Our Scripture reading this morning will be Romans 6. As I continue to work through this 6th chapter, I've reached the 18th verse, and I'll be looking at verses 18, 19, and 20 today. But I'll read the entire chapter. Hear now the Word of the Lord. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now, if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more, deatheth no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once, but then that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise, reckon you also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you're not under the law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men, because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as you would yield your members, servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your members, servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when you were the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin and become servants to God, you have your fruit and a holiness in the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. May God bless your hearing of his word today. You may be seated. I've almost reached the end of the Apostle Paul's Holy Spirit-inspired, what I have no problem saying, his demolition of the false and demonic teaching that sovereign grace salvation is a license to sin. Sovereign grace salvation being the phrase that I've used as I've worked through this sixth chapter of Romans to summarize the truths of the saving gospel of God. Those truths that are summarized are described in what are known as the Solas of the Reformation. sola, meaning alone or only, salvation by grace alone, due to faith or belief alone, in the finished work of Christ alone, according to the scriptures alone, so that all the glory, so that all the glory of the sinner for whom Christ died goes to God alone, the ultimate author of all these truths. because they summarize what the Holy Scriptures of God teach. Despite how many may reject them, dislike them, do not preach them, even in the churches of Christ, and even do not want them preached in the churches of Christ. Because how many edifices with the word church on a sign outside that building would chafe at or dislike or even vehemently oppose the preaching of these biblical truths in their edifices of error? Not a few, I fear, friends. Not a few. For to see the glorious biblical gospel, to see the glorious biblical truth of sovereign grace salvation, all you would have to do is go back over the verses that I've already preached on. to see how wonderfully opposed the apostle Paul is to the false teaching that sovereign grace salvation means either continue in sin that grace may abound, verse 1, or sin because true believers in Christ are not under the law but under grace, verse 15, to which Paul gives his immediate Holy Spirit-inspired response, God forbid, twice. before wonderfully and thoroughly showing you why he does so in the verses that follow this repeated declaration, that only the English words, God forbid, can adequately express how horrendously false and wicked these ideas are and ever will be. Because what does Paul do to demolish these demonic lies? First, by showing you how heretical the first idea, that is, continuing sin that grace may abound is, because it distorts and denies and, dare I say, it blasphemes the purpose of the finished work of Christ on His cross of penal substitutionary atonement. And then the error that Paul demolishes In his second section is what? What does he say there in verse 15? Continue in sin that grace may abound. Verse 1 or verse 15. We are not under the law but under grace. God forbid. That you're no longer under the law of God, but under the grace of God. That means, according to these heretics, that you should just continue in sin. How does Paul demolish this argument, starting at verse 16? And I started a few weeks back. How does he demolish this false and dangerous idea? But dare I ask a simple question? Are there any false ideas that are not dangerous? But it's such a false and dangerous idea that sovereign grace salvation, as described, is a license to sin. He demolishes this argument, my friends, or this statement, because of the fact a true believer is no longer under the law, but under grace. That heretic, that false teacher, fails to face the true condition of all mankind, apart from that sovereign saving grace of God, and the new condition of all those who have it by the sovereign grace of God and by all mankind or by mankind I mean all men and women despite the perfectly correct word mankind used up until today to describe men and women as being seen as hate speech This lost world, friends, has become so depraved that there are those who take offense at calling a manhole cover a manhole cover and not a personhole cover. Because if that cover is not there, who risks falling into it? A man or woman made in the image of God, regardless of what they are wearing or have wickedly done to their bodies to deny and rebel against the very thing that true believers have been saved from in Christ. As Paul declares in the verses I have reached, because of what those who have been saved by the sovereign grace of God willingly do with their redeemed but yet to be glorified bodies. But as I said, dangerously teaching that sovereign grace salvation is a license to sin ignores the sobering true condition that we all enter this world in, as well as the gloriously new condition those Christ died for are now in because of His finished work for them alone. Because when Paul says, if anyone is in Christ, he is what? A new creation. When Paul says, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation, he means it. He means it. And it is true regardless of the ridicule and rejection of this biblical truth by those still under the thralldom of sin and Satan. And this is something I sought to show you from verse 17 last week, where you read Paul thanking the Lord for hearing about the true, regenerated, saved, sanctified, and ultimately glorified believers in the capital city of the pagan city, Rome. Verse 17, "'But God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.'" And in this one verse, Paul shows the truth of sovereign grace salvation, because who does Paul thank for the changed lives of the former lost idolaters in Rome, meaning true believers in God? Who does he thank? He thanks God. He thanks God because he knows only God could have produced the amazing change in their lives that he had heard about as God had done for him on the Damascus road. For which the believers in Christ before him did what? They glorified and thanked God for him. And now Paul is thanking God for them. Salvation is of the sovereign grace of God, friends, despite how disliked and even denied this truth is even in the churches today. But how did Paul know this had taken place in the lives of those he was thanking God for? Just a summary from last week, the end of verse 17, that you were the servants of sin, but you've obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Their changed lives testified to the truth of God's amazing saving and sovereign grace. Because despite how disliked and chafed at by those still under the blinding power of sin and Satan, everyone, everyone outside of the sinless Lord Jesus Christ enters this world a servant of sin. And only the sovereign, regenerating, and saving grace of God can deliver someone for whom Christ died from their sobering natural condition in Adam. Which is why Jesus told Nicodemus what? That unless a man is born again or born from above by God, he cannot see and he cannot enter the kingdom of God. despite what lying and dangerous ecumenists and universalists dangerously preach at how many funerals in lost America today. But evidence of this true work of sovereign grace salvation was known not only to Paul, for which he thanked God for, but it was known throughout the pagan Roman Empire. Because what does Paul write back in the first chapter of this letter as he thanks God back there as well. Romans chapter 1 verse 8. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all that your faith is spoken up throughout the whole world. The whole Roman world for the Plains Indians in North America at that time hadn't heard of the faith of the believers in Rome. showing how the word world does not always mean all without exception, as those who incorrectly preach the atonement of Christ are expert at doing. But the whole Roman world had heard that there are believers in Christ in the capital city of Rome. Have you heard? Have you heard? Know what? Because remember something, friends, gossip was popular in the first century. Gossip was popular in the first century as much as today, even without Facebook, Twitter, and how many other social media apps today people are addicted to. Have you heard? No, what? Some of those obnoxious people, some of those obnoxious people calling themselves Christian, They've even infected the capital city of Rome. No. What is Nero going to do about those immoral atheists? Because that's what Christians were looked upon as. Because they wouldn't bow down to the buffet deities present in Rome. I mean, haven't they heard that you can have God any way you like in America? Oh, excuse me, Rome. They dare say that there's only one living, true, and only God. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and that he can only be known savingly and correctly through the one who died on a cross outside the walls of Jerusalem, who these heretics say rose from the dead, never to die again. Such people need to be made into cat food, are sent to re-indoctrination camps. But Paul was thanking Paul was thanking God for such true believers in Rome, even as true believers in God thanked God when they heard the Lord had saved him from his lost Judaism on the Damascus Road, something those in the sobering number of churches in America who support gospel-denying Zionism need to face today, but don't. Jews need the gospel, friends! Lost Jews need the gospel, friends, as do lost Palestinians and lost Americans and lost Canadians. For how many of the true believers in Rome were saved Jews, even as Paul was? But what does Paul do in the verses I've reached, in verses 18 to 20, showing again how heretical this teaching that sovereign grace salvation is a license to sin, that it is heresy and always will be heresy? I will seek to open up three things that Paul teaches in these three verses. First, he tells the believers in Rome and all believers since then, because what Paul wrote to the believers in Rome is part of what? The providentially preserved Word of God. But first, Paul tells the believers he was thankful for, and all true believers, reading his infallibly and inerrantly written words, what the Lord God has made them, because of His sovereign grace, because of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on His cross of penal substitution for those He died for. Verse 18, being then made free from sin, ye became servants of righteousness. Second, Paul uses an easily understood reality. that should be or will be seen in those who have been so wonderfully changed by the sovereign, saving, and sanctifying grace of God." Verse 19, "'I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as ye have yielded your members, servants, to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your members, servants, to righteousness unto holiness.'" And then third and finally, Paul drives home his point. Paul drives home his point of practical application by declaring something true believers were incapable of doing prior to being saved by the sovereign grace of God, regardless of how much this truth offends and annoys non-believers who do not want to face their true condition in sin unless set free from it like every true believer in Christ has been. Verse 20, for when you were the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. Go of the supreme folly and blindness of those who say, sovereign grace, salvation is a license to sin. Why? My first point, because of what Paul declares, sovereign grace, salvation results in for someone for whom Christ died. Verse 18 again, being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. God's sovereign grace, salvation in Christ not only saves the sinner for whom Christ died from the penalty of all the sins sadly he or she has committed in thought, word, and deed, but because of His death for His people, Jesus makes those He died for, what? New creations in Him. Set free from the power of sin that dominated and controlled your life, believer, prior to being saved by His amazing grace. Being then made free from sin. Being then made free from sin. And notice, this is not something any believer does for themselves or can do for themselves. Why do I say this? Two reasons. First, what were you? Before the sovereign grace of God saved you, believer, what were you? You were a dead in trespasses and sin sinner, incapable of doing anything but sin, and incapable of doing anything to save yourself from your sin. But when the Holy Spirit gives new life to someone for whom Christ died, they are made free from sin. The one thing you could not stop doing is now the one thing that is a source of grief to you, believer, as you long for that day of glorification. Again, Paul is simply stating the truth that only true believers understand and believe, namely that unless the Lord God alone sets a sin-blind, sin-bound servant of sin free from their slavery, they will never set themselves free. Because lost sinners are so blinded by the power of sin over their sin-bound lives that they think their servanthood to sin is freedom rather than the exact opposite. Paul knows who alone set the believers in Rome free from their former slavery to sin and Satan, the Lord. Being then made free from sin. But second, not only were believers formerly dead in trespasses and sins, able to do nothing to save yourself, believer, from your wretched condition and sin, but notice, second, how Paul declares, what has happened? to those Christ died for. Again, being then made free from sin. This is not something the sin-blinded sinner that Christ died for does. It is done for him. It is done for her. It was done for you, believer, by the God of amazing, sovereign, omnipotent saving grace. For being made free is in what is called the passive voice. Oh no, not more grammar. Being made free is in the passive voice. What does passive voice mean? Well, let me illustrate this way. If I was to come up to you and slap you in the face, something I do not intend to do, But it is something people in other countries are willing to pay money to have done to them. And people doubt that sin has warped the minds of men and women. Here, I'm going to pay you $10 so you can slap me in the face. But if I was to slap you in the face, who is active and who is passive in my doing this? I am active. You are passive unless you flinch and run out of the room. But you are the one receiving the action. You are the one receiving, you're on the receiving end of my slap. Who delivers those Christ died for from their slavery to sin and Satan? God does. And God does it alone. Being then made free by God, being set free from your servanthood to sin, was not something you did, believer, but something the Lord did for you. By His amazing and sovereign grace, in the words that so offended the lost religious leaders in Jerusalem, who refused to face that only Jesus could set them free from their bondage to sin. John 8 verse 34, Jesus answered them, them, verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is a servant of sin. And verse 36, if the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. Oh, how many lost sinners foolishly parade their servant into sin as freedom, even as they mock and ridicule true believers who rejoice in what the Lord has been pleased to make those his son died for, new creations in Christ. Because notice what Paul writes next in this verse. For when the Lord saves a sinner for whom Christ died, He not only delivers him or her from their bondage to sin and Satan, but makes them His blood-bought servants. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness." And notice again, ye became, that's another passive voice verb. Meaning it's not something you made yourself, but something God made you, believer, when God gave you new life in Christ Jesus. Truth that Paul doesn't want believers to forget, for he repeats it in verse 22. But now being made free from sin and become servants to God, you have your fruit and a holiness in the end everlasting life. Oh, the folly. Not only the folly, dare I say the heresy. Of those who preach and teach that it is in the power of the dead and trespassers and sin sinners to give themselves new life in Christ. And friends, that's done with these long, protracted invitations. Oh, won't you open the door of your sin-blinded, sin-depraved, sin-dead, devil-controlled heart and let Jesus save you? That's not my Savior. My Savior reaches down and lifts up a dead, depraved sinner who has no more of the ability or the desire to choose God then he has to spit and extinguish the sun. But now being made free from sin, being then made free from sin, he became the servants of righteousness. Because friends, just ask yourself this question. Very simple question. was the lost Saul of Tarsus, who became known as Paul, the servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, was this lost sinner who had been breathing out threats and slaughter against the sinners who had been saved by the amazing saving grace of God. And he was on his way to Damascus to make havoc of the church there. I ask you, on that decreed morning, Saul set out to make havoc in the church in Damascus. Was it to become a willing servant of the Lord Jesus Christ? Was he saying as he was going along the road, he's saying, oh, when I get to Damascus, I'm going to confess Christ. When I get to Damascus, I'm going to open my heart and I'm going to be saved. No, he was on the road of Damascus to make havoc of the church, but God other plans for this dead in sin under the bondage of Satan. He had other plans for this man. He lifted him up and he made him one of the most amazing evangelists in the world. Even as he has sovereignly done in every lost sinner who comes into this world, a servant of sin, regardless of the degree that that servanthood was displayed or how long it was displayed. That's the wonder of the regenerating grace of God. Every true believer has a different story to tell. If you were to talk to Paul, he'd say, when did the Lord save you? Oh, I was on my way to make habit of the church. When did the Lord save you? Oh, I was living for sin. I thought I'd had a righteousness that I could present to God. I went to mass every day. I followed all the traditions of the lost Catholic church. I even became a priest. Oh, if you want to hear a wonderful testimony, listen to the testimony of Richard Bennett, a saved former lost Roman Catholic priest. Coming to that place of seeing his absolute need of Christ Jesus alone to save him. Now is the day of salvation, where you will become a willing servant of my beloved and only begotten Son, even if it cost you your brief life on this sin-saturated and serving earth, which it has done for how many who have held forth the truth that Christ Jesus is the only one able to save willing servants of sin and Satan, regardless of their ethnicity, social position, or gender, even if they have their hand burnt to the bone. not deny the one who saved me from my sins. Lost sinners doubt the power of the saving gospel of God, even as they are surrounded by those whose lives have been turned right side up. By the amazing, sovereign, saving, justifying, and sanctifying grace of God. Now why did I say sovereign, sanctifying grace of God? Because Paul knows that the sovereign grace of God that saves a lost sinner, saves a sin-serving sinner, is seen in the lives that have been changed and transformed by it. Why do I say this? My second point today. For Paul uses an easily understood reality all true believers experience and will be seen in those who have been so wonderfully changed by the sovereign saving and sanctifying grace of God. Verse 19, I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. Men, regardless of who they are, male or female, rich or poor, Jew or Gentile, show who they are by who or what they obey. They show who they are the servants of by who or what they yield their lives and bodies to. But Paul knows that the believers he is writing to have not yet been glorified. Paul knows the reality of the battle with remaining but not reigning sin that every true believer has to engage in. So what does he do? He uses this reality to help believers face what giving in to the infirmity of your flesh, giving in to the reality of remaining but not reigning sin, believer, is displaying in your life. It is not displaying the truth of who you profess to be a willing servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. But to help believers see this truth, and if I dare put it this way, to drill it down and plant it in your redeemed mind, he reminds believers of what they used to be able to do but can no longer do because believers are new creations in Christ Jesus. Because if I dare put it this way, if you are a new creation in Christ Jesus, the thrill is gone. The thrill is gone. The thrill and the enjoyment of sin is gone. For as ye yielded your members, servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity." And anyone who thinks that a true believer in Christ does not need to be reminded to fight the good fight of the faith against remaining sin and challenged to do so, they must be reading a different Bible than I am. Truth that Paul addresses in the next chapter, but how does he powerfully apply what he is telling all believers in these verses in Romans 6 to do? How does he apply it to himself? Because remember, friends, Paul was no hypocrite. Paul was no hypocrite. Oh, this is what I'm telling you to do to display the truth that you've been blessed with a true work of sovereign and saving grace. But that truth, I don't need it. No, 1 Corinthians 9 verses 24 to 27. Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize, so run that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run not as uncertainty, so fight I not as one that beateth the air, but I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, lest there by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a cast away. Friends, the true Christian life is a battle. It's a fight. It's a race. Paul knew the reality of the battle with remaining but not reigning sin and fought against it by the sanctifying grace of God. Don't live and act like you once lived and act when sin and not the Savior from sin was your Master and Lord, because sovereign grace, salvation that believers have received when the Lord sovereignly saved you, believer, is not a license to sin. Despite what these heretics Teach. What is it? It's a change of masters. It's a change of masters. You have a new master. Who's your new master, believer? The Lord Jesus Christ. And it's not sin. It's the Savior from sin, the Lord Jesus Christ. Why does Jesus say this in Luke 6, 46? And why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? What did Jesus say to the Jews who had believed in him? John 8 verses 31 to 32, Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Free from the lie that serving sin is freedom rather than bondage, and a wage that will take those working at sin to hell. if they don't cry out to the Lord Jesus Christ to save them from their slavery to it. Because what does Jesus say in John 8 verse 36? For if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. Free to be a willing servant of your new master. The master, the master. The master who was willing to go all the way to his cross to save you from your sins and your slavery to sin, and not so that you could continue. The radical contrast and change that Paul says takes place because of sovereign grace salvation puts an ax to the root of the heretical tree that sovereign grace salvation means sin all you want because you are under the grace of God and not the law of God. For as you have yielded your members servants to uncleanness, and to iniquity, unto iniquity even, so now yield your members servants to righteousness, unto holiness, and dare I say, Yield your member servants to Jesus and unto Jesus, because the words righteousness and holiness are both applied by Paul to Jesus in 1 Corinthians 1. But of Him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification, or holiness and redemption. The changed life of a true believer in Christ doesn't save them, perish the thought. That's heresy. It displays the fact that they have been saved by the sovereign saving grace of God. Sovereign grace, salvation, a license to sin, God forbid, it's impossible. Your condition prior to being saved was one of being a servant of sin. And as Paul says in the next verse, you didn't have the power to serve the Lord Jesus Christ because sin controlled and directed your lost life and not the Savior of sinners, the Lord Jesus Christ. Because what does Jesus say in John 15, 5? I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me you can do nothing. Lost sinners who think that they can provide to God something he will accept without Christ are whited sepulchers, full of dead men's bones, totally unable to present anything acceptable to the living God, for all their righteousnesses and all your full righteousnesses before you were saved, believer, are filthy rags in the sight of Almighty God. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, the powerful way that Paul describes this. For as you have yielded your members, servants to uncleanness and to iniquity, unto iniquity. Because friends, think of it this way. How many true believers in Christ would not be alive today if the Lord had not saved them from their being slaves to whatever sin they had been slaves to? Have you ever asked yourself that question? There but for the grace of God go I. How does Paul describe this sobering reality in Ephesians 4, verses 17 to 20? This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who, being past feeling, have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ. Oh, preacher, get a grip. Get a grip. We have smartphones. We have the Internet. We have 4K curved computer monitors. All this talk about sin, even singing, the whole world was lost in the darkness of sin. Get a grip, man. Look at what 21st century man is capable of doing. Oh, yes. I am amazed at what we have today since I entered this world dead in trespasses and sins almost 70 years ago. Yes, we have amazing things that can be, by the grace of God, offered up unto the Lord Jesus Christ in his holy service. But I ask you, I ask you, what is one of the main uses of smartphones? What is one of the main uses of the internet? What is one of the main uses of 4K widescreen computer monitors? It is pornography. Friends, if every computer and smartphone used to access pornography or some lust-promoting and lascivious website was suddenly to burst into flame like electric vehicles can do, how many homes, even so-called Christian homes, would be unable to call 911 because the smartphones in their hands, in their pockets, or in their homes would be on fire? But what does Paul say to believers who have come to see that only the sovereign grace of Almighty God could save them? Continue in sin because you're not under the law but under grace? No! For as you have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. Show that you have had a change of masters. Sin is no longer your master, Jesus is. The savior of sinners is my master and Lord, not the sin that I used to be in bondage to. Yet how many who profess to be believers are showing that King Sin reigns and rules over their lives, not King Jesus, the savior of sinners. Choose this day whom ye will serve, sin or the Savior, from sinners, the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 12 verse 1, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Instead of offering up your members in service to King Sin, as every lost sinner does, offer up your eyes, offer up your ears, offer up your hands, offer up your lips, offer up every member of your body, offer up your saved life in willing, loving, holy service to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ. As ye serve sin, so now serve God the Lord. Oh, thank the Lord that the Holy Spirit guided Paul to use the example of different masters in order for believers to grasp the folly and heretical nature of the demonic idea that sovereign grace salvation is a license to sin. Because as I said, men can be and are in only one of two categories. Lost servants of sin or gloriously saved sinners made willing servants of the Savior of sinners. Now, lest I be misunderstood as the devil will seek to get people to reject this truth. For the fact that mankind is in one of the only two conditions man can be in, servant of sin or serving the Savior of sinners. This does not mean that lost sinners don't fight against some of their sins. This does not mean lost sinners do not fight against some of their sins that they are addicted to, which is why you have all these self-help groups. But friends, all they do is change, if I can put it this way, the sin that is king. All they're doing is changing the sin that is king, often to a more dangerous and deadly one. Because if Jesus doesn't set a sinner free from their bondage to sin, lost sinners only change the form of sin the devil has them bound to. Because notice what does Jesus teach in Luke 11. I'll read verses 20 to 26, but I'll break after verse 23. Luke 11 verses 20 to 26, but if I, with the finger of God, cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger than he shall come upon him and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armor, whereineth he trusted, and divideth his spoils. He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me scattereth. Anyone who teaches that anyone other than the Lord Jesus Christ can set a sinner free from the sin they are in bondage to is against Christ. And yet how many self-help groups are there in America? How many self-help gurus, if that's how you say it, peddling their courses to help this person overcome, well, I got a problem with overeating. Well, here, this, it only costs you $1,000 a month, and I'll tell you how to stop overeating. Oh, well, here, I can't lose weight. Well, here's another course that I can give you, and it's only $500 a month. This, you can go on the internet. You've got more courses than you could ever spend time for. And not a single one of them points them to Christ. Not a single one of them points them to Christ. Thinking that they can overcome this sin or that sin. Making the condition of that lost sinner worse. than before. Why? Luke 11 verses 24-26, When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and finding none. He saith, I will return unto my house once I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself. And they enter in, and dwell therein. And the last state of that man is worse than the first. A lost sinner who has been able to give up some soul and body destroying sin without Christ Jesus is harder to reach with the saving gospel because they think, because they think, what I'm about to repeat from a line of a well-known song when I was growing up that has this verse in it, because they think this, For what is man? What has he got? If not himself, then he is not. To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels. The record shows I took the blows and did it my way. That's the reality, friends. That's the reality. The last state of that man is worse than the first. King pride enters in. And the last state of that man is worse than when he was addicted to some other sin that he thought he gave up on his own. But also every true believer is a willing servant of their new master, Jesus Christ. This does not mean you're a perfect servant. That those who confess Christ as Lord were 24-7 willing servants of the Savior, sinners, King Jesus. How different would this world be? But that's glorification. But what will your new master do? What will your new master do? If you think waging war against remaining sin but not reigning sin is not something to concern yourself with. Hebrews 12 verses 5 to 11 tells you what your new master will do. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son, and we receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our profit, that we might be takers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward it yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Jesus disciplines those he saves. I mean, no demeaning of what these verses say, but Jesus takes that one he's shed his precious blood for. Oh, that sin's not that important or that sin's not important. The Lord Jesus Christ takes him out to that holy woodshed. takes him out to that holy woodshed and says, you can't just explain away this or explain away that. Oh, have you felt his gracious, sanctifying hand of discipline? Because my friends, he is going to present to himself a glorified church without spot or wrinkle. But third and finally today, Paul drives home this point of practical application by declaring something true believers were incapable of doing prior to being saved by the sovereign grace of God, regardless of how much this truth offends and annoys the non-believer who does not want to face his true condition in sin unless set free from it, like every true believer in Christ has been. Verse 20, for when you were the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. Pray to the Lord saving you, believer. The only thing you could serve and the only thing you wanted to serve was sin. You were free from righteousness. You no more wanted to serve the Lord Jesus Christ in the beauty of holiness than having all your teeth knocked out with a hammer without anesthetic. You are a willing servant of sin even as all the lost you know continue in sin and get offended and annoyed if they are told that the only thing that they can do Outside of Christ is sin. Truth that simply reinforces the truth that Paul has been defending in this sixth chapter, that sovereign grace salvation is not a license to sin. Because what were you before the Lord saved you, believer? You were a servant of sin. And what is the one thing a person who is a servant of sin, both willing and unable to do, become a servant of righteousness? become a willing servant of the Lord Jesus Christ on their own. Paul defends the truth of sovereign grace salvation from the lie that it is a license to sin. Because if it wasn't for sovereign grace salvation, there wouldn't be a single former servant of sin wanting to serve the savior of sinners, the Lord Jesus Christ. Justification is by faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone, because salvation is of the Lord when He reaches down through the power of His almighty Word and Spirit and saves willing servants of sin and Satan. And who would have remained willing servants of sin and Satan even under the lake of fire unless He had sovereignly saved them? How do those whom He has sovereignly saved display this truth? Not by continuing in sin, but looking and longing for that day when you will be forever delivered from all sin into the glorious liberty of serving and worshiping the Savior of sinners in the new heavens and the new earth, even as you yield up your yet-to-be-glorified body and soul in willing service to the Lord Jesus Christ. Because I'll simply close with this. Choose this day whom you will serve, King Sin or the only savior of sinners, King Jesus. There is no third option. Let us pray. Oh Lord, help us. Help us. to marvel at what you alone can do, not only in the lives of those who confess you as Lord, but in the lost lives you can yet work in and cause them to cry out, Lord have mercy upon me a sinner. O Lord, show us your power in these sin-drenched, sin-dead, sin-depraved days. Show us your power in the salvation of those you were sent into this world to save, and we will give you all the praise. In Jesus' name, amen.