world, like they literally and physically get out of Egypt? Do we? Did you have saved over fifty years ago? Did you literally and physically get out of the world? No. Do we literally and physically get out of the wilderness to live with Christ in the heavenly? No. You see, Israel were in the three at different periods, but the Christian is in each other at the same time. We are in Egypt. We are in the wilderness and we are in the land at each and the same time. We never materially get out of Egypt. We never materially get out of the wilderness. We are in Egypt protected by the blood of the land. We are in the wilderness, provided, everything provided for our journey. We are in the land. We are seated with Christ in heavenly places. Now Romans seven is the wilderness. Now what did God teach them in the wilderness? He says, I left you to hunger and to thirst in the wilderness in order that you might learn what's in your own heart. That's Romans says. That's the wilderness. That's the lesson of the wilderness is to teach us what's in our own heart. He says here in chapter seven, he says, I discover that in my flesh in verse eighteen that dwelleth no good thing, I learned that lesson. I learned that lesson. Not only have I learned that. He says, I learned that sin dwells in me. And I learned that the flesh will serve nothing but sin. That's the lesson of the wilderness. Now the decline of chapter seven. Twenty-four. Will you pardon me, Mr. Humans. It's too important to let this go, I think. Otherwise, I really will let it go here. then much of what follows will be lost. Paul always brings his argument to a conclusion, and immediately from the conclusion he starts something else. Now here is the conclusion. Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And chapter eight is the expansion of death. Chapter eight is the exposition of death. Chapter eight is the full development of that doctrine. In chapter eight he shows how the coming of the Lord will deliver us from this body. He shows first of all of course in chapter eight and verse two that the Lord's spirit of life has made me free from the law of sin and death. That's the fourth freedom. The first freedom chapter six and seven. The second freedom six and eighteen and sixteen and six and twenty-two. The third freedom is freedom from the law in chapter seven, verse four. But here is the fourth of them here in chapter eight, verse two, made free from the law of sin and death. Here is a book in my hand, and that law of gravity is still operating. But because the law of life has come in and supersedes it, It keeps the book from falling. Now that's the picture we have got here. The law of the spirit of life sustains the believer, keeps him, enables him. Or if you take a flower and you watch it grow up and up and up and up, through the frost, sometimes it comes up. Because it's got life in it. Snipp it. It will fall in easily. It's the law of life that enables it to overcome the law of gravity. That's the picture we have got here. But through the chapter, and if you get the revised version, the English revised version of eighteen eighty-one, you'll find that the apostle, that the argument of the official of chapter eight is divided into five paragraphs. The first ends with verse, verse eleven. There you've got a reference to the quickening of the mortal body. The second ends with verse seventeen, where we are going to be glorified together. The third ends with verse twenty-three or something like that. And there we have the redemption of the body. And the fourth ends with verse thirty, where we are conformed to the image of Christ. You see the four paragraphs. Just like the four gospels, each ends with the resurrection of Christ. Each covers the same ground. This eighth chapter is a most wonderful, a wonderful portion of the Word of God. Last week, in going over at the Good Hill in Chicago, I was very interested to see, I looked up Darby's translation, and I found that he divides it into three paragraphs. He ends the first with verse seventeen. He ends the second with the... with verse thirty, and then verse thirty-one to the end is the last. When I looked, when I followed his division, I looked up the word flesh, and I found that the word flesh comes in the first paragraph, verses one to thirteen, and you'll find this some thirteen or fourteen times there. Oh yes, in Romans eight the flesh is still there. Some people think, oh, let's get out of Romans seven into Romans eight. It will be all right if we get into Romans eight. Well, brother, the flesh is still there. Get out of the wilderness and to the land. The Amalekites will still be there. They're still there. When you come into the second paragraph, there's no reference so much to the flesh, but to the suffering, the opposition of the world. When you come to the last, it's the devil and the roaring lion. and the howling wolf. We have counted a sheep for the slaughter. Here are the three enemies that you have in chapter eight. The flesh, the world, and the devil. And the last of the liberties I refer to you find in verse twenty one of chapter eight, because the creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. I want you to notice that changed me. It's not the glorious liberty, as if it was a present liberty. It's the liberty of the glory of the children of God. It's not any present liberty that we have, but it's the liberty that is going to be ours when these bodies are going to be quickened, when these bodies are going to be glorified, when these bodies are going to be redeemed, when these bodies are going to be conformed to the image of Christ. Then we shall enter into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. Surely this is a wonderful salvation that God has for us in Christ. When he said, oh wretched man shall deliver me from this body, he's looking on to the coming glory, the coming of the Lord. And he says, thank God this body is going to be quickened. Thank God it's going to be glorified. Thank God it's going to be redeemed. We're going to be conformed to the image of his Son. That's why he says thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. With the day coming when the body is going to be redeemed. Thank you. Let the God our power in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that he bless thy word and his voice. Help us to enter into its meaning and to its message. Blessed little aha, remember the Ascending. Remember those unable to be with us today. Pray thy blessing be upon them. Remember the Ascending at Atlantis. Lord, we're at the conference. Bless thy word to them all. In Jesus Christ our Lord.