seven this afternoon. Thank you for ladies. Uh, one to apologize. I had to get up here and look over some notes and I meant to one to help you all back there. And, uh, y'all kind of cleaned up quicker than I get back there. So, uh, but, um, I do want to thank you all for the good food. Romans chapter seven. We're going to begin in verse 7 and read down through the end of the chapter. This is Paul's great struggle with sin, and we'll see that it's our great struggle as well, for those of us who know the Lord. Romans 7, verse 7, Paul speaking, he says, What shall we say then? Is the law sin? It says, God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin but by the law, for I had not known lust, except the law had said thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law, sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment which was ordained to life I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore, the law was holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin working death in me, by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do, I allow not. For what I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not. For the good that I would, I do not. But the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it but sin that dwelleth in me. I find in a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the members 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. Our Father, we bow in your presence again today. We thank you, Lord, for this church. Thank you, Lord, for Brother Vance, for his leadership here. We pray you'd continue to bless him and his family. Pray especially for Sister Dora, Lord, and pray you'd continue to bring healing to her body. Pray for the church. I pray now, Lord, that you would help me as I preach your word. That it would be a blessing to those of us here, Lord. Help us to see the inward struggle that we go on a daily basis with. And God, I pray if there's one that does not know you, Lord, that this message would convict them of their sin and that they would turn to Christ, repent, and trust Jesus as their Savior. Bless us now, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Paul here is describing the great inward struggle of the Christian. You might not see it and you may not realize it even on a moment-by-moment basis, but there is a great war going on between heaven and hell, between what many call the forces of good and forces of evil. And it's going on right inside your heart every single waking moment, every single day. There's a war being waged inside your heart. Paul here talks about that great struggle against sin. He goes into it and he talks about that which I would, that which I would not, that do I, and that which I would do, that do I not. He's talking about this great struggle. When a person is saved, they have the newness of life. God gives them a newness of life. He gives them a new heart. He gives them a new spirit. He changes their way of thinking. He changes their way of living. Let me say this, there is a part of each of us There is something within each of us that does not, cannot, and never will love and serve God. It's called the old flesh. It's called the old nature. It's called the old man. And this old man is warring against this new nature living within us. That nature is the person of Jesus Christ. It's basically our self versus Jesus Christ each and every single day. You think about that for just a second. How wicked are we that we would war against the very Lord who has saved us? But that's exactly the struggle which has taken place in our hearts. Paul here, he asked some questions throughout the book of Romans. I like what he asked back in verse Chapter 6 verse 1, he says, What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? That's a good question, is it not? If God saves us by His grace, if He has saved us from sin and grace abounds in the midst of our sin, should we just go ahead and just keep on sinning so that God will just keep pouring out more and more and more grace? Paul says, God forbid. The grace of God is being poured out in our life even when we don't sin. The fact that you and I have breath of life, the fact that you and I are able to come to the house of God to serve Him, that's God's grace right there. We don't have to sin, that grace can abound. Paul says, God forbid that these things were to happen. He says in verse 15, he says, What then shall we sin? Because we are not under the law, but under grace, God forbid. Once again, when a person is saved, they're no longer under the law of God, they're no longer under the commandment of God, but they're now under the grace of Almighty God. God doesn't look at us any longer through the lens of the commandments, He looks at us through the lens of the blood of Jesus. And when He sees us, He sees us covered by the blood. Jesus has died to pay our sin debt. He died, he shed his precious blood to save us from our sins. And he asked the question in verse 7, what shall we say then, is the law sin? He says, God forbid, nay, I had not known sin, but by the law. You think about this for just a second. When you and I do wrong, how do we know that we're doing wrong? It's by the law. Let's go back for just a minute. Let's hold our place here in the book of Romans. Let's go back to Exodus chapter 20. I want to go back and I just want to quickly revisit the Ten Commandments. And we're going to look through these commandments just briefly. But I want us to think for just a second. Consider yourself, imagine yourself being a person who has no understanding of the law. No understanding of right and wrong. As far as you know, you're so back away from civilization that there is absolutely no law whatsoever. And I want us to consider these commandments for just a second with that mindset. Verse 3 in Exodus chapter 20, the first commandment, Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Verse 4, commandment 2, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. Verse 7, the third commandment, Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Verse 8, the fourth commandment, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Verse 12, the fifth commandment, honor thy father and thy mother. Verse 13, the sixth commandment, thou shall not kill. Verse 14, Thou shalt not commit adultery, verse 15. Thou shalt not steal, verse 16. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, and verse 17, the 10th commandment, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor. Thou shalt not covet, essentially. Now you think about this for just a second. God has a law. And this is what we know as the Ten Commandments, and of course there's many, many more commandments within the entire law of God. But we think about these ten, we focus on these ten quite often. But think about this for just a second. In man's law, only a couple of them really are considered wicked. When we think about our own laws here in the United States, we really only think about the sixth and eighth commandment, thou shall not kill and thou shall not steal. Those are the only two truly, those are the only two commandments from the Word of God that our laws here in the United States give penalties for. Everything else is kind of free range in the law of man, but it's not so in the law of God. Now I want to think just a step further. I said, consider ourselves that we have absolutely no understanding of law or right and wrong or anything. Where does law come from then? If we have no government, if we have no Bible, where does law come from then? Gracie come up to me the other day and she asked me, she said, Daddy, she said, one of the kids at school were saying we were animals. So one of the kids at school was talking about how people are animals. And I said, well, you don't believe that, do you? She said, no. She said, I'm not an animal. She said, I'm a person. And I said, that's exactly right. I said, God has made animals, and God has made people. God has gave people dominion over the animals. I said, animals are creatures that are instinctive. Everything they do goes by instinct. Everything they do, it has a purpose, but it's instinctual. So she said to me, she said, well, they were talking about how smart dolphins are and how scientists say that dolphins are so much smarter than humans. I said, well, when was the last time you got caught in a fishing net? You say, Brother Greg, where are you going with all this? Man left to himself would be a very instinctual creature, but God has placed something within us that causes us to not act instinctually. Think about this for just a second. If I didn't like somebody and there was no law, there was no thou shalt not kill, there was no law, telling me I couldn't kill. If I didn't like somebody, I would just go and get rid of them. Does that not make sense? If there was something I saw out there that I liked, and there was no law telling me that I couldn't take it, I would just go and take it for myself. Oh, Brother Tom, I'm just going to steal your boots. I like those boots. I'm just going to take your boots. Humans would go by instinct if there was no law. And why is that? Because we have a sin nature within us. There is a nature within us that just wars against the nature of God within us. Let's go back to the book of Romans for just a second. I want you to see this, what I'm trying to illustrate here, in verse 8. Let's look at verse 7 again. Paul says, what shall we say then is the law sin? He says, God forbid, nay, I had not known sin, but by the law for I had not known lust, except the law said, thou shalt not covet. He said, if it were up to me, I would have absolutely no perception whatsoever of covetousness. You go to somebody who doesn't know the law and they're saying, I want that. I got to have that. It doesn't belong to me, but I want it. But what does the law say? Thou shalt not covet. And then all of a sudden it begins to make sense. Oh, maybe it's not good that I am coveting. He says here in verse 8, he says, But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. That word concupiscence there means longing. When you and I see something and we like it or we don't like it, we long to have it or to get rid of it, whatever the situation might be. It says here in verse 8, But sin wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. What happens here is that this rebellious nature that's in us, when God says, Thou shalt not commit adultery, and you see somebody who you lust after, what's happening? That sin is rebelling against the law. That fleshly nature is rebelling against the law. If you see something out there that doesn't belong to you and you want it, and the law says, thou shalt not steal, what does sin do? It rebels against the law and says, I've got to have it. That's our rebellious nature. That's our sinful nature. God has put a nature within us though. He has put His law in our hearts to know the difference between right and wrong. We are so much greater. than the animals. We're so much greater than just running on instinct. God, there's something out there and we see it and we say, it's not ours but I've got to have it, I'm going to take it. And God begins to say, uh-uh, no, no, no, no, that's not yours. You shouldn't take that. That's stealing. And what happens? We begin to we begin to war within our members. He said, but sin wrought in me all manner of concupiscence that is longing. He said, for without the law, sin was dead. He makes sin almost like this living creature, like this satanic, demonic-like creature. And he says the law, it causes us to be motivated to take action, to take wicked action. Notice what he says in verse 9, he says, for I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived. It's almost like sin came alive when the commandment came and he said, and I died. He was alive naturally, but when he began to see his sin through the commandments, he spiritually died. Folks, that's what happens to us when we see the Law of God. When we begin to look through the Law of God, and we begin to see where we have failed God, what happens? We spiritually die. It's been said before that the Word of God is not just a book we read, but it's a book that reads us. That's what the Law does. The Law reads us. The law knows our heart. The law knows where we have had lust in our heart. The law knows where we've had greed in our heart. The law knows when we've had covetousness in our heart. The law knows when we've had hatred in our heart. We read the commandments of God, what happens? Sin revived and we spiritually die. Verse 10, it says, "...and the commandment which was ordained to life I found to be unto death." Think about this, the commandment was given by God. God is the giver of life. God is life. Without God there is no life. And he says this commandment is unto life, but what happens? He sees it and now he finds that it's unto death. These commandments which God gave, they were to help us to live like God, to help us to be holy like God, to help us be more like God. But when we began to look into it, we found out that we fell very short of God's glory, we fell very short of God's holiness and God's perfection. We saw within the law, uh-oh, we're sinners. We're spiritually dead. That's what the law says to us. He says in verse 11, verse 10, taking occasion by the commandment deceived me and it slew me. When we see the law, we're almost like the Pharisees to begin with. Oh, we're keepers of the law. We do the law. We don't do wrong. We don't break the law. But then we begin to see it. God begins to speak to our hearts through the law. And we see that we've been deceived, and the law cuts us down. It slays us. It pricks our heart. It just gets right in there into our heart and shows us, opens us up and shows us what's truly inside. Oh, how sinful we are, folks. Oh, how wicked we truly are when compared to a thrice holy God. It says in verse 2, "...Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good, was then that which is good made death unto me, God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceedingly sinful." So we see here that we are sinners. We need help. We need grace. We need God's mercy. We can't save ourselves. We can't keep the law. We've already broken the law. He says in verse 14, For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. We're not holy creatures. We were created in the image of God, but we are very carnal. We are worldly. Sin just entices us to the point where we break God's commandment. And Paul reflects that in the next few verses. He says in verse 15, for that which I do, I allow not. For what I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that do I. Think about that for just a second. I know the wording is a little confusing to our ears, but just think about what he's saying. He said, what I would do as a child of God, that's not what I do. God says live righteously and I'm thinking I need to live righteously, but I don't live righteously. He says, what I hate that do I. As a child of God, we hate sin. As a child of God, we hate the sin which we commit, but yet we still commit it. Think about that for just a second. We hate sin, but we commit sin. How does that work? Verse 16, he says, "...if then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good." He says, I don't do that which I would not. He says, as a child of God, he says, I don't want to do that which I would not. So what do I do? I go to the law. And I see that the law is good. He says, verse 17, now that is no more I that do it, but the sin that dwelleth in me. He's saying, what is it? It's that old flesh that's commits that sin. As a child of God, we have Christ living within us, so why are we still sinning? It's not Jesus that's in us that's sinning, but it's that old flesh in us that's sinning. You say, Brother Greg, Paul seems like a schizophrenic. You know what? We almost kind of are, spiritually speaking. We are two people in one in a very real spiritual sense. We are totally sinful, and yet we are totally under grace. We are totally sinless and sinful at the same time. Say, Brother Greg, how does that work? The grace of God. Verse 19, it says, For the good that I would, I do not. But the evil which I would not, that I do. There's a lot of things in this world that you and I would love to be able to do. A lot of ways that we would love to be able to serve God and live for Him, but we don't do it because of the sin that's in us. And just the opposite, there's things in this life that we hate and that we wish we wouldn't do, and yet we do them anyways because we're sinners. Verse 20, Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." So once again, Paul is saying here that it's not the new person. It's not Paul the Apostle, it's Saul of Tarsus back there. Saul of Tarsus is the one who is still doing the sinning. Paul the Apostle wants to live for God, but Saul of Tarsus won't let him. I think each of us, in a very real sense, those of us who are saved can relate to this. There's things in our old life that just won't go away. There's sin in our life that we just can't put away because we still have the old nature within us. But thank God for the new nature. He says in verse 22, He says, For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. Praise God. You know, we read the Word of God. Let's go back and look at this for just a second. Let's go back and look at a few verses here. Romans 3, just go back a few chapters. Verse 10. It says, as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together and become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher. With their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips. whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes." You say, Brother Greg, who's this talking about? It's talking about you, and it's talking about me. And Paul says, I delight in the law of God after the inward man. Folks, we read that and we see that, what I just read, and our flesh absolutely hates it. to think about the fact that we are sinners. God's calling us out on our sin. God's calling us out on our unfilthiness. He's calling us out on the way we speak, the way we talk, the way we live, our going after violence and all these sorts of things. God is calling us out on that. And you know what Paul says? He says, I delight in the law of God. after the inward man. Our flesh hates hearing about sin. Our flesh hates hearing about God's holiness. But praise the Lord, we have that new man. And yes, we love the Lord. Yes, He has saved us. Yes, He has given us His grace. He has saved us by grace through faith. And we can praise the Lord when we hear preaching against sin. The very sin that we're committing. I'm laughing, but it's terrible. He says, I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members. And what's this one doing? It's warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. Oh, praise the Lord. I love the commandments of God. I do my best to keep the commandments of God, but I still don't keep the commandments of God because there's members warring in my flesh, bringing me into captivity in sin. And Paul pretty much sums it up right here in verse 24. Oh, wretched man that I am. How wretched we truly are to want to live and serve God, but not being able to because of our old flesh. Hating our sin, but still committing it nevertheless. Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? He answers his own question there in verse 25. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Folks, what do we need? We need Christ. I stood up here Sunday morning and preached how if you're lost, you need Jesus Christ. If you don't know Jesus as your Savior, you need to repent of your sin and place your faith and trust in Him, and He will save you from your sin. But you know something? If you're saved, you need Jesus. If you're a member of this church, if you've been saved for 50 years, you need Jesus Christ. You need Him just as much as you did the day you were saved. Oh, how we need Christ. Not just for salvation, but also for sanctification. To continually keep us in His way, to continually keep us in His grace, to continually make us and mold us to be more like Him, because we can't do it ourselves. There's that old instinct of nature, there's that old fleshly nature, which still is almost animal-like, which still just wants to go, just see and take everything it can possibly get. But God has His hand upon us. God has His grace upon us. We're now bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. He says, verse 25, so then with the mind I myself serve the law of God. Our heart and our mind serves the law of God. We long after God's law. We long to serve God, but with the flesh the law of sin. He serves God, he wants to serve God, but he also is still serving sin through the flesh. You say, Brother Greg, how can I live above sin? Rent yourself an apartment above a bar. That's a joke by the way, not a good one. How can you live above sin? There is no way to live above sin in this lifetime because we are still in this flesh. There's a part of us which will never serve God in this lifetime. The only way we'll fully, truly be able to serve the Lord is when we get to heaven. Salvation is the freedom from sin. Freedom from the power of sin. Sanctification is the freedom from the... power, excuse me, glorification. Glorification is the salvation from the presence of sin. That's what I was trying to say. Sorry about that. We'll be free from the presence of sin when we get to glory, folks. That's when we will truly be able to serve God with fullness, free from sin's presence. It's a hard life we have to live as Christians, trying to serve God and yet still being under the bondage of sin, but may God give us grace. May God help us. May He just continue to draw us closer to Him and help us to live according to His will. Father, we ask for forgiveness now where we fail you.