SIMPLE CHRISTIANITY

by Ray C. Stedman

I hope you already have your Bibles open to Romans as we are beginning our study of this most powerful human document in the world: The Letter of Paul to the Romans.

This book lit the fire in Martin Luther's heart that began the Protestant Reformation and changed the history of the western world. This book lit the fire in John Wesley's heart, resulting in the great awakening in England that saved England from the fate of France in the French Revelationolution. This book lit the fire in Karl Barth's heart in our own day and caused him to write his study on Romans which called the theological world back from the cold, barren deadness of liberalism to a much more vital and powerful Christian message. This book, therefore, has become one of the most revolutionary books of all time. The Communists think that the writings of Karl Marx are revolutionary, but the writings of Karl Marx look like a Boy Scout manual when compared to the revolutionary power of the book of Romans! I mean that! It is just because this book has become so familiar to us that we have lost some of the sense of its revolutionary power, but I hope we will approach it now with a sense of freshness and newness -- as though we had never read it before. Perhaps we will see and sense once again the tremendous vitality, vividness, and power of this book.

As you know, this is a letter. It was written by the Apostle Paul to the Christian community in Rome. As best we can determine, he wrote it while he was in the city of Corinth, which was the cultural center of the Roman world. Paul had never been to Rome when he wrote this letter, yet he knew many of the people there. He had met them in various other places and some he had even led to Christ. There is a tradition that says Paul began the church at Rome, but this is most certainly not true. It is difficult to tell how the church began. Some have felt that perhaps it began with the remarkable visit from God in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost. Strangers from Rome were present that day. Some were possibly among the 3,000 who were regenerated and became the first members of the Christian Church on the Day of Pentecost. At any rate, a Christian church had begun in the city of Rome, the capital of the empire, and it is to the band of Christians there that this letter is addressed.

This letter is a magnificent explanation of Christianity. If you had nothing but the book of Romans, you would have every vital Christian teaching in the New Testament -- in capsule form at least. It touches upon all the basic truths of Christian doctrine and teachings. So, if you master the book of Romans, you have the key to all the Scriptures, Old and New Testaments alike. This is why this is such a wonderful book with which to begin studying the Scriptures. The first seventeen verses are the introduction to Paul's letter, and, like any good introduction, they sum up the major themes of the letter. We are calling this introductory message Simple Christianity. As you know, there are several very brilliant writers who have attempted to explain Christian faith to non-believers, and they have written excellent books along this line. C. S. Lewis has put out a book that he calls Mere Christianity. J. B. Philips has written a book that he calls Plain Christianity. J. R. W. Stott has written a book that he calls Basic Christianity. But we have chosen Simple Christianity because that is more in line with our mentality -- mine at least! I think it catches the idea that this is simply putting forth the basic truths of what Christian faith is all about.

In this introduction, you find these truths summarized for us. Paul writes about three things: He writes about Christ, the Roman Christians, and himself: He writes about Christ because there can be no Christianity without him. Christianity is not a creed, it is a person. It is the life of that person relived in our lives today. Therefore, you can't talk about Christianity without talking about Christ. Paul writes about the Romans because these Roman Christians were just like us. They were the basic material within which God began his transforming work in human life, just as we are the basic material within which God intends to show his work today. Paul writes about himself because he is the pattern of what Christ will do. He is a living example of what God's grace can do. In summary, there is a new power to appropriate, an old problem to be solved, and a clear pattern to follow. Now that is simple Christianity, and these three themes find themselves repeated in every setting forth of what Christianity is -- a new power, an old problem, and a clear pattern. Now let's look at it in detail: First, Paul writes about Christ, in Verses 1-7:

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ out Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about obedience to the faith for the sake of his name among the nations, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ;

To all God's beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 1:1-7 RSV)

Since Christ is simply indispensable to Christianity, Paul sums up what we might call the credentials of Jesus Christ. Now you have not been in a Christian church very long before you have heard Christ set forth as the only one who is capable of solving the human dilemma. Christians everywhere stand fast and firm on the proposition that Jesus alone, of all the religious voices that have ever been heard, is the only one who is capable of solving the human dilemma. And anyone who has heard this claim who is not a Christian, if he is thoughtful at all, has the right to say: "How do you know this? What are the credentials of Christ that can make me believe that he can do this?" Well, here they are:

First, he was predicted long before he appeared. Now that is an amazing thing. Notice in Verse 2:

...He promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures...

Jesus Christ was predicted long before he appeared. And I may say that no other 'manufacturer' of religious leaders can make that claim. He alone fits the pattern, fulfills the outline, and matches the test. This is one thing that sets him apart as unique among all the religious voices of the world. None other was predicted long before he came.

During the days of World War II, in the French underground, they often had occasion for agents to meet one another at various places to exchange information and to carry on the work of the underground. Of course, it had to be clandestine, and some of the agents had never met each other before. They had a very simple means of identification so that each agent would know without a doubt that the man he met under certain given conditions was the man he could trust. All they did was to take a piece of paper and tear it in half; they gave one man half of the paper and mailed the other half to the other man. When they met, all they did was compare the two pieces of paper. If the papers matched, the agents were identified and there was no doubt about it!

This is the way that Jesus Christ fulfills the predictions of the Old Testament. He himself said that he came by the accepted way (John 10:1-3, 10:27-28). The sheep heard his voice and they knew that this was the one that came by the predicted route, and men could test his claims on the basis of the Scriptures they had. Paul brings this out before us as one of the unique marks that Jesus Christ is indeed God's intended deliverer of the human race: He came according to the prophets and the predictions. The second mark of his uniqueness is that he combined in himself the nature of God and man. You see how we have it in Verse 3:

...the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and designated Son of God...according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, (Romans 1:3-4 RSV)

Thus he combined in himself these two things: He came in the line of David, which means he had a genealogy, an ancestry, that could be traced back to David. His ancestry is traced for us in Scripture; therefore, he had the right to the throne of David. It is interesting that not once in all the time that our Lord ministered in the flesh did any man challenge his right to sit on the throne of David, though he continually made claim to the fact that he was David's son. No one ever challenged it -- it was too clear. He came according to David's line of the flesh -- he was a human being. When he was raised from the dead, Paul says it demonstrated, as we have seen here, that he was the Son of God. He was the Son of God with the Spirit of holiness. He tied together these two things. In fact, the word for "designated" is the (Greek) word horizo, from which we get our word "horizon." He filled the whole horizon of these believers with the conviction in their hearts that he was the Son of God. This is what you find flaming throughout all of the New Testament -- this deep conviction, because of the resurrection, that these first believers are dealing with the Lord of life himself! Because Jesus Christ is both God and man, he spans the great gulf between God and man. This is the unsolved problem of all other religions. They are always an effort to bridge the gulf from the human side, reaching out toward God, but they never can span it, because man cannot live on God's level. But there is one who came from God's side and bridged the gulf across to man! In combining in himself both natures, Christ becomes the bridge across the chasm between God and man. That is why Christ is unique, and no other 'manufacturer' of religion can make this claim!

I find so many times that people completely miss this point. I received a letter from a college girl some time ago. It was a very earnest letter. I suspected when I read it that she had probably been influenced by the Jehovah's Witnesses, though I am not sure -- at least her questions were along the line that they often take. She said this:

"I don't understand how you can say that Jesus Christ is God. Now, to whom was he praying? Was he praying to himself?"

She went on to list several other instances of the same type. It was obvious her problem was that she thought Christians were claiming that the man Jesus was nothing but God -- that he was God appearing on earth, but that he was not man. Now, this isn't the claim that Christians make: They claim that he is both man and God -- that is the point. It is not that he is God, Holy God, praying thus to himself, but that he is man also. This claim of Christ to be both man and God is absolutely unique, and it is what makes him the one bridge between God and man.

There is a third credential here that marks the supremacy of Jesus Christ, and that is the method of working, as seen in Verse 5:

...through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about obedience to the faith for the sake of his name among the nations, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ... (Romans 1:5-6 RSV)

In other words, how does Christ effect his work in the world? How does he do it? All other religious leaders come and begin an organization, found a movement, or create a party, which, working through the usual ways of human propaganda and activity, spreads its doctrine. People then become convinced of a creed and follow that particular teaching. Now, this is not what Christ has done! He began what we might call a secret society through which his life would touch man. It is not an organization. It is not a political party. It is not a mass movement. And wherever the church has become this, it is a false thing. No, as Paul points out, the Lord's designated way of working is to call men into a unique relationship with himself, that, through their very lives and personalities, he imparts his own nature and life to others and touches and changes them. It is sort of another incarnation, when 'the word becomes flesh' (John 1:14) all over again. The strange thing about the church is that the world never sees Jesus Christ until it sees him incarnate in another Christian. But when he has become flesh in another person's life, then, suddenly, somebody becomes aware that here beside him is something of Christ, and they see Jesus Christ once again. That process is to go on until it touches the entire world, as Paul says, "for the sake of his name among all the nations." Thus, it is a worldwide process of touching others through the lives of those men who are saturated with God, the men who are captured by Christ.

These are the marks of the true messenger of God, and, in line with modern marketing, we might add the slogan, "Accept no substitute." Christ was predicted long before he appeared, he combined in himself the natures of God and man, and his method of working in the world is to impart his nature and life through men. In Verses 8-13, Paul writes about the Roman saints:

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God's will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. I want you to know, brethren, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles. (Romans 1:8-13 RSV)

There is not much we know about the Roman Christians, but Paul starts out by listing the evidence that they were indeed Christians. Their faith had been talked about all over the world -- something had happened to these people. Now, I confess to you that I get suspicious about people who call themselves Christians and nobody knows that they are Christians. I remember hearing of a boy who had been away working in a logging camp all during the summer. When he got back home, somebody said, "How did you get along? Did the fact that you were a Christian make any difference?" He said, "Oh no. They never found out that I was a Christian." Well, there is something wrong in such a situation. But here in Rome were Christians whose faith had been talked about around the world.

I remember Dr. Carl Armstrong telling us about a time when he was down in Cuba. He was in a city where he had never been before. He wanted to try to locate a Christian assembly if he could. He thought he would just start out from door to door to see if he could find any Christians. He knocked on a few doors, and asked, "Are there any Christians here?" "Well," somebody said, "there are some Presbyterians, and some Methodists, and a few Baptists, but I don't know of any Christians." Well, there is something wrong, you see. Christianity ought to be visible, and it was visible in the lives of these Roman Christians.

It is evident, from these words, that Paul wrote to what we call "babes in Christ" (1 Corinthians 3:1). That is, they were new Christians. They had become Christians by an encounter with Jesus Christ, face to face, and that encounter has transformed their lives so that their faith was known throughout the world. Notice, they did not become Christians by understanding the plan of salvation (nobody ever becomes a Christian that way). Rather, now that they had become Christians, they need to have the plan of salvation explained to them so that they might grow to maturity.

Now, as newborn babes in Christ, they were like all other babies. I have discovered that babies have one great characteristic -- they are almost continuously in need of something! I speak as an authority along this line: New Christians often don't act very Christ-like. I think this is why there are so many misunderstandings about Christians. We need to remember that Christians begin their lives as babies, and they need to grow. I am always running into someone who says, "Well, I meet so many Christians who don't have the qualities that I expect a Christian to have." Well, I do too, but it is oftentimes because we fail to realize that these are new, baby Christians. We have a new baby in our home, and I have been watching her, and observing quite a few interesting things:

First of all, she is very lazy: She just lies around the house all day long, and never does a thing to help. Everything has to be done for her. She is the most lazy person I think I have ever seen. Second, she is very thoughtless: She wakes people up in the middle of the night, and has no regard for their sleep at all. She never hesitates to interrupt a conversation to express her own desires or needs. She is also very rude: She'll burp right in your face and be completely unabashed about it! She is very uncooperative in many ways too: As I have watched that little life, I have said to myself, "Well, if that is what a human being is, then I don't want to be one -- lazy, uncooperative, rude." Now, of course, I really haven't said that. I recognize that she is a baby, that she is going to grow, and that all the qualities I admire in human life will take their place in her life, and be brought into her being and character, as she grows and develops properly. This is what we need to remember about babes in Christ -- they need to grow. Throughout this letter, in the background, are these men and women of great need, just like you and me -- normal human beings who need to be transformed by grace into the likeness of Jesus Christ. That is why this letter was written, and why it is so wonderfully instructive to us today. The last thing that Paul writes about in these seventeen introductory verses is himself, Verses 14-17:

I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and the foolish: so I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, "He who through faith is righteous shall live." (Romans 1:14-17 RSV)

This is the other side of the picture. The Roman Christians represent new Christians, and, at the moment, the most he can say of them is that they have faith -- obvious, visible, manifest faith. But now, of himself, Paul says three things. These three are the marks of Christian maturity. He says "I am" three times:

"I am under obligation," that is, "I am concerned about others." "I am eager," that is, "I am committed, ready to fling myself without reserve into the work." And, third, "I am not ashamed," that is, "I am confident, resting on unshakable experience in Christ." Now, these are the three marks of the man that God uses: The mature Christian is concerned, committed, and confident. The minute the Spirit of God begins to really work in your life and mine, these marks begin to show themselves, in this order. I have seen this so many times in talking to somebody just at the very threshold of Christian faith, a person who has been brought to the sense of his need for Christ. After a person has yielded his life to Christ, almost invariably the first thing he says is, "You know, I have a friend I would like to tell this to." Or, "I want you to meet my mother" (or my father, or my brother, or my sister). Or, "I want to bring somebody else to talk with you." The first mark of the Spirit's work in our lives is that he begins to create a concern for someone else.

I have learned to recognize this as the sign of a genuine transformation, a regeneration. Normally our lives are built around self, and the longer we live that way the more self-centered we get. But, at the moment of personal encounter with Jesus Christ, this vicious circle of self-involvement is broken into, and, for the first time, there comes a gleam of light that begins to manifest itself in a concern for somebody else. As that Christian life develops, that concern deepens until, like Paul, it encompasses the whole of the world and every kind of person in it:

I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and the foolish: (Romans 1:14 RSV)

It makes no difference to Paul who it is, because his heart has been captured by the Spirit of God, who creates a concern for someone else. The second mark is commitment, and I think that this is where the great struggle comes. Paul could say, "I am eager to fling myself into this thing." Most Christians are not ready to make that statement. The Christian life is very predictable. In a sense, you can trace its workings: It begins with the non-Christian, who says, in great, large, capital letters: "I." This is the trouble with men -- "I" trouble. Then, as one becomes a Christian, another note is added. It becomes: "Christ and I." But that is still not right. As that Christian life grows and develops, the "I" becomes smaller and smaller until, at last, there is just "Christ" -- "Not I, but Christ" (Galatians 2:20). This describes the committed person, who is no longer thinking about what he is going to get out of it, or what blessings are going to be given to him, or what glory, admiration, or advancement he can get out to the Christian cause -- but only "Christ."

This is an interesting thing: Commitment always means excitement. A lady came to me recently, and said, "I have been to you with problems before in which I needed an answer to a spirit of depression and despondency, but this time I have come to ask if it is wrong for me to be so excited about the Christian life." I wish more would come with that kind of problem -- I love to have that kind. Of course, I told her, "No, it isn't wrong!" We need to temper our zeal with knowledge, and we can become overzealous very easily, but to feel and sense the excitement of Christian living is only the normal thing for a Christian. It means that here is a committed heart, a life that is wholly Christ's. Finally, the third mark of Christian maturity is confidence:

...I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who has faith... For in it the righteousness of God is revealed... (Romans 1:16a-17a RSV)

In other words, the gospel, as Paul says here, supplies the two things that men crave more than anything else in life -- power and righteousness. Now, every heart longs for power -- you know that. And, usually, we think that power is shown by the number of people we can control. If we can get so many people to jump at our command, this is a sign of power. We have so many people under us at the office. We love to order people around. We call in our orders to the store and get them delivered out to us. This is a sign of status or power. The whole human society is based on that concept of power.

But, in describing the Last Supper, John said that the Lord Jesus, knowing that all power was committed into his hands, rose and laid aside his garments, girded himself with a towel, and began to wash the disciples' feet (see John 13:3-5). In other words, here is the manifestation of real power. Real power is the power to be humble, because then the power of God can work.

Dick Halverson was telling some of us a few weeks ago about speaking at a college conference where they were asking a lot of questions. One of the questions asked was, "How can I make the gospel relevant to this modern world?" Dick said that he was just about to answer it with some of the usual clichés, when the period came to a close and he had to leave the question until the morning. He had the whole evening and night to meditate on his answer. He said that as he began to think about that question, he was struck by the sheer ego that was that was revealed in it: "How can I make the gospel relevant to this modern world?" When he got up to answer the question the next morning, he said, "I would just like to say this: You can't make the gospel relevant. In fact, you don't need to make the gospel relevant, because Paul says that the gospel is 'the power of God.' Now, let's substitute that for the word 'gospel' -- 'How can I make the power of God relevant to this modern age?' You see how egocentric that is? 'How can I make God important?'"

The gospel is the power of God. It is the secret by which the pride of man's heart is broken and the real power that is manifest in God begins to manifest itself through a humble heart. That's where power is. That is the power of Jesus Christ that won hearts, and captured them, and carried them after him throughout his life. But the second facet of the gospel is righteousness.

...in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; (Romans 1:17a RSV)

And, again, righteousness is something that every heart longs for. Let me show you what I mean. Suppose somebody starts to criticize you to your face. What do you do? Instinctively you start explaining why you did this, or you supply a good reason for it. You start justifying yourself. Now, that is the word used here -- righteousness, being justified. And we all want to be justified. We are continually seeking to be justified in people's eyes, in our own heart, and in our own eyes, but the trouble is that self-justification never satisfies. Have you noticed that? Once you have explained why you did something, and you go away, you are still not satisfied. You are never satisfied until the other person has agreed with it. We are continually seeking justification in another's eyes. Now, it is this that the gospel supplies, because power and justification are found only in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is no longer self-justification, but it is God who says to the believer in Jesus Christ: "You are justified in my sight! You are righteous in my sight by virtue of Christ's work for you!"

Now, that is why Paul could say, "I am not ashamed of the gospel." I am confident because I have seen it do what men are longing to discover. I have seen the gospel release the power in men's lives to be what they want to be. I have seen the gospel justify men so they no longer are straining continually to justify themselves. It has completely delivered them from all efforts at self-justification and self-centered explanations of why they are doing things. The gospel delivers men from self-confidence, and brings them out into the fullness of the liberty of God. Such liberty is only found in believing that Jesus Christ can run a human life. This is simple Christianity, isn't it? This is why Paul was able to say, "I am confident! I am not ashamed!"

WHEN EVERYONE KNOWS GOD

by Ray C. Stedman

We come now to the main body of Paul's letter to the Romans. After the introduction (Verses 1-17), the first subject that is brought before us in this letter about the Christian faith is the true condition of man -- what he is really like. In the book of Genesis, the first question that God ever asked man was a very revealing one. He came into the garden in the cool of the evening, after Adam and Eve has sinned, and his first question was, "Man, where are you?"

During a recent class taught by Dick Halverson, I was struck by his treatment of this question. He pointed out that this is the question that God is always asking man: "Where are you?" Until you answer that question, there is nothing further that God can tell you about himself or about you. Dick illustrated it this way:

He said to the hostess of the class, "Suppose somebody had called before the class began, and said that they were trying to find the place, but were lost. What would be the first question you would ask them?" Well, of course, it would be, "Where are you?"

Until that question is answered, it is impossible to give directions for how to get anywhere. It is necessary to know where you are if anyone is going to help you. It doesn't do any good to ask for directions unless you know the answer to that question. If you think that you are someplace, but you are not, or if you think that you are in one location and are actually in another, then the directions that are given to you can only confuse you -- they won't help a bit.

So, you can see it is true that the first thing man must answer is the question God asks, "Where are you?" That is where Paul begins the body of this letter to the Romans. Where are you? Where are we? It is an interesting answer that we find. The first thing Paul shows us is man's opportunity -- the possibilities that we all have had to know God. This is a most interesting realm because it is the very question that is usually asked when you sit down to talk to somebody about Christ or about God. Inevitably, sooner or later, the question comes up: "Well, what about the heathens who have never heard the gospel?" In Verses 18-20, we have the answer to that question:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1:18-20 RSV)

This is the answer that Paul gives to the question: "What about the heathens who have never heard?" His answer is that they are without excuse. Why? Because they have heard! They may not have heard the story of Jesus as we have it recorded in the Scriptures (what we might call high school or college level revelation about God), but they have knowledge about God.

I am often distressed when I hear missionaries -- in an eagerness to wake people up to the need to obey the Lord to carry the good news of Christ out to the far corners of the earth -- mistakenly leave us with the impression that men out there in foreign, pagan lands are living in utter, total darkness about God. We are sometimes told that they have no opportunity to know God at all unless we go out with the gospel; they will perish in their sins without a chance unless Christians are faithful in the preaching of the Word. Now, I understand the zeal that prompts this, and I am in full sympathy with the need to go out to these lands and proclaim the gospel of Christ -- but not for the reason that they give. It isn't because men are perishing without a chance. No one dies without a chance to know God. This is what Paul is declaring so forcefully here.

He says that there has been a universal revelation of God which has reached everyone, everywhere, in every age and time. No one has ever lived without the knowledge of God, for what can be known about God is plain to them, for God has shown it to them. God took the initial responsibility to let men know what he is like. God has shown himself to them. How has he done this? Ever since the creation of the world, God's invisible nature has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made (i.e., in nature) so they are without excuse.

This is just a brief reference, but it is sufficient to show us that no man dies in total darkness -- without the knowledge of God. The revelation is universal. Consider the beautiful words of Psalm 19:

The heavens are telling the glory of God;
    and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
    and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there theme words;
    their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
    and their words to the end of the world. (Psalms 19:1-4a RSV)

Who lives who has not had a knowledge and understanding of God? It is written in nature, and in man himself, who is part of nature. I was very interested some years ago in reading the story of Helen Keller, that remarkable woman who, as an infant, lost her sight, and her hearing, and her ability to speak. You know the story of how Miss Sullivan, in a most dedicated ministry of love, reached through the darkness and silence to the soul of that dear girl and brought her into the knowledge of man and the earth and all that man knows. Thus, Helen Keller became one of the greatest women of modern times. She recorded that there came a time when Miss Sullivan, being a very godly woman and a wonderful Christian, wanted to impart to her some truth about God. So Miss Sullivan went to Dr. Philip Brooks and asked him to come and tell Miss Keller about God. As Dr. Brooks sat there, he talked to Miss Sullivan, and she translated the words to Helen Keller through the finger pressures that she used for communication. As she got across the idea about God, suddenly a light broke out on Miss Keller's face, and she answered back in her way, "Oh, I know Him. I've known Him a long, long time." I think this is a wonderful confirmation that -- even in the heart of someone who has no eyes to see, nor ears to hear -- there is a written revelation of God in the human heart. And, if we but listen to this revelation, there is much knowledge about God that we can know.

In the eleventh chapter of Hebrewswe are told something about man's approach to God. We read there that it is impossible to please God without faith: "For he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him," (Hebrews 11:6 KJV). We might call this the basic minimum of what it takes to know God. You must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. That is, we must believe in the existence of God and in the personality of God -- that he is an intelligent being who responds to the seeking of man.

Now, this is exactly what nature proves, isn't it? All of us have had some sample, some contact, some encounter with the power of nature -- we are awed by the mighty thundering of a storm that breaks upon our heads suddenly, or by the power of breakers dashing upon the shore. In some way, we find demonstrated to us the power of nature. God is a God of power, and that power indicates to us a force behind nature. Nature is alive with power. We are told that everything is in motion -- the atoms that constitute this pulpit are constantly in motion. And behind the motion is the pulsating force of energy. Nature is one great mass of energy. It bespeaks, therefore, of mighty power that tells us of the existence of God.

But, more than that, all of us have experienced some knowledge of the sovereignty of God in nature. We don't play around with the laws of nature. Have you noticed that? When we discover a natural law, we are careful to observe it because, oftentimes, our very lives are at stake.

You don't go fooling around with the law of gravity. You don't get on top of a 15-story building and shove your hands in your pockets and nonchalantly stroll over the ledge to show people how superior you are to the law of gravity. You won't break the law of gravity -- you'll just illustrate it. They'll just scoop you off the pavement!

We don't play around with the laws of electricity. When a wire is charged with 10,000 volts, we know that it will operate according to a strict and precise law, and we are careful to observe that law because one little mistake is enough to cause us to forfeit our life. Nature is sovereign. It has the right to do what it was made to do, and in that we see the sovereignty of God -- his right to be God, his right to choose, and his right to set up nature according to his idea, not ours. This, if acted upon, is the minimum basis man needs to know God -- and every man knows this. This is what Hebrews11:6 says. But I stress the words if acted upon. It is not enough just to know about God's sovereignty: It must govern us. It must control us. It must do something to us.

I was down in Southern California yesterday. To come home, I bought an airline ticket. The folder that the airline puts out doesn't read this way, but, in essence, it says, "To board a plane, one must pay the fare and hold a ticket" -- and there is no getting aboard without it. So I complied with the rules and bought a ticket and had all that it took, potentially, to fly from Los Angeles to San Francisco. But, unless I acted upon that potential, it was of no value at all. I could have stuck the ticket in my pocket and walked around and said to myself all day long, "Well, I've got what it takes to get to San Francisco." But unless I went down to the airport, and handed in my ticket, and got aboard the plane, I never would have gotten here.

You see, it is simply not enough for a man to know that there is a God, and that he is a God of sovereign being to be worshipped. We must act upon that fact. Without faith, which is a living, active thing, it is impossible to please God.

We read of man's attitude toward the revelation of God and the opportunity that he has in Verses 21-23:

...for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and the senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles. (Romans 1:21-23 RSV)

I believe that there is a time in every person's life -- whether he is raised in a civilized country or in primitive society -- when, in the dawning of his consciousness of the world and life around him, there is a knowledge that there is a God and that he is a God to be worshipped, a God of sovereign power. Then, each person is confronted with the choice to worship the God that he knows exists, or, under the pressure of his tribal customs, perhaps, or of the circumstances in which he lives, to be faithless to that knowledge that he has, and yield to the pressures, and turn away from God. This is the record that Paul gives. He says that men everywhere in the heathen world do not honor God as God, or give thanks to him. That is a simple thing that God asks, isn't it. There are three charges that Paul lays against these people:

First, they did not give thanks. Now, isn't that simple? If a lady walked across this platform, or across the auditorium, and she accidentally dropped her handkerchief, and someone picked it up and handed it to her, she would think herself most rude and boorish if she didn't say "thank you" for a simple little thing like that. And yet, God can supply everything that we need to live and breathe and have our being, and all the food and all that it takes to sustain physical life -- and, more than that, all that for which our souls hunger and thirst -- and many of us never take time to say a simple "thank you." I think this is revealed often in the matter of just saying grace before meals.

Some of us who heard Doug Coe tell of his experience with the Teamsters Union will never forget the story of Herman, that dull, slow, dull-witted fellow who was used of God to open up a door of witness to Jimmy Hoffa and the leaders of the Teamsters Union: Doug told about a dinner they set up in a nightclub where all the leaders were to be. Doug was invited by Herman to come and lead in a prayer of thanks at the beginning of the meeting. Doug came into the nightclub and it was all dark, as it always is in those places. A combo was over in the corner beating out some hot jazz, and everybody was gathering around the tables. As soon as they sat down, they started to eat. Herman came over to him, and said, "It is time now for you to give the blessing." Doug said, "How are you going to do this? Everybody is eating. I don't know how you are going to stop this now." "Well," Herman said, "don't worry, I'll take care of it." He walked up to the microphone, scratched it to see if it was alive, and said, "Ha, ha! So you thought you were going to get by without praying, didn't you?" And everybody stopped with their forks halfway to their mouths, and turned around. Then Herman introduced Doug Coe, who led them in prayer. But it was a most unusual thing: That simple little act of thankfulness marks man's gratitude to God. They had not given thanks. The second charge Paul makes is that these people claim to be wise. One of the most interesting things about men and women who reject Jesus Christ is that, almost invariably, the rejection of Jesus Christ is done in the name of education or progress. Isn't that remarkable? This is why our institutions of higher learning so frequently seem to be against the things of God. In claiming to be wise, they became foolish.

Then, the third charge Paul makes is that they "exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles." Think of that! They take the glory of the immortal, incorruptible God, and make an image of it. Do you remember what you did when you were in school and you wanted to insult the teacher? You drew an image of her on the wall -- a fearsome, gruesome caricature -- and you wrote under it, "Teacher." Everyone who saw it knew you were expressing your contempt for teacher -- you were insulting him or her. When we want to express our utter contempt for some leader, what do we do? We hang him in effigy. We make an image of him and hang it up to show how contemptible he is and how contemptuous we feel toward him. This is what man does with God. He makes an idol, and he calls it his God. He is insulting God; he is saying, "This is what I think God is like, God is a creature that I can handle, or ignore, or become indifferent to, or come and beg some favors from." This is why so many, many people have rejected Christianity -- they have a caricature of God in their minds and they have rejected it as unworthy. Oh, they show some religious consideration for it, out of fear, or, perhaps, out of pressure; but, actually, they have insulted God by this type of thing. Now, this is man's attitude. In the remaining verses of this Scripture, we see what inevitably follows this mental attitude. Man's destiny is given in Verses 24-32:

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameful acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct. They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them. (Romans 1:24-32 RSV)

This is a fearsome passage, isn't it? And yet, every one of these things is written on the pages of our newspapers every day. Just take a large metropolitan daily, and go through it, and check off the list, and you will find you can check all these things off every time. And three times in this passage, Paul says, "God gave them up, ... God gave them up, ... God gave them up." To me, this is the most frightening thing about God. It is not the fact that he promises vengeance, or wrath -- but, rather, it is that the nature of that wrath is that he lets me go ahead with what I want to do. He lets me choose wrong! I find this bothers a lot of people. In our Home Bible Classes, people are always saying:

Well, why doesn't God stop men from doing those things? Why does he make us this way? Why does he let us make wrong choices? Why didn't he kill Hitler (or Krushchev) and eliminate this scourge from the earth?

Well, I think we are going a little too far afield when we ask the question that way. We should ask it this way:

Why didn't he stop you yesterday when you told that lie that deceived someone else? Why didn't he kill you in your tracks before you slandered that person that you gossiped about over the phone? Why didn't he stop you by cutting off your hands in a thunderbolt of judgment before you cheated on your income tax report last week?

If God is going to stop evil, why shouldn't he stop it there? And if he did, there isn't one who wouldn't be crying out against God, and saying, "You are unfair. You give us no liberty!" This merely reveals to us the unreasonableness of the human heart. There is progression evident throughout this: You will notice that the first thing to which God gave them up was bodily defilement -- they dishonored their own bodies among themselves. Then, he gave them up to dishonorable passions -- that is, their emotional lives. Then, as a final step, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, or base mind, as we read here -- their mental lives, their wills are involved in this.

If you will think back in your own experience, you will recognize that this is always the order in which evil moves in your life. Do you remember the first time you were tempted to do some obviously wrong thing -- the first time you wanted to smoke, or to drink, or to experience sex, or whatever it was? It inevitably comes as a temptation for a new physical experience. You want to see how it tastes, or feels, or what it sounds like, or you want to see it. It always makes its appeal to the physical life. The advertisers have discovered this. That is why we are always hearing, "Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should." The advertisers are making their appeal to the young boy who wants a new experience of taste in his life.

When we yield to these temptations, we don't often really enjoy them -- very seldom do we. We get the sensation, but we don't like it. But we persist, and it moves to the second state, where we really begin to enjoy it -- our emotions become involved -- we like it. We like the feel of it. We like the taste of it. We like the sensation that we are enjoying. And this is where Scripture is so accurate when it speaks of the pleasures of sin. Of course, sin has its pleasures -- nobody would do these things if they weren't pleasurable. That, at last, moves us into the third, and terrible, state -- when we deliberately and willfully choose to do these things, even though we already have begun experiencing what it describes here: "receiving in their own persons the penalty for their error." We deliberately choose sin. It becomes a status symbol with us. It is a mark of our independence. We fight for these things.

This explains why any movement for reform is always met with the bitterest opposition. It is not because these things have become so evil in themselves, but because they have become status marks -- marks of independence and man's right to rule his own life. And yet, as we know, these kinds of things give us decreasing pleasure. They demand more and more in order to get less and less, until eventually it takes everything in order to get nothing.

Now, what is God's attitude toward all this? This is the amazing thing. This passage closes with these words in Verse 32: "Though they know God's decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them." If we were to stop right here, we would say that God's attitude is one ending in wrath and hatred against these people. This is why so many people have the idea that God is just sitting up there as the judge, ready to cut off their heads if they get near him, because of the follies they have perpetrated. But you have read only half the letter in this case, because, as we read on, the amazing revelation in this letter is that these people who have insulted and offended and blasphemed God by their actions, who have refused his grace, and, in utter thanklessness, have wasted their lives that he is giving them -- these very people are the ones whom God loved and whom Christ came to die for.

I read recently of a young man -- a modern prodigal son -- who had left home and then came back home after his father died. He was very kindly received by his mother. The day came for the reading of the father's will, and the family gathered, and the lawyer began to read the document. To the surprise of all who were present, the will told in detail all the wayward career of the prodigal son. As the boy sat and listened to the account of his evil, he arose in anger and left the house. Nobody heard from him for about three years. When, eventually, they found him, he was told that the will, after telling of his waywardness, had gone on to bequeath him $15,000.

This illustrates the way that men and women read the Bible today. They read this opening chapter of Romans, they read of this terrible condemnation, and they know how true it is. They know the guilt in their own lives -- there isn't one of us who hasn't participated to some degree in some of these things which Romans mentions -- then they stop there. Or, in anger, they get up in a huff and slam their Bibles shut, and say, "I don't want to have anything to do with a God like that!"

But, if they read on, they discover that the whole purpose of this is simply to show them the love of God set against the dark background of human rebellion, for it is for this kind of people that Jesus Christ came. It was for them that he gave his life. It was for them that he poured himself out in death, that they might have restoration and harmony and be brought back into fellowship with God. For, of these very selfsame people that Paul describes here, it is written, "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," (Romans 5:8b KJV). This is the proof of God's amazing love.

Prayer:

Our Father, we are moved as we see how intimately and clearly you know our human hearts and how foolish we are to try to hide anything from you. We know, Lord, that we must stand in the box and bow our heads in consciousness of guilt as we hear this terrible condemnation read against us. Many of us have not done many of these things, but we know that our hearts are capable of all of them. Lord, forgive us. We thank you for the forgiveness that is in Jesus Christ. We pray that if there is anyone who has never received this forgiveness, he might receive Jesus Christ as Lord now, and know the joy of cleansing and full forgiveness. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.

THE SECRETS OF MEN

by Ray C. Stedman

I suppose there is one word that Christians use about their experience with Christ which bothers people more than any other word, and that is the word saved. Christians talk about "being saved." A lady at a Bible Class said to me: "Whenever I hear that word, it makes me wince inside, and I feel uncomfortable. I wish they wouldn't talk about 'being saved.'" Just last week, a man said to me: "Now, look: If you are going to talk to me about being a Christian, don't talk about 'being saved.' I don't need to be saved!"

Well, I know how they feel. In fact, sometimes I feel the same way. I think it is wise to be careful in the language we use among those who are sensitive in this way. There are a lot of ways to talk about what happens when Christ comes into the heart without using the word saved, and yet saying the same thing without offending, and I think we should be careful not to offend. But, if it is really true that a man doesn't need to be saved, then it is also true that Jesus Christ has nothing to say to that man. There is nothing that he can do for him, because the Lord himself said, "I am come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10 KJV). That is what he came for -- to save. Perhaps it can best be explained in that little jingle which says:

Your best resolutions must wholly be waived,
    Your highest ambitions be crossed;
You need never think you are going to be saved
    Until you have learned you are lost.

That is what the opening chapters of Romans attempt to do. In Romans, we learn where we are in God's sight. We are answering the question posed in Romans 1 -- the first question God asked man when our Lord came into the Garden of Eden: "Where are you?" (Genesis 3:9 RSV). And not only are we learning where we are, but also why we are where we are! What makes us act the way we do, and think the way we do?

In Romans 1, Paul points out that the first hindrance which keeps men from God is man's reaction to the revelation of God. Paul puts it in these terms, "men suppress the truth" (Romans 1:18b RSV). That is, they hold down, they restrain, they repress within their own hearts the truth about God that they know. This opening chapter of Romans is devoted largely to a recognition of a universal knowledge of God that men have everywhere. There is no such thing as an atheist. Even the Communists -- who are making the biggest possible demonstration of pretending that there is no God -- continually reveal, in little things they say, that they too recognize God. When Khrushchev was over here, he used the name "God" on frequent occasions; and even Stalin one time, when news came to him of a battle that was won, cried, "Thank God!"

As G. K. Chesterton points out, it is impossible to swear properly without reference to God. Imagine ripping off a round oath in the name of natural selection, for instance. So, you see, there is a knowledge of God. And there is enough knowledge of God in the conscience of man, and in nature around, to induce a spirit of reverent worship if it is followed. But men refuse to recognize this knowledge, and this is the basic human sickness that grips our race. They suppress and smother the truth they know by permitting wrong actions and wrong attitudes in their lives. I shouldn't say, they, I should say, we. We do this, don't we? Even Christians do it!

Now, any psychologist can tell you that truth which is suppressed or smothered -- refused recognition -- always creates serious tensions and complexes in the life. Men become ridden with guilt, they become restless, they become dissatisfied, and torn with inner tensions. This is why we see the continuing phenomenon in human life of men all over the world continually being beset by the same problems -- troubled with guilt complexes -- with restless, unsatisfied spirits. Man's reaction to this is to run even further from God, to crowd him out of his life, to reason him away (if possible).

As we saw last week, the most violent rejection of God is almost always done in the name of education, of reason, or of philosophy. We try to crowd God out of our lives, though we don't actually wish to completely eliminate him. There are very few people who are willing to shake their fists into the heavens, and say: "There is no God." Or, "We don't want God!" Usually what we do is to put him way down on the list -- until after our second heart attack -- then we are ready for God! And the result of that is predictable. When man is without the restraint of love for God, or fear of God, then he goes the limit in his reactions. The awful list that we have at the close of Chapter 1 is the record of the possibilities of evil that lie hidden in every human heart. These are now becoming more and more visible, I think, as this nation gradually drifts from its moorings and uses up the capital of our forefathers' spiritual heritage.

Chapter 2 presents another reason why men do not readily find God today. Paul points it out right at the beginning: That is, our tendency to point the finger at someone else -- the amazing ability to find someone whom we consider worse than we are, and to ask God to concentrate on him and leave us alone. You'll notice this in Verse 1 of Chapter 2:

Therefore you have no excuse, O man, whoever you are, when you judge another; for in passing judgment on him you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. (Romans 2:1 RSV)

All of us know someone whom we consider a little bit lower on the ethical scale than we are, and what a comfort they are to our hearts! Every time our conscience gives us a little stab, we immediately remember these people, and we take courage, and feel a lot better. If we analyze our thoughts, we find that we secretly feel God has no right to bother us while these people are around. Let him concentrate on them! They are the ones who need it!

Have you ever noticed how frequently this attitude is encountered? When you are stopped by a traffic cop, and he comes up beside your car, you say to him, "Officer, what are you bothering me for? Why don't you go out and catch some of the teen-age speedsters, and leave us law-abiding citizens alone?" I haven't checked on this, but I am sure that, if you asked a traffic cop, he would tell you this is the most frequent excuse he receives. We all want a lightning rod that will divert the stroke of divine wrath from us, and channel it off to someone we consider a little more worthy of it.

Now, Paul's answer to this is to show us the way God deals with men; and, in a most remarkable passage, he sets forth five principles of God's judgment in the first sixteen verses of this chapter. Let's look at these principles: The first one is that God judges according to truth, Verses 2-5:

We know that the judgment of God rightly falls [or, literally, "is according to truth"] upon those who do such things. Do you suppose, O man, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume upon the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not know that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. (Romans 2:2-5 RSV)

Psychologists say that we all have a mental image of ourselves, and it is usually quite a nice image. Others, of course, have a mental image of us which ordinarily is quite different from the one we have. Now, which is right? Well, probably neither one, because what man really is is what he is before God. It is God who sees man as he really is. God is an utter realist. He doesn't confuse the issue, he doesn't cloud the matter with a lot of semantic obscurity. God sees us exactly as we are. This is why Scripture is so invaluable to us, because here -- in this God-given, God-breathed book -- we see ourselves as God sees us. This is the answer to Robert Burns famous request:

O, wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see ourselves as ithers see us!

And here is where we can do it. When we read the Scriptures we see God's divine image in man twisted and distorted. We see the way we prostitute his gifts, and we hurt the ones we love. We see how we wreck our own chances. We destroy our own dreams. We see ourselves as we are. And the saddest and most damning fact of all, is that we know we will find this in the Scriptures -- that here is a mirror held up before us to help us see what we are like -- and we don't want to look at it! The truth is that we don't want to know the truth. We would rather go on living in our dream world of fantasy and illusion about ourselves. Often it is only as we are driven by despairing circumstances, or by some grievous calamity, that there comes the moment of truth when we see ourselves as we really are. And the most wonderful place to see it and to find out the truth about ourselves is in the Word of God.

As it says here, God patiently waits to help us see through these delusions. He is patient with us; he is forbearing. He doesn't beat us over the head, and demand that we face the truth. He patiently waits and gently leads, and put us in circumstances where we see these things if we are willing to face the facts. Because he waits so patiently, we fondly imagine that we can go on living in our castle in the clouds forever. But all bubbles burst eventually, and, sooner or later, we discover that all along we were not fooling God one bit -- he sees us for exactly what we are.

God's judgment is according to truth, according to things as they really are. The second principle is brought out next. Paul says that God judges according to works, Verses 6-8:

For he will render to every man according to his works; to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. (Romans 2:6-8 RSV)

I think perhaps this passage is one of the places where a man finds some basis for the idea of a great balance sheet. Almost everyone has the idea, even if they have never become acquainted with the Scriptures, that God is conducting a moral weighing maneuver -- that he puts all our good deeds on one side and all our bad deeds on the other side -- and if the good deeds outweigh the bad, we get into heaven; if the bad outweigh the good, we go the other direction.

I was interested, during the recent breakfast meetings for businessmen, to hear how many of the men said this was their idea of how God worked, and therefore the whole purpose of human life was to try to get in as many good things as possible, and thus outweigh some of the bad things that we really can't help doing, or are driven to do for various reasons. They hoped that the good would outweigh the bad. Perhaps it is from this passage in Romans that the idea comes. At first glance, it sounds that way, doesn't it?

Let's read it again. God says he "will render to every man according to his works; to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury." But Paul is really only pointing out that the deed reveals the heart. God will judge according to the result of obedience to the truth, or lack of obedience, that is in the life. Putting it another way, what makes a man do good? It is because he has obeyed some truth, that is the only reason why men do good! Well, what makes a man do evil? You have it right here: They obey not the truth but obey wickedness. This is why they do evil. This is going back of the deed, into the heart, into the belief. It is simply true that men are what they believe.

Now, I believe there is truth short of the knowledge of Christ that makes a man do good. It is not only Christians who do good. Does that startle you? I think it is true. I think that lack of understanding of this fact is why our young people, coming from Christian homes and a Christian church, sometimes are shocked, staggered, swept off their feet when they get out into the world. They have grown up with the conviction that only Christians are good people, and they discover, when they get out into the world, that there are many good people who are not Christians. There are many people with fine moral lives, men on whose consciences you could ring a gold coin, men honest as the day is long -- but who are opposed to the Christian faith. This shocks young people -- they don't know what to make of it. Perhaps this is because they fail to grasp the fact stated here -- when men obey truth, they do good, even though they do not yet know Christ.

But here also is the answer to the question often asked: "Will God save a man who lives a good life but never hears of Christ?" No single question about Christianity is asked more frequently than this. And the answer is, in the light of this statement in Romans: "It is impossible to live a truly good life and never hear of Jesus Christ!" Paul states clearly here that if anyone seeks to do good, and is looking for the truth, God "will give him eternal life." Now, "eternal life" is but a synonym for "Jesus Christ." Christ is eternal life. As John says, "This is the record, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son," (1 John 5:11 KJV). A little farther on in this same letter to the Romans, we read, "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life ..." How? "... through Jesus Christ" (Romans 6:23 KJV), his Son. Therefore, if God gives anyone eternal life, it is only by the knowledge of Christ, his Son. But truth obeyed leads to the knowledge of greater truth, until it leads at last to Christ.

So, what Paul is saying here is that it is God's responsibility to bring those who are seeking good to the knowledge of Christ. And this he does -- we have accounts of it in Scripture: Cornelius was one like this. As we read in the tenth chapter of Acts, this Roman centurion was a good man -- he was devout, but a pagan nevertheless -- seeking to know the true God. An angel was sent to tell him to send men to a nearby town and follow their noses to the house of a certain tanner. There they would find a man named Peter, who would come and tell him the gospel. In the Old Testament, you have Rahab, the harlot (see Joshua 2:1 ff), and others. There is also the example of the Ethiopian eunuch, in the eighth chapter of Acts (Acts 8:27-39). These were eagerly obeying the truth that they had. And, you see, the test of whether a man is really obeying the truth and doing good is to offer him Christ. If that man is good, in the sense that God recognizes, then he will eagerly receive Christ. If he is only a respectable sinner, trying to appear good, he will reject the offer of grace.

I remember a Bible Class we had several years ago in the home of a lady who was not a Christian. Through the early sessions of the class she took great pains to let us know how good she was -- how much she did for charity, how kind her attitude was, how tolerant she was, and so on. She never missed an opportunity to let us know how good she was. But, as the classes continued, she began to see every revelation of Scripture focusing upon the person of Jesus Christ. She saw at last that Jesus Christ is the crisis of human history, and that God ultimately weighs everyone in relationship to him. She became more and more withdrawn and cold. Finally, she just burst out in class: "I don't believe this stuff. I don't want this Jesus!" You see, the truth of the gospel drove her to the recognition that she was not good. This is the test -- and she obeyed not the truth. This is not all. Paul says, as the third principle, that God judges without partiality, Verses 9-11:

There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for every one who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality. (Romans 2:9-11 RSV)

That's hard to believe, isn't it? Really, we don't believe it, but it is true. God is unmoved by any offers of vicuna coats, refrigerators, or luxury homes -- you can't buy him off. You cannot buy his influence at all; you cannot influence him in any way. Somebody was telling me about a traffic policeman who pulled a motorist over to the side of a road, and asked to see his license. When he showed his license to him, the cop said, "This license says you have to wear glasses while you are driving. Where are your glasses?" The man said, "I have contacts." The copy said, "I don't care who you know, you are going to get a ticket anyway."

There are many of us who think that if we have contacts in the right places, this will buy off the judgment we deserve, but this doesn't work with God. There is nobody in 'the right place' who can influence him so he will go easy on us. God is without partiality. He is not impressed by breeding, or by ancestry. He doesn't care whether your ancestors came over on the Mayflower, or whether they met it when it arrived -- it makes no difference to him. It makes no difference whether your sins are notorious sins or respectable sins -- he will treat them alike in his sight.

Do you remember Revelation, Chapter 3, where Christ is speaking to the seven churches, and he calls one of them "lukewarm" (Verses 15-17)? He says,

"I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So, because you are neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing; not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked." (Revelation 3:15-17 RSV)

Now, these portrayed here are religious sinners. I was reading in a thesaurus some time ago the synonyms of this word "lukewarm." One synonym is, "to be indifferent," another is, "to be respectable." That is "lukewarm." What is it to be lukewarm? It is to say, "I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing." This is what it is to be respectable -- to think that you have no needs. The man who thinks he has need of nothing is the one by far the worst off, for, as God sees him, God says, "You do not know that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked." And God treats the respectable sinner just as he does the notorious one.

There is another principle, the fourth, brought out next. In Verses 12-15 we see that God judges according to opportunity:

All who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When the Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them... (Romans 2:12-15 RSV)

Now, men are continually charging God with injustice because, they say, he condemns men to hell who have never heard of Jesus Christ. This is the most frequently voiced charge against the Christian gospel. We are always hearing somebody say, "Well, what about the heathen who never hear about Christ? How can a just God condemn them to hell without their hearing about Christ?" But, you see, God never condemns anybody on that basis. As we are told right here, "All who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law." That is, if you disobey the truth that you have, even though you have never heard of Moses or of Christ, you perish, not because you didn't hear of Moses or of Christ, but because you have disobeyed truth that you already know -- that is the whole point. If you know of Moses and of Christ, and you still disobey the truth, you perish also, because your condemnation is even greater -- because of the greater light involved. But, as it says here, even pagans have a form of basic law written on their hearts, and this is the basis of God's just condemnation of man. It is because they are not what they themselves know they ought to be. In other words, God judges you, not by some artificial standard of his, but by your own standard.

Recently, I was down in Newport Beach, teaching a Bible Class in a home. Quite a number of non-Christians were there, and one of them was a man from just across the street. He was a very charming individual, but he had made it known in the neighborhood already that he had no use for Christianity. As he came in the door, the first thing he said was, "I have come to be the Devil's advocate. I think the Devil needs a representative here tonight." We welcomed him, and told him to curl his tail around a chair, and sit down. As I began to speak on the opening chapter of Genesis, dealing with God's word to man, I could see in his face that this man had let down his guard. I don't think he was aware of how much he was revealing, but in that man's eyes I saw hunger written like I had never seen it before. At the question time, he, of course, came up with the usual question : "How about those that God condemns who never hear about Christ?" I answered (to all in the room), "Let me ask you this: Which of you has lived up to your own ideals? -- because God won't judge you on the basis of something that you have never heard, but on the basis of what you already know. Now tell me: Who of you has lived up to his own ideals? Which of you has never deliberately done wrong? Which of you can say that you measure up to your own standard of what you ought to be?" You could just hear the silence in that room!

You see, it is not by some artificial standard that we stand condemned before God; it is because of what we know in our hearts about ourselves. This indicates that God measures us by our own yardstick. This is confirmed in Verse 16, where we read that God judges according to the secrets of men (the fifth principle):

...on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. (Romans 2:16 RSV)

Christ will be the judge, we are told. The gospel will be the prosecuting attorney. The charge will be the secrets of the heart that no one knows about but you -- and God.

Samuel Johnson once said, "Every man knows thoughts of himself that he would not tell to his dearest friend." That is true, isn't it? And you know it is not so much the thoughts that come to our mind, because these are often temptations we are powerless to stop, but it is the reception we give them. We sometimes open the door and welcome them, don't we? Instead of driving these thoughts away when they come, we usher them into our living room, and set them down, and ask them to be comfortable and stay with us, and we invite them back again and again; we allow them to dwell there. These are the secret things that we don't want to tell anybody about -- even our dearest friend.

Let me tell you part of the secrets of my own heart, if I may. I catch myself, every now and then (and I have for years), trying to figure out a way to perform a certain sin (which is particularly alluring to me) without paying the consequences. Don't look so shocked, because you do the same thing! I have worked out many ingenious ways by which I can make it "look good" to men, so nobody will blame me if I do this. It is amazing, the variety of ways that a matter can be approached to make it look acceptable to others. But the thing that stops me dead in my tracks is that, though I know I can make it look good to others, God knows my evil heart. And, someday, the thing that I can make look good to men will be seen in all its filth and depravity in his sight, and I will have to acknowledge that this is what it was all the time. Because I know that God knows the secrets of my heart, I am continually checked on this thing.

Now, this the ministry of the Spirit in our lives. Jesus spoke of the day when that which is uttered in secret shall be shouted from the housetops (Luke 8:17) -- and God knows our hearts now, but he will judge them then. I was in a class last week talking about Noah and the flood. What a wonderful story that is! What a remarkable man Noah was! And, really, the only difference between Noah and the others of his day was that Noah made room in his life for God. That is all. It's wonderful to notice that. This man walked with God, and talked with God about everything in his life -- all the little things and all the big things. And, for 120 years, as the ark was being built, God talked to him about the details of that ark as they went over the blueprints together. God would tell him were to put the window, and the door, and so on, as they worked and walked together.

Now, we read that Noah was a righteous man, but he didn't make himself righteous and then go looking for God. He just let God in, and God made him righteous. That is the whole secret. But then the flood came. Suddenly the delicate balance of nature was tipped by the evil of man, and the violence that was in the earth. The flood began to form. "The windows of heaven were opened," (Genesis 7:11 KJV), "the fountains of the great deep" were opened; the waters began to rise. Calamity came upon the world of Noah's day, but Noah was safe in the ark -- where God had shut him in. And I said to the people of the class, "This is exactly what everyone in the room faces!" And this is true for all of us.

Every one of us lives in exactly the same relationship in which the people of Noah's day lived. There is a great calamity coming, that we cannot escape, that will sweep away everything we have. It is as certain and sure as tomorrow morning's sun. It is what we call "death." When it strikes, it will be too late to build an ark. But God is talking to us; God is trying to reach us; God is dealing with us. God is trying to break into our lives in order that we might begin building our ark now.

It was really God who built Noah's Ark, not Noah. Noah just obeyed what God told him. God built the ark, and, in the moment of disaster, it was a place of safety for Noah. Now, this is what our Lord is telling us he doing today. Why does God tell you this that is recorded here in Romans 2? Is it because he wants you to despair? Is it because he wants you to realize that, when you stand before him, there is no chance? Obviously that is true, isn't it? We have no chance of standing in God's sight on our own merits. Is anyone prepared to stand up, and say, "If God is going to deal with me on this basis, I am prepared to meet him on these terms"? Of course not, all of us know we don't have a ghost of a chance.

But does God tell us this to torment us? Of course not! He tells us this in order that we might give serious considerations to the gospel of his Son, Jesus Christ, because, in that gospel, God has made a way by which he can offer us righteousness which is perfectly acceptable in his sight -- a righteousness that we have nothing to do with ourselves, but which has been obtained for us by the work of another. In the gospel there is a way by which we may stand before God -- perfectly acceptable to him, without any doubt, without any possibility of failure. Now, that is why God tells us the truth about ourselves. I watched the faces of the men during those recent breakfast meetings and saw them listening to men like themselves tell how they became aware of the great, empty vacuum in their lives, and how Christ came in and filled their lives. Some of these were men who had not given serious consideration to the claims of Jesus Christ perhaps for years. I saw them grow sober, quiet, reverent, respectful, as they realized that this was what God wanted them to hear.

This is God's message, you see. He tells us how hopeless is our condition in order that we might see how hopeful is the condition in Jesus Christ -- and here he has once for all revealed the utter folly of attempting any other approach. He wants us to see the wonderful completeness of the approach that God himself offers us in Jesus Christ. This is why he brings us to this place, because, here in the gospel of the Son of God, we have the perfect answer to all that God tells us we need.

Prayer:

Our Father, what folly to try to come in any other way! How foolish we would be -- we poor, mortal men -- to try stand in that august judgment day and know that you are dealing with us on the terms outlined here, when our own heart condemns us, when our own life, our own conscience, writes the word "guilty" against us! Lord, how dare we stand on any other basis than that which is in Jesus Christ -- righteousness made without any works of our own, without any merit of ours, but freely offered to us in him! As we come to Christ just as sinners, needing him, we can be saved. Lord, we thank Thee for this. May this be the day of the beginning of life to many who are yet without Christ. May some speak that word of invitation which says, "Lord Jesus, here is my life, here is my heart, I give it to you. Come and enter and save me, for your name's sake." We pray in his name, Amen.

RED HERRINGS

by Ray C. Stedman

Let us begin with Romans 2, Verse 17. Perhaps you are wondering a little bit about the title chosen for this study together, Red Herrings. It doesn't mean that there is something fishy about Romans. It is a phrase that you recognize is used frequently in conversation. It is a phrase that President Truman helped to popularize in his administration. Do you remember, he suggested that the Alger Hiss case was a "red herring," arranged to divert suspicion from the true issues of the day. He was, of course, mistaken in that. The judgment of history proved him to be so wrong that this phrase has become part of the language of the street.

A "red herring" is something that diverts attention away from an issue. It originated, I understand, from the practice of fugitives from justice who were trying to flee from prison and were being tracked by bloodhounds. In order to throw the dogs off the scent, they would drag a red herring across their path and thus try to confuse the scent and divert the issue.

In the opening verses of this chapter, the Apostle Paul showed us that God is an utter realist. He sees beneath all the varnish and the facade of our lives. He knows all our secrets. He sees the skeletons rattling in our closets. He knows all the carefully concealed, hidden areas of our life that we keep away from every other eye.

Imagine what it would be like if suddenly, by some strange process, everyone in this room knew everything about everyone else! Wouldn't we do like those Pharisees before the Lord Jesus, on one occasion? Beginning with the oldest, we would get up and quietly go out, one by one John 8:9), wouldn't we? And when we begin to realize that God sees us like that continuously, we begin to grow uncomfortable in his presence -- especially when we realize that God wants to talk to us about this. It isn't so bad when we realize in the back of our minds that God does see these things, so long as he doesn't mention them to us. But when God starts being difficult about these things, and wants to talk to us about them, then we grow uncomfortable -- like Adam and Eve when God came into the garden, and called, "Where art thou?" (Genesis 3:9 KJV). They realized they were naked and began to reach for fig leaves to cover their nakedness. So do men, when they begin to see what God is really like -- they grow uncomfortable and start looking for a red herring to drag across the path to throw God off the trail. Now, in these verses before us, we will see some of the "red herrings" that men so frequently use. This is such a natural reaction.

Remember when Christ spoke to the woman at the well in Samaria? He awakened her interest with his word about the living water that he could give her. Then he suddenly told her, "Go, call thy husband," (John 4:16 KJV). And when she confessed that she didn't have any husband, he said to her, "Yes, but you have had five husbands, and the man that you are living with now is not your husband," (John 4:18). He began to move in on the secrets of her life. So you remember what she did? She threw in a red herring. She turned to the mountain, and said, "Our fathers say this is the place to worship God, but you Jews say it is in Jerusalem," (John 4:20). She tried to throw him off track with a theological issue -- and this is the way we react so frequently.

This is what we have here in Romans. Here we examine some of the most common of these "red herrings" with which we try to throw God off the trail, hoping he will be satisfied and leave us alone. The first is to have or hold a proper kind of creed. Notice Verses 17-24:

But if you call yourself a Jew and rely upon the law and boast of your relation to God, and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed in the law, and if you are sure that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth -- you then who teach others, will you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? For, as it is written, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." (Romans 2:17-24 RSV)

The most frequent facade that men erect between themselves and God, strangely enough, is religion. When God begins to bear down upon our life, and we become aware of the kind of person he is, and how thoroughly he knows us, almost invariably we tend to get a little religious.

This is the Jew of Paul's day who is before us here, of course. And unquestionably he was the world's greatest religionist. These are the pretensions (and notice they are not pretenses) that he makes. My, what a religious person is here -- knowing God's will, approving what is excellent, instructed in the Law -- sure they are a light to the blind, to those who are in darkness, a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of children, and so on. They were sure that God would accept them because they knew so much good theology. But Paul, you notice, removes the props very neatly with a few searching questions on how these people live. With a few questions, designed to probe the conscience a bit, he exposes the hypocrisy of their position.

In other words, as Paul points out, God isn't fooled by the Apostles' Creed recited devoutly every Sunday, or by the Lord's Prayer piously prayed, or by a Scofield Reference Bible carried under the arm to church every day. These things may fool men, but they don't fool God in the least. God's question is always, "What effect does this truth have upon you?" You know these things, now what does it do to you?

How does it affect you? < Does it make you more rigid and unbending and legalistic and demanding? Do your neighbors invite you in for coffee when they see you -- or do they turn their back and look the other way whenever you are out in the yard? Does it make you easy to do business with -- or does it make you a shrewd operator that nobody can trust? This is the question, you see. God's question is never, "What is your creed?" Now, creeds are important. I don't mean to deny that, but this is never the essential thing. God's final question to man is never "What is your creed?" but "What is your influence." Do men blaspheme God because of you? This was the devastating indictment that Paul brought against these Jews. He said, "You can claim all these things -- and perhaps they are true, and perhaps they are not -- but the great issue is that, everywhere you Jews go, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of the way you live."

You see how Paul devastates the one who trusts simply in some outward creed, or some proper religious statement, as an indication that he ought to be acceptable before God.

I remember reading some time ago of a couple of young men who were standing on a street corner in Glasgow, Scotland, when a very dignified-looking older man walked by them. One of these young men turned to the other, and said, "You see that man? He is the founder of the infidels club here in Glasgow." And the other young man said, "Why, you must be mistaken! I know that man. He is an elder of the church where I belong." The first young man said, "That is exactly what I mean. He is an elder of the church, but the way he conducts himself in his business life, and in his personal affairs, he has turned so many away from God that he is literally the founder of the infidels club here in Glasgow." Now, this is what Paul is getting at.

I heard the other day a quotation that I want to share with you this morning, because I think it reflects this so wonderfully -- so truthfully. It is by Chad Walsh, and appears in a book he has written, called Early Christians of the Twenty-first Century. This is what he says:

Millions of Christians live in a sentimental haze of vague piety with soft organ music trembling in the lovely light from the stained glass windows. Their religion is a thing of pleasant emotional quivers divorced from the intellect, and demanding little except lip service to a few harmless platitudes. I suspect that Satan has called off the attempt to convert people to agnosticism. If a man travels far enough away from Christianity, he is always in danger of seeing it in perspective and deciding that it is true. It is much safer from Satan's point of view to vaccinate a man with a mild case of Christianity so as to protect him from the real thing.

I am afraid that this is the position of many today. You see, this is the issue that Paul is raising. As soon as God begins to get real and vital about matters, we raise the matter of our creed and we simply say: "Look, this is what we believe. What is wrong with that?" And, of course, there is nothing wrong with the creed, but the issue is: What does it do to your life? How much has it changed you at home?

Now Paul goes on to a closely related issue. He raises the question here of a prescribed ritual. This is another "red herring." Notice Verses 25-29:

Circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law; but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then those who are physically uncircumcised but keep the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For he is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal. His praise is not from men but from God. (Romans 2:25-29 RSV)

There is a little play on words here. The word praise is a play on the word Jew, because the word Jew means "praise." It comes from the (Hebrew) word judah, which means "praise." These Jews were praising themselves because they had the rite of cirucmcision. This was the great mark of the true people of God. Whenever anybody questioned their standing before God, they only had to refer to the fact that they were circumcised -- this was the great mark.

Now, in the place of circumcision, you can put a number of equivalent things: You can put baptism, confirmation, church membership, communion, mother's prayers -- almost anything you want. How frequently you find people raising these things! I have often said to someone, "Well, are you a Christian?" And the answer I get is, "Well, I am a Catholic," or, "I am a Baptist," or "I was raised a Methodist," or, "I've been baptized." This is such a common thing. Just let the Spirit of God begin to probe into the state of the heart, and you see men quickly hold up their baptism certificate between them and God, and say, "Now, this what I ought to be judged on."

In the case of the Jews, it was circumcision. But, as Paul is pointing out here, God isn't fooled one bit by this. There are many uncircumcised (as Paul also points out), and also many unbaptized, unconfirmed, unpasteurized, unsimonized individuals who behave just as well as those who have been baptized, circumcised, simonized, or whatever it is. Do you see? These things do not add anything to a person -- that is the point -- they don't do a thing for you. Regardless of what you have been taught, there is no value in an outward ordinance or outward ritual -- none whatsoever. "Well," you say, "what is a religious ritual, anyway? Why are these things here?" And the answer is: A ritual or rite is saying something to God in actions instead of words.

Now, if the meaning has been deleted from it by lack of commitment of the heart, then it is a meaningless gesture. If you do these things because you think God requires them, not because they are a voluntary expression of what you really want to say to God, then they are as meaningless as buying a birthday gift for yourself. In other words, God is simply saying here that he is interested in ritual, and these rites mean something to him only if they genuinely express something that comes from the heart.

Baptism means that I am dying to the old life of selfishness and self-centeredness and self-living, and I am determined to expose my life to the control of Christ, and to live for the glory of God. Now, if it means that to us, it is a wonderful expression to God; but if you have the baptism without the meaning, it is a perfectly horrible thing. Don't insult the God who loves you by muttering some meaningless mumbo-jumbo before him, or play-acting some religious hocus-pocus that leaves you uninvolved, and, therefore, unchanged -- this is what Paul is saying.

I heard of a dentist who took X-rays of every patient who came in and then made a special proposition to them. He said, "For ten dollars I will fill these cavities that you have here, but, if you don't want to pay that much, for five dollars I will retouch the X-rays." Now, the ritual without the meaning behind it is like that, it is a retouched X-ray -- the cavity is still there.

A third "red herring" is found in the first four verses of Chapter 3. You see, Paul is answering the thoughts of the minds of his readers, and he raises the questions that must now be in everyone's mind:

Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews are entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their unfaithfulness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every man be false, as it is written,
   "That thou mayest be justified in thy words,
   and prevail when thou art judged." (Romans 3:1-4 RSV)

Now, this is the "red herring" of a privileged position. By this time, the Jews who would read this were beginning to get a little indignant with the apostle. They were saying to him, in effect:

"Look, the way you sound, it is as though these privileges that God has given to us -- our great religious heritage -- really means nothing at all. You are undervaluing our heritage."

Paul answers:

"No, I am not; these things mean a lot. The Jews have been given a position of privilege -- they were given the oracles of God; they were entrusted with the message of God; they were chosen as the channel by which God would communicate with the race -- and this is a tremendous privilege."

They had the message that God wanted men to have. But when they kept that word to themselves, when they viewed it as a special badge of God's favor, and they locked it within their breasts and refused to share it with others, what then? Did their faithlessness mean that God would be like them, that he would prove faithless to his own promise? "No," Paul says.

Right here is the trouble with our thinking about God. Men think that God acts like they do. If we get irritated or piqued at somebody who doesn't prove faithful to their word, we say: "Well, I'll treat them the same way. Why shouldn't I?" Men believe that God, like them, plays favorites -- that he will be loyal to his gang, no matter whether they are right or wrong. But, you see, we have such wrong ideas about God. J. B. Philips, in his wonderful book, Your God Is Too Small, has a series of interesting caricatures of God as men see him today. He points out that many of us are living with infantile conceptions of God -- conceptions of God that we gained as children which we have never thrown off since we grew to manhood or womanhood. So many of us still have these baby-like conceptions of God. It is almost as if we were still sleeping with our Teddy Bear!

But Paul says, "Let God be true." God is faithful to his own promises though every man be false. And privilege only increases responsibility in God's sight. God demands more from those who have more light than he does from those who have less. He will not withhold his judgment because they happen to have a long and respected religious heritage -- it doesn't make any difference. This is such a pitiful defense, isn't it?

Not long ago, I was asked to visit a woman whose husband had committed suicide. She lived in a hovel, and, as she met me at the door, I could see that she was drunk. She invited me in, and, as soon as I explained who I was and why I had come, the first bit of information she gave was that she was the daughter of a Methodist minister. You see, she was trying to hide under that pitiful, shabby refuge of a heritage that she thought would be all I would want. She thought I would be impressed -- and I was only saddened by what she told me.

It doesn't make any difference whether your grandfather or your grandmother was a wonderful Christian -- that can't be passed on to you. God has no spiritual grandchildren. Have you noticed that? You never read about his grandchildren. You read much about his children, but never about his grandchildren -- he doesn't have any. Every Christian is individually a part of the family of God. There are no second-generation Christians.

When I was a student at Dallas Theological Seminary, Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer told us he knew D. L. Moody and his family intimately, and that, so far as he could tell, he saw no indication in any of the Moody children that they ever came to know Jesus Christ. Now, that is a terrible indictment, isn't it? But, of course, you don't come to know God by natural relationship, or by belonging to a special-privilege class or group. These things are false refuges. We now come to another "red herring," and this is the last one. It is the most suave and clever of all. It is found in Verses 5-8. Paul raises another question in the minds of these people. He says:

But if our wickedness serves to show the justice of God, what shall we say? That God is unjust to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world? But if through my falsehood God's truthfulness abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come? -- as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just. (Romans 3:5-8 RSV)

Do you see his argument? He is saying that these people who are reading this will say to themselves: "Well, now look. If our wickedness serves to display how just and holy God is -- if, against the background of our evil, he is seen in all the beauty of his glory and purity, and his creatures thus see him as he is and glorify him -- well, then, why should he condemn us? Everything has turned out all right."

There is a pleasing result in the end, you see -- that is, the end justifies the means. This is one of the oldest of arguments. Now, Paul's answer is wonderful! What he says is this: "It is true that God is going to work out all his plans, and he uses the very opposition of his enemies to accomplish these plans." That is what the cross is: The cross appeared to be the moment of triumph of all the powers of darkness and evil, but God used it to be the foundation of the victory and triumph of Jesus Christ. God does this. But Paul's question is: If God let everyone off on that basis, how then could he judge the world? Everyone would get off then. Evil would never be judged -- evil would go on unrestrained -- and God himself would be proven unjust and evil, if he did that.

"No," Paul says, "I am not teaching 'let's do evil that good may come,'" -- as some were reporting that he was teaching -- "because, even though God uses the wrath of man to praise him, still man is responsible for his own evil, and God will judge that." So, you see, you no longer can say: Well, it all turned out all right in the end -- God's got nothing to worry about. Why should he condemn me? He is glorified by it."

No, God must judge the evil of man's heart. When I was a boy, I read a story that I have never forgotten. I have never read it since, but I have never forgotten it because it made a great impression upon me: It was the story of a sea voyage. In the hold of a sailing ship was large quantity of guns mounted upon wheels. These guns were chained down so they would not move about as the ship made its way through a rough sea. One of the men, through carelessness, managed to release one of these guns one day; he had not properly fastened the chain, so the gun was free. A storm came up, and the gun began to roll back and forth in the hold of the ship. It worked its way out and ran the whole length of the ship. As the storm mounted in fury, the gun rolled back and forth and began to batter against the bulkhead of the ship. Soon, it was apparent that the ship was in grave danger, because, unless this gun could be secured again, it would bash its way through the side of the ship, and the ship would sink.

So the man who had been guilty of freeing it slipped down into the hold, and, at the risk of his life, rushed out, and tried several times to get hold of the gun, and throw a rope around it. But each time, almost as if the gun were alive, when he got close to it, the ship would move in such a way that the gun came lurching toward him, and he would barely escape with his life. After several hairbreadth escapes, he managed to throw a rope about it, and they finally secured the gun.

When the danger was over, the captain called him up on the deck and gathered the whole ship's company together. He got this man before them there, and he commended him for his bravery and his heroism. And he promised him an award -- a cash prize that would be his when the ship docked -- for the bravery he exhibited when he saved the ship. The man began to feel proud of himself because it had all worked out so wonderfully. But, as soon as the captain had concluded the words of commendation, he ordered the man to be tied to the mast and shot through the head for his carelessness which resulted in putting the ship in danger.

I have never forgotten that story because it illustrates something of the character and justice of God. God cannot pass over evil, and though we may have done things that are good, they do not balance out the evil. God sees us as we are -- this is what Paul is telling us.

You see, none of these hollow defenses fool God. None of these defenses stand in his sight: God knows how we hate to be stripped of our defenses. God knows how hard it is to swallow our pride. God knows how we cling to our self-respect and our self-confidence. We think that if we lose this -- if we admit how foolish, how evil, how wrong, how perverted we are -- we have nothing on which to stand. We feel like we are losing our mantle of manhood or womanhood -- we are being asked to surrender our last vestige of self-respect, and to admit total guilt -- and God knows that. But God knows something else too, and this is the point: God knows that our self-confidence is based upon a delusion. God knows that our self-respect is the very thing that is keeping us away from the great gifts of blessing and glory he wants to give us. God knows that this thing which we fight like a tiger to defend, and refuse to admit, or give up, is the very thing that is like a cancer, gnawing away at our vitals and destroying us. And so, like a faithful surgeon, God plunges the knife deeply and cuts the thing out -- if we will permit him. And then God knows this: He has another basis of confidence, another basis of respect that he intends to give us in Jesus Christ -- a confidence that cannot be shaken, a self-respect that is righteous in his sight. If we will allow him to take away our self-confidence and our self-respect, he will give us, in its place, that which makes us all that we want to be.

Yesterday morning I heard John French, a noted British actor, tell how, when Billy Graham came to London, John determined to arrange an interview with Billy so he could punch him on the nose and expose him for the fool, the liar, the cheat, and the scoundrel that he was convinced Billy Graham was. He told about how he arranged the interview, how he had an appointment with Billy in the lobby of a hotel, and how he walked up to him determined to show him up for the charlatan that he was sure he was.

As he greeted Billy, John French drew back his fist to hit him on the nose. But the first thing he knew, Billy had John's fist in his hand, shaking it, and telling him that he was glad to see him. That rather shook him. Then John French told how Billy arranged an appointment with him a little bit later, and they met together in a room; how John hated him, loathed him, because he stood for all this "religious racket" that he felt was "such a blight" upon men; but how, as they sat and talked, Billy asked him, "John, do you know how it feels to be crucified?" They began to talk about crucifixion, and what the Lord went through. The Spirit of God used this in John French's life. Gradually, there was a sense of confidence awakened, and they began to talk freely. At last, he said, he knelt and received Jesus Christ as his Savior. John French told about how he had made his success in the theater, how he had fought he way up from the ranks, how he had blasted his way to the top of his profession by the sheer weight of self-confidence. Then he said these words as he concluded his testimony: "I left the theater when I became a Christian. I enjoyed it, I thought it was wonderful, but I will never go back to it because I found something far more exciting when I found Jesus Christ."

Now, this is what God is talking about here in Romans. He is undermining all the self-righteousness of man, in order that he might give us the righteousness of Christ. This is the free gift he offers every individual who will receive it. You can't have both. It is either your righteousness, your confidence, your self-respect, or it is that which comes from Jesus Christ as free gift to anyone who will have him. He is available to men and women today as much as he was in the days of his flesh.

Prayer:

Our Heavenly Father, how we thank you for the truth of this great message in Romans, how, through the centuries, men and women, having read this book, have found these things to be true. They have believed the simple writing. They have invited Jesus Christ into their life. They have found him to be the Living Savior. Anything else, anything other than this, they have found not sufficient. They have found the one who satisfies the deepest longings of the heart. For those who have not found Jesus Christ yet as Lord and Savior, we would ask, Father, that, at this moment, they may invite him in, that they may crown him Lord, that they may cast away all their foolish self-respect and receive that which he alone can provide -- his own unsullied righteousness. We pray in his name, Amen.

PEALE OR PAUL?

by Ray C. Stedman

It would be a perfectly obvious statement to say that Norman Vincent Peale did not write the Epistle to the Romans. As you know, Dr. Peale is noted for being the advocate of the power of positive thinking, and the book of Romans does not begin with positive thinking -- it begins with the power of negative thinking. It is the stripping away of all the self-confidence of man in order that we might see ourselves as we are.

Now, I mean no personal attack on Dr. Peale in using his name in this connection. I am only referring to the approach it represents -- what has been called the philosophy of mental aspirin -- this power of positive thinking. Somebody has said that the difference between Paul and Peale is that Paul is appealing, while Peale is appalling. But I don't think this is quite accurate; actually, I think the reverse is true. I think there is a very real sense in which it is Paul who is appalling, and Peale who is appealing. In fact, it is the very sense that Peale is appealing that makes him appalling, and it is the fact that Paul is appalling that makes him appealing.

Now, if you will bear with me, I will show you what I mean. I have a quotation I would like to share with you. It was not written by Norman Vincent Peale, but it does represent, I think, something of the school of thought he represents -- it is typical of that. It is from an article that appeared in the This Week supplement of the San Francisco Chronicle some time ago, called "The Art of Being Yourself," in the column, "Words to Live By." I quote, as follows:

The art of being yourself at your best is the art of unfolding your personality into the man you want to be. By the grace of God you are what you are. Glory in your selfhood! Accept yourself, but go on from there. Champion the right to be yourself. Dare to be different and to set your own pattern. Live your own life and follow your own star. Respect yourself! You have the right to be here, and you have important work to do. Don't stand in your own shadow. Get your little self out of the way so that your big self can stride forward. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny spark of possibility within you into the flame of achievement. Create the kind of self you will be happy to live with all your life. Be gentle with yourself. Learn to love yourself, to forgive yourself; for only as we have the right attitude toward ourselves can we have the right attitude toward others.

Now, isn't that appealing? That kind of talk always strikes us with a very right note, doesn't it? And, if you place it alongside these words from Paul in the third chapter of Romans, you can see what I mean in stating that Peale sounds appealing and Paul sounds appalling, for Paul says: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong; no one does good, not even one." "Their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of asps is under their lips." But, you see, despite the popular appeal of this type of approach, there is one fatal flaw in this philosophy of self-improvement -- it can't be done.

Take a little closer look at some of these things and see what I mean. Our quotation says: "Don't stand in your own shadow. Get your little self out of the way so that your big self can stride forward." Now let me ask you, very practically: How do you do this? It sounds good, doesn't it? But, how do you do it? Your little self is in the way. Your big self is back here, and yet the same self that you are trying to advance is the one that stands in the way. You see, we are only one self. Then how do we do this? This kind of a philosophy is really a problem trying to solve itself -- which is impossible. It reminds me of the little rhyme that says:

I had a little tea party
   this afternoon at three.
It was very small, three guests in all,
   just I, myself, and me.
Myself ate up the sandwiches,
   and I drank up the tea.
It was also I who ate the pie,
   and passed the cake to me.

This is about as much real nonsense as this kind of thinking. It sounds beautiful -- it sounds challenging -- but it is totally impractical because there is no way of accomplishing it. It is like wrestling with yourself. Did you ever try that? I suggest that, in the privacy of your own room, you attempt this -- wrestle with yourself! When you've got yourself down, who's on top? So, you can appreciate the realism of the Apostle Paul, who carefully documents his arguments from real life and sums up his conclusions with the remarkable statement of man's problem that we read here. Let me begin with Verse 9:

What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all; for I have already charged that all men, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin, as it is written:
   "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God.
      All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong; no one does good, not even one."
   "Their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to deceive."
   "The venom of asps is under their lips."
   "Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness."
   "Their feet are swift to shed blood, in their paths are ruin and misery,
      and the way of peace they do not know."
   "There is no fear of God before their eyes."

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For no human being will be justified in his sight by the works of the law since through the law comes the knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:9-20 RSV)

As you read Verses 10-18, you see that these are quotations Paul has gathered from the Old Testament. He has gone back through the library of the Hebrew Scriptures and gathered up verses from Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and Isaiah, and has brought them all together here. So, here is the indictment and the conclusive word as to the problem of man. As you read this list through, it's very revealing, isn't it? I am always amazed at the way people can read this passage and add, mentally, "except me."

None is righteous, no, not one, except me.
No one understands, no one seeks for God, except me.
All have turned aside, except me.

As you read this through with people, you can oftentimes sense them adding those two words. Or, as they finish reading this passage, they say, "This is true of everybody else, but not of me."

Now, Verses 10-12 are an evaluation on the part of the apostle. He is simply gathering up what is true and showing us that, in man's heart, there is often much religion, much seeking after a god, but not seeking for the God -- with a capital "G." Across this vast land, there are thousands of churches packed with people -- like this congregation this morning -- and yet this indictment of the Apostle Paul would include all of them. Among all these people, in churches and temples all around the world, there is none that seeks for God -- no, not one! Isn't that amazing? The natural heart of man is not really looking for God!

Now, men look for a god all the time. This is the entire drive of religion around the world -- to find a god that man can worship, because man cannot live without a god, and every man has his god. We see people out on Sunday mornings polishing and waxing them at times, and taking them on trailers down to the water's edge, and so on. There are lots of gods, all kinds of them, many different varieties -- and every man has his god.

But Paul says -- as he knows the human heart in this divinely-given look at what man is really like -- there is not one that really wants to discover God unless God draws that man to himself. That is what Jesus said: "No man can come unto me except my Father draw him," (John 6:44). If you have hunger in your heart for God -- with a capital "G" -- and I know many of you do (and across this land there are many like you), it is not because you want God, but because God wants you! God is seeking you, and drawing you, to himself -- that is what Paul brings out here. Man wants God, in a sense, but man wants to use him. Every effort to find God on the part of the natural man is tainted with the attitude that we want to bargain with God when we find him, we want to accept him as an equal, but not as our Lord. And that is what God must be -- our Lord! This is why Paul makes this statement. You see, we want God at times -- when we are in trouble, when we are in danger, when we need comfort, when we need surcease from sorrow or heartache we want God, -- but we don't want him all the time. But, if God be God, he must be God all of the time -- that is the whole point. And so man denies God's right to be God.

Now, Verses 13-17 are an examination of man's condition. What are the results of man's rejection of God? And notice how up-to-date this is: It affects his talk, first of all:

   "Their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to deceive."
   "The venom of asps is under their lips."
   "Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness." (Romans 3:13-14 RSV)

When man refuses to bend his will to the will of God, it begins to affect his talk. You can tell it in the tone of his voice, in the words he chooses, in the biting sarcasm that comes forth, in the curses and bitterness, in the foulness of the tongue oftentimes, in the jealousy that is evident there. So, you see, it is true what Jesus says, that out of the heart of man, out of his inner being, come forth murders, adulteries, fornications, and foulness of every kind (Mark 7:21). This is man. It affects his talk.

Someone has said that if you want to prove this verse is true, go out on the street, go up to the first man you see and hit him in the mouth, and you'll see what comes out -- curses and bitterness. And it affects his walk:

   "Their feet are swift to shed blood, in their paths are ruin and misery,
      and the way of peace they do not know." (Romans 3:15-17 RSV)

Someone has suggested that this would be a very remarkable verse to write above the doors of the United Nations building in New York: "Their feet are swift to shed blood, in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they do not know." Isn't it true? Here are the nations gathered together -- gathered to seek peace -- but the outcome of it is constant friction, and trouble, and disturbance, and heartache, and bloodshed, and misery, and they do not know the way of peace. Now the explanation is given in Verse 18 -- one short sentence:

   "There is no fear of God before their eyes." (Romans 3:18 RSV)

There is no understanding of God's being -- no concern for his opinion. To put it in the words of the street today, "man couldn't care less about what God thinks about him" -- and this is the root of all of the problems in human life. There is no concern for God's opinion in man's life.

So we have this final sentence of indictment in Verses 19-20. Paul points out that even the Ten Commandments can't help you here. What good does it do to have these laws, moral as they are, ethical and right as they are, -- even though everybody subscribes to them -- when all they do is simply point out how much we fail to keep them.

You often hear somebody say, "I don't need Christ, all I need is the Sermon on the Mount," or, "the Ten Commandments." The obvious answer to such a claim is: Well, that's fine, but do you do this? It isn't enough just to have this code hanging up on your bedroom wall, or even to subscribe to it mentally, but, do you do these things? Law is such that, if not kept, it demands retribution. The Ten Commandments, as Paul points out here, are for only one purpose:

...through the law comes the knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:20 RSV)

As we measure ourselves alongside of the ten rules which God has given man, we discover that we have all failed. So it merely reveals how far short we have come. Now, if we stopped here (and this is where so many people stop in their understanding of the Christian message) we would have the most discouraging, depressing message that man has ever heard. This is negative thinking, isn't it. And no wonder nobody wants it. If this is all there is, it leaves us with all our self-respect thrown away, our confidence gone, and we have nothing left. We are naked before God and man -- and who wants to be that way? But, you see, if we stopped here, it would be only half the gospel, only half the story. Don't stop here! The other half is what makes it wonderful -- God's answer to man's problem. Notice that Verse 21 begins with the words, "But now." That word "But" is a corner word -- you come to it and you turn a corner:

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:21-26 RSV)

Do you understand that? It is saying that what no man can do by self effort -- that is, to be righteous and accepted by God -- God will do for him if that man yields to Jesus Christ the right to be Lord of his life: This is the gospel.

Now, Paul points out that there is no use trying to press to any other point: There is no distinction at all between men in this matter in God's sight. There is no need to show your Boy Scout badge, or your baptism certificate, or your church membership, or your lodge emblem. As Paul says, "there is no distinction" here -- the ground is level at the foot of the cross. All men have fallen short, as Philippianslips so beautifully puts it, "of the beauty of God's plan" (Romans 3:23 J. B. Philips).

Who can argue with that? Have you fulfilled the beauty of God's plan for your life? Of course not! Then all have sinned and fallen short, and missed the beauty of God's plan. And the only way to be justified is by faith in Jesus Christ. All men can have him. And no man can be justified apart from him, who, by his death in our place, made it possible for God to receive us, and give us Christ's righteousness. Now, that is the gospel.

As you can see, the cross is the great place of exchange. As Paul writes in Corinthians, "He who knew no sin [Jesus] was made sin for us that we who knew no righteousness [in ourselves] might be given [or made] the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ," (2 Corinthians 5:21). And this is done at the moment of faith, at the moment of acceptance of the Lordship of Jesus Christ at the cross.

Now, this is a great mystery. I confess I never fully understand it -- and no one else does -- and we never will. What took place on the cross of Jesus Christ is a vast and insuperable mystery. We never can fully enter into it, but Paul points out two things that are made clear in the cross of Christ:

The first one is that, although God apparently overlooked evil in the past, and allowed it to go on, this does not mean that he is not righteous, as some men think. For, when God's Son took the place of sinners, and, on the cross, was their representative, God looking down at his own beloved Son, who had done no wrong, spared him not, but poured out upon his innocent head all the wrath that a holy God reserves for men who live in rebellion against him. It is forever on record, therefore, in the cross of Christ, that, though God accepts a sinner, he hates the sin and will not bend to it in the slightest degree. Thus, God's record stands vindicated by the cross. God, even when his own Son was there, would not spare him.

This means that you and I can never get by with trying to get God to be lenient with us, for even when his own Son was there, he wouldn't spare him. It means that God is righteous and even though he passes over sin, and doesn't judge it immediately, and lets men go on in their ways, and lets horrible things happen in human history, it doesn't mean that God is simply powerless, or careless, about what is taking place. Rather, the cross indicates that God has a holy hatred, continually, against all that stands against his righteous rule in men's lives.

But, on the other hand, the cross demonstrates his willingness to receive all who come to Jesus -- he is the justifier of him who believes in Jesus -- this is the declaration that Paul makes. Without distinction, love overcomes all our suspicion and gives us what we cannot earn. Now, I hope this is clear because there are so many words that are spoken today that pervert and distort this wonderful message from God.

God denies all effort, all power of positive thinking until there has come the recognition of the complete lack of anything to offer him. Then he gives us all that we need, and, From then on, positive thinking is the only possible thing that will meet the need.

I remember that when I was in Dallas I taught for awhile at the Southern Bible Training School, which is a school for colored people founded by Ed Ironside, the oldest son of Dr. Harry Ironside, when he was a student at the seminary. Dr. Harry Ironside was a member of the board of that school, and, during its early days, the school had a very precarious existence. They were meeting in just one room in a house in Dallas, and there were only about ten or twelve students that they had managed to persuade to come to the school. It used to be quite a heavy drain upon Dr. Ironside because Ed would write to his father for funds whenever the school ran short. Dr. Ironside told us at Dallas one day that he came down to the school, and they had their usual need of funds, and he said to his son, "Ed, I wonder if it is worth going on. This school is just such a continual drain on us all the time, and I really wonder if we are getting anywhere. Sometimes I think it would be better if we stopped." Ed Ironside didn't say anything. He waited a moment, and then said, "Well, Dad, I'll tell you: You come to the school session tomorrow night and just see what is happening."

So the next night Dr. Ironside went down to the house, and there were about ten or twelve students there, and Ed Ironside was teaching them. Ed stood up, and said to them, "Now men, you know my father here, and you know the concern he has had for this school, but you know also that there has been a real financial drain upon him. My father said to me yesterday that he wondered if it was worth going on, that perhaps we ought to stop the school. I wonder what you men think about that."

Well, nobody said anything for a moment. And then one man got to his feet and began to speak. As you know, they have a very natural eloquence, and he said something like this: "Mr. Ironside, does I hear you right? Did you say something about closing this school? Why, let me tell you something. When you started this school last year I heard about it, and I was pastor of a church here in town. I had a big church of about 500 people. I used to love to be pastor of that church -- I dressed up in my very best clothes, and put on my nicest white gloves, and I used to go to church every Sunday, and stand up in the pulpit and wave my hands and lead the singin' and I was so proud to be the pastor of that church." And he said, "I didn't know what to preach very much, but I knew you had to put 'rousements in. And, every Sunday, I used to put the 'rousements in till the people would be shoutin' all over the church. And I thought I was a wonderful pastor. But then I heard about your school and I came over to it. The first night you were teachin' the book of Romans. I listened to you, and as I sat there, and heard what God thought about man, I discovered that I was not dressed in fine clothes, as I thought, but, in the sight of God, I was dressed in filthy, dirty rags." And he said, "One by one, as I listened to you, you just took those filthy, dirty rags off me, and I just stood naked in God's sight. I went away and I said to myself, 'I am never going back to that place again; this is no place for a man in my position.' But," he said, "something drew me back the next night, and I came back again. That night you were on the third chapter of Romans, and you talked about what Jesus Christ had come to do, and how he came to give us his own righteousness, and how I could have all that wonderful righteousness of Jesus to clothe myself in, instead of the dirty, filthy rags of my own righteousness. And," he said, "as I listened to you that night, Mr. Ironside, I asked Jesus Christ to come into my life, and he clothed me with his righteousness. And I went back and began to preach that to my people. There came a great change in our church, and you ought to see how many have come to discover that wonderful gift of righteousness for themselves. Mr. Ironside, if you close this school, the only light that us poor colored folks has in Dallas is going to go out."

Well, you know what happened. Dr. Ironside couldn't close it, and the school is still going on now -- still ministering to those people in Dallas, preaching the righteousness which is by faith and not by us, a righteousness that can only be received as a gift.

Back in Exodus, the fifteenth chapter, is the wonderful accounting of the children of Israel on their wilderness journey into Canaan, and we are told that they came to a place called the Valley of Marah, and they found water there. They tasted the water eagerly in their thirst, but found that the waters were bitter, so they named them "Marah," which means "bitter," (Exodus 15:23). The leaders of the camp went to Moses, and said, "Moses, what shall we do? These waters are bitter. We can't drink them. Here we are, out in a vast and trackless desert, without water. What shall we do?" Exodus 15:24). Moses went to the Lord, and we are told that the Lord showed him a tree, and told him to cut down the tree and cast it into the water. When he did, the waters were made sweet.

Now, all those Old Testament stories are pictures for us of truth that applies to us. The bitter water is a picture of the dark and bitter passions within the soul of men. These very things that Paul is describing, that you and I know are in our own hearts, all the tears and fears, the anguish, the sorrow, the death, the crying, the dying of life are the bitter waters in which we live. But there is a tree -- Peter says, "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree," (1 Peter 2:24 KJV) -- a tree that has the ability, when cast into the midst of the dark and bitter waters, to cause them to become sweet. That is just the picture of what God is offering us in Jesus Christ. A life that finds no fulfillment in itself -- in its own constant, tiresome round of self effort to justify itself before God or man -- ends only in futility and frustration. But when that heart looks to the cross of Christ, and believes what God has done there, and is willing to surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, there comes the healing effect of that tree in his life, and he stands justified before God.

If you haven't begun your Christian life at this point, you haven't begun it at all -- because this is where man begins his life with God. Every one of us here has a righteousness that we are seeking to establish. It's either our own, or we are resting on Christ, one or the other: There is no other ground. Now, my question to you is this: Which are you resting on today? Which is yours? This is the great question.

Prayer:

Our Father, we see that in your sight there is no man who is good enough, no one who can be good enough, for you know us as we are, Lord. You see our inner hearts, you know us just as we are. Give us grace to stop trying to draw these filthy rags of our own righteousness about ourselves, and to thus try to clothe ourselves in your sight. Give us the grace to stop this, and to gladly and freely accept from thee the perfect, righteous standing that is provided in Jesus Christ. May any man or woman who is without Christ, in this moment, ask him to come into their life, ask him to become Lord of their life, and, thus, in him, by receiving him, receive the righteous standing that you offer in Jesus Christ. We pray in His name. Amen.

EXHIBIT A

by Ray C. Stedman

The opening chapters of Paul's great letter to the Romans are concerned with the introductory step of Christian life -- justification by faith -- faith in the death of Jesus Christ: Not faith in his life, but faith in his death. The alphabet of Christianity begins with the letter A -- Atonement. And this is what we have in these first chapters -- the place where God and man meet. As we see clearly from this, the only place where God meets man is at the foot of the cross -- there God and man can meet.

The best way to impart truth is to illustrate it. If the speaker can put present truth in some graphic, pictorial form it makes it live. The writers of Scripture are very much aware of that fact, so Paul begins to illustrate now what he has already said to us. Romans 4 is nothing but one beautiful illustration. Now, the best illustration is a living person, so Paul calls in Abraham as the illustration of what he means by being justified by faith. So, if you have had any problems about this doctrine, I suggest you pay close attention to the illustration because that should make it clear -- as you see how it works in a living individual. We will only read the first section of this, in order to get our bearings, and then we will dwell on the highlights of the rest.

Abraham is what we might call Exhibit A when it comes to justification by faith. This chapter is a closely-reasoned argument which was aimed at the Jewish mind, and, because it is so Jewish in its content and appeal, we don't have to spend time with the details, but, rather, we will look at the highlights, and then make the applications to our own hearts. There are four points to Paul's illustration of Abraham here -- four things that Abraham's life teaches us about justification by faith: The first of them is the fact of faith. That is, the fact that justification is by faith, and no other way. I'm going to read the full section here so you can see what I mean, beginning with Chapter 3, Verse 27:

Then what becomes of our boastings? It is excluded. On what principle? On the principle of works? No, but on the principle of faith. For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of their faith and the uncircumcised because of their faith. Do we then overthrow the law by faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

What then shall we say about Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness." Now to one who works, his wages are not reckoned as a gift but as his due. And to one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness. So also David pronounces a blessing upon the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works:

"Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not reckon his sin." (Romans 3:27-4:8 RSV)

Now, the key to this portion of the illustration is Verse 28 of Chapter 3. Paul says, "For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law," and then he says that Abraham is a perfect illustration of that fact.

As you think of this, the question comes, "How did Abraham obtain such a high position of privilege and favor with God?" Admittedly, Abraham is one of the great religious names of all time. His name is honored by three of the great religions of the earth: Judaism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity. They all hold him in the highest regard. And, in God's sight, in the Scriptures, he is set forth in a tremendous place of favor -- given the title, "The friend of God," (James 2:23).

Now, how did he get there? That is the question. Was it by a lifetime of good works and trying to please God? And Paul's answer is: "No, of course not. For if that were the case, God would owe Abraham righteousness as his just due, and Abraham could boast in the fact that he had done enough good works to gain something from God." Paul says that you can never achieve righteousness by working in that way -- righteousness does not come that way -- he had already proved that. So he quotes the Scriptures that tell us how Abraham gained such a place of favor in God's sight: "Abraham," we are told, "believed God," (Genesis 15:6a). That is all. God had promised Abraham something, based upon God's own ability to perform; Abraham simply believed, and, when he believed, he obtained the righteousness that he sought Genesis 15:6b). Now, this is proof, you see, that true righteousness is obtained only by believing -- nothing else -- by simply believing God.

I realize that this word "believe" has been stamped on, stretched out, and pulled, and twisted, and wrung dry until it has lost its meaning in the mind of modern man. It has been used to cover everything from soup to nuts: We have a popular song, I believe, and, if you listen to it, you find it's "I believe in nothing," really. All the way through, this word "believe" is pinned to every little thing in order to make it acceptable, without ever specifying what to believe about. This week, perhaps, you read of the death of Adolf Eichmann by hanging in Israel, and that just as he stood on the platform, ready to step into eternity, he said these words: "I have lived believing in God, and I die believing in God." Now, that kind of belief resulted in the murder of six million people -- and that is not the kind of belief that the Bible is talking about. You see how this word "believe" is misused? I would like to use a modern equivalent for this word -- a phrase that, perhaps, you don't usually associate with the word "believe," but I think it makes it clear and vivid to us as to what Abraham did that made him acceptable to God. Let me substitute this phrase: Abraham made room for God in his life. Now that is what believing is: Abraham practiced God. He didn't become righteous and then go around looking for God. He simply, in his sin and failure, made room for God and God made him righteous.

In all the history of the world, that is the only way that men ever become righteous before God -- to start with making room for God in the life. And, when men do this, when they let God into their daily experience, and believe God enough to make room for him, then God begins to take over and make the life righteous. That is what happened to Abraham. Abraham believed God, he made room for him,

He began to talk to him, He began to walk with him, He began to listen to him, He began to pay attention to him, and the minute he did, God credited him with righteousness, and began to make it real in his experience. Then David is called in as a witness -- a confirming witness to the same thing. And, of course, these two names, Abraham and David, would carry a great deal of weight with the Jewish mind: Abraham was the great father of the nation, and David was its greatest king. Here are two of the greatest names in all of Israel testifying to the fact that nobody is made righteous before God by good works, but, rather, by believing what God says. Here we come to David's testimony. It is interesting the passage that we have quoted here is the 32nd Psalm. From that Psalm are taken these words:

"Blessed is he whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed [or happy] is the man against whom the Lord will not reckon his sin." (Romans 4:7-8 RSV; Psalms 32:1-2)

If you look back into the history of David, you will find that he uttered these words at a time when his hands were red with the blood of Uriah, the Hittite. He had murdered a man. Also his heart was black with the sin of his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba. He had fallen into moral iniquity, and at the time that he committed this terrible double sin of murder and adultery, when everything in his being cried out to run away and hide from God, David did not try to brazen it out, but, instead, made room for God, and came to him, and flung the whole dirty mess before God, and asked to be forgiven. He wrote these words: "Blessed is he whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed (or happy) is the man against whom the Lord will not reckon his sin."

St. Augustine, that great leader of the early church, had these words engraved on a plaque, and hung at the foot of his bed, so that every night he could look at them. Here was another young man with a checkered past. Until his dying day, the last thing his eyes fell upon were these words of David: "Blessed is the man upon whom the Lord will not impute iniquity." Now, you see, this is justification by faith. And it shows that righteousness begins with the fact of faith -- making room for God in our lives. Now, this isn't all, because there is also the question of the time for faith, Verse 9:

Is this blessing pronounced only upon the circumcised, or also upon the uncircumcised? We say that faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it reckoned to him? Was it reckoned to him before or after he was circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. (Romans 4:9-10 RSV)

Now why does he bring all this in? Well, you can see the argument, can't you? The Jew thought that circumcision was what made a man acceptable to God, just as today many people think that baptism is what makes a man acceptable.

There are millions of people today in this country who have been taught as children, and who, even as adults, think that the thing that makes them acceptable to God is the fact that they were baptized, or that they joined a church, or some other thing.

But Paul points out that Abraham was declared righteous years before he was circumcised, and that circumcision was only a sign of righteousness which he had already by faith. This is simply saying (we won't trace the whole argument because it applied mostly to the Jewish mind) that it is not only necessary to make room for God in your life, but it is necessary to make room for God first -- this is the first thing! This is what makes blessing from God possible, and everything else follows from it. In other words, God must be the most important and the most evident fact of your life.

I was impressed recently, in teaching through the opening chapters of Genesis, to read again the story of Noah and the flood. One thing struck me as remarkable: When Noah came out of the Ark after the flood (remember it landed on the top pinnacle of Mount Ararat in Armenia, a mountain that is some 16,000 feet high), and stepped out into a different world than he had left, a world that must have been drastically changed in all its outward appearance, the first thing that he did was to build an altar and give thanks to God. Now, I think that is remarkable, because, if you remember, there were emergency conditions -- this was the only surviving remnant of the race, stepping out into a different world than they had left before. It would be something analogous to the landing of the first human being on the moon, or some distant planet of the solar system. These are conditions in which life is at stake. When they came out of the Ark all their place of safety was left behind. There was nothing but mud, and chaos, and debris everywhere around.

What would you and I do if we were back in those conditions? Wouldn't we say: "Well, now look, let's find a place where there is some dry ground and see if we can't get a little shelter erected here. Let's see if we can find some dry wood, and get a fire going, and get some supper on." Maybe, after we had taken care of our need for food, raiment, and shelter, then we'd say, "Let's have a thanksgiving service, and give thanks to God." But, the remarkable thing is that Noah knelt down in the mud, with all his family, and the first thing they did was to give thanks to God. That is why Noah was saved -- because he made room for God as the most important thing in his life.

I think that is a very revealing thing for us today. Why is it that we think that we have to do everything ourselves in our lives? Isn't it because we have forgotten, by and large, this great truth -- that God is the first and most important fact in human life -- and we put him way down on the list somewhere (as I've said before) somewhere after our second heart attack -- then we have time for God.

We have to get an education first, We have to make our living, We have to educate our children, We have to see the world, and then, as we come to the close of life, then it is time for faith, then it is time to discover God. Isn't this what Jesus was hitting at when he said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness" (Matthew 6:33 KJV), and then, with a little touch of contempt, he said, "and all these things" you are struggling after will "be added unto you." Well, that is the time when faith should come -- first -- before any rituals, or ordinances, and even before some of the other necessary things of life. Now, in Verse 13, we have the effect of faith. We read:

The promise to Abraham and his descendants, that they should inherit the world, did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. (Romans 4:13 RSV)

Here is something new. Paul points out that righteousness couldn't come through the Law, because it had to be by faith. The key phrase here is "inherit the world." The promise to Abraham and his descendants is "that they should inherit the world."

Many of you have thought, perhaps, that the Christian life was a narrow, drab, colorless affair. There are many people who think of Christians as being narrow-minded, rigid people who live in a tightly restricted area that has no enjoyment, no liberty, and no freedom. This is far from the case.

We are told that Abraham lived in the land of Canaan as a sojourner; that is, he never owned a square foot of the land, but he was free to have the entire land. As you read the life of Abraham, it is remarkable to see that though the Hittites, and the Canaanites, and Perizzites, and all the other "ites," dwelt in the land, that wherever Abraham wanted to move, he could go -- they all moved out of the way when he got there. In other words, he had the right to go and use the whole land, though he didn't own any of it. "And some day," Jesus said, "men will come from the east and the west and the north and the south and sit down with Abraham and Isaac in the kingdom of God" (Matthew 8:11 KJV), and he will have the whole world. This promise is literally true. Abraham will own the world, and all his friends will enjoy it with him. Jesus said so.

This is exactly what the Christian life is like. The Christian appears to renounce the world and turn his back upon the immediate advantages of the world, but, in so doing, he finds himself free to use it as he will. And, someday, all of it will be his. Let me read this promise to you from Paul's letter to the Corinthians,

So let no one boast of men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours; and you are Christ's; and Christ is God's. (1 Corinthians 3:21-23 RSV)

Communists speak of themselves as the wave of the future. How wrong they are! Paul says that "the world, or life, or death, or the present, or the future, all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's." One day this promise will be literally fulfilled, in the day when the sons of God are manifested and the whole creation (which is now straining and groaning, waiting for the day when the curse shall be lifted) shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into glorious liberty of the sons of God, and shall break forth into bloom (Romans 8:18-25), and we shall see the fulfillment of this promise.

Somebody has said that life is like a funnel: There are two ends to a funnel; you can enter it at either end. The non-Christian, the worldling, enters at the broad end and wants life to be at its broadest. He is constantly seeking to fling back the bars and to enjoy life at its fullest. So he enters the broad end of the funnel, and, as he proceeds, he finds that, inexorably, it grows narrower and narrower and more limited and restricted, until, at last, it is nothing but a tiny narrow aperture where there is hardly room to live, and it not worth the effort. This is why so many finally blow their brains out -- take their own life -- because life is no longer worth living, it has become so restricted and narrow and limited. But the Christian life is like entering the other end of the funnel. At first it seems narrow. At first it seems like you are being denied some things. But, as you go on, it begins to broaden out, becoming wider and wider, until, at last, as the apostle says, "all things are yours" -- the universe and all that is in it. As John says, "The world passes away and the lusts thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever" (1 John 2:17 KJV). That is the effect of faith. There is one more thing here -- the nature of faith. This comes to us from Verse 17 to the end. Paul says about Abraham:

...as it written, "I have made you the father of many nations" -- in the presence of God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, "So shall your descendants be." He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. (Romans 4:17-21 RSV)

This was, of course, concerning the promise that God had given him that he would he would have a son; and, though he was 100 years old, and his body was now dead in that sense, and Sarah's womb was barren, Abraham believed God.

Remember those opening words of the eleventh chapter of Hebrews the great faith chapter? Here we are given the only definition of faith in Scripture. In the modern version, it reads, "Now faith is the confidence of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen," (Hebrews 11:1). That is, faith is the feeling of confidence that we will obtain what we hope for, based upon a conviction that there are things unseen that will bring these things to pass. Abraham counted on the unseen God.

If we believe in God at all, we must believe that he is the God who can do the impossible. And, as we read here, he is the God who calls into existence the things that do not exist, who gives life to the dead. Obviously, he is the that kind of God or he is not God at all. Now, if we have to do with a God like that, then, obviously, we can expect that he can do things, even though, apparently, it seems as though he is making no progress in it. Faith, then, is the confidence that things you hope to be yours will come, despite all the present difficulties, and contrary to all the immediate evidence. That is what Abraham experienced. As he went along, nothing seemed to be happening: No child came into their family, His own body grew older and older, deader and deader, and Sarah's womb remained barren. But Abraham wasn't looking at these things. He was looking at the God who calls life out of death, and calls into existence the things that do not yet have existence. Because he had confidence in that kind of God, it didn't bother him a bit what was happening in his own life. In the course of time, as you know, the record stands that promise was fulfilled.

Let me say this to you: This is the way a man comes to Christ. This is the way that I came to Christ. I read the Bible, and heard quoted from the Bible, some wonderful promises. I read of One who spoke as no other man spoke, I heard him speak enticing words to my heart, words like these:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. (Matthew 11:28-29 RSV)

I heard him say,

...he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. (John 8:12b RSV)

I heard him say,

I am the door; if any one enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. (John 10:9 RSV)

As I heard these, hope flamed in my heart because this is what I longed to find, as it is what you long to find, and what every man and woman longs to find today -- rest, fulfillment, supply, companionship, blessing, light in place of darkness. These are the things hoped for. And then I heard the story of some unseen things: I heard the story of the cross in all its wonder and mystery. I heard that simple story of how they lifted up the Son of God, how in the darkness of that scene, God accomplished some strange and mysterious transaction: Somehow the sin of the human race was lifted off men and laid upon Jesus Christ, that his righteousness might be imparted to them. I couldn't understand it fully -- I was only a boy of about ten years of age when I heard this story, and believed it. But I realized that here was a God who could do something about my problem, and I believed his Word.

When I did so, the course of my life was altered -- the direction of my life changed. I didn't look any different on the outside, and I didn't act very different for awhile, but the course of my life was changed from that moment. I found a new capacity to love. I had a new dimension in my life -- new attitudes that I didn't have before. Though there has been stop-and-go progress along the way, the course and direction of my life from that time has never altered. My life's direction has been changed. It now moves in a different way. That is what we call "conversion," and it comes simply as a result of faith.

Abraham is the great example that, when a man stands upon what God says, all that God promises will be fully paid out to that man. That is what faith is: Abraham is Exhibit A. I stand in the alphabet somewhere down around X, Y, or Z, but it is the same story. A man who believes what God says can walk through the world, and though he walks contrary to the course of the world, though, perhaps, there are many things that he must say "No" to as he goes along, the direction of that walk is: Into the ever-broadening life of liberty and glory and blessing, into the wonder of the fulfillment of manhood and womanhood, into all the richness of an eternity with Jesus Christ, and into all the fulfillment of the marvelous promises of God.

Prayer:

Our Father, we thank you for faith. We know that faith, in itself, is of no value, except as it simply lays hold of the promise. We thank you, therefore, for the promise, that wonderful promise that these things will become true for us, as we, in the 20th century, hear the story of Jesus and believe what is written. Thus we enter into a new realm, and are changed; our life becomes different, Christ becomes real, and we rest upon the assurance that that which is begun in us will be perfected until the day of Jesus Christ. We thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen.

FAITH FACES LIFE

by Ray C. Stedman

This is graduation time, as is evidenced by the many young people who are home from school now -- just out of high school and college. It is a very appropriate time to come to the fifth chapter of Romans, because Romans 5 is a graduation exercise. It takes us from the elementary grades of Christian life into high school. Up to this point in the book of Romans, we have been dealing with birth truths -- the elementary, introductory truths of the Christian faith. But at this point in the book we learn of the existence of growth truths -- the way to maturity and power, and the way to be effective in Christian service. This will occupy our attention through Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 of this great letter. Now, wherever the Christian church is weak (and it is weak in many places), and wherever Christians are weak individually, it's because they have never graduated into the High School of the Holy Spirit -- they are still "babes in Christ" (1 Corinthians 3:1), no matter how long they have been Christians. Sometimes you can find "babes in Christ" who have been Christians 15, 20, or even 40 years, and it is because they have never come into this high school truth of the Holy Spirit: They keep learning over and over again the same old truths about salvation in Christ that are presented in these early chapters (wonderful as they are), and never go on -- never graduate.

The sixth chapter of Hebrewsin the Amplified Version begins with a much-needed exhortation:

Therefore let us go on and get past the elementary stage in the teachings and doctrine of Christ, the Messiah, advancing steadily toward the completeness and perfection that belongs to spiritual maturity. Let us not again be laying the foundation of repentance and abandonment of dead works [dead formalism], and of the faith [by which you turned] to God. (Hebrews 6:1 Amplified New Testament)

That is an exhortation that is tremendously needed in these days. The first eleven verses of Chapter 5 of Romans clearly show us two areas of Christian blessing, and two great reasons for Christian victory. Let me bring the first before you -- the two areas of blessing -- in Verses 1-5:

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5 RSV)

Now, Verses 1-2 sum up all that we have learned in Romans so far -- justification by faith. This is the first experience, and the results are three fold: Peace with God, access to God, and the certain hope of sharing the glory of God (in heaven).

All this we have the moment we become a Christian. The moment we believe in Jesus Christ all these things are true for us. And they never become any more true -- a person who has been a Christian for 50 years is no more justified than the man who just this moment has committed his life to Jesus Christ. All Christians enjoy these same blessings immediately, permanently, and continuously. Now, that is cause for rejoicing! And we do rejoice in this. We have been converted -- the direction of our life has been changed as we have come to realize that God has a gift of righteousness to give us -- something that we can never earn ourselves -- a gift that Christ has given us, and we are born again by receiving that gift and by the Holy Spirit working in our hearts:

The question of our going to hell has been forever settled, the certainty of heaven is forever established, and this is cause for rejoicing. And we ought to rejoice. Just as Paul points out here, there is a sense of peace that possesses us. You remember it well, don't you? How, that day when you came to Christ, you became aware that you were God's child -- you were now in the family of God -- and what a sense of peace came into your heart! Then, there is a new sense of God's presence to delight us -- we have access to God. When we talk to him, we feel that he is listening: He hears us. We have the right and the privilege of coming to him at any time any place -- we have access to him.

Also, the certain hope of heaven sustains us. That is why we sing, "When the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there!" And certainly this is cause for rejoicing! But that is not all there is to the Christian life (though, unfortunately, this is all the Christian life that many people know; for them salvation begins and ends with these facts -- though they have been rather weary and barren years, I am afraid). We look on to heaven, and we sigh after it, and say, "Thank God that someday we are going to get through of all the struggles and trials down here, and will be up there with him, and what rejoicing that will be!" Certainly it is proper that Christians rejoice in this fact. We are ready for heaven, you see, but the trouble is that we are not ready for earth. This is why you often meet Christians who are ready for heaven but are no use on earth at all -- they are very heavenly minded, but they are of no earthly use. The reason for this is that they have never graduated from elementary school and go on into the truths that we find in Romans 5, 6, 7, and 8.

Now look at Verse 3. It begins with these words: "More than that." The idea here is -- beyond this, in addition to these facts about heaven, about peace with God, about access to God -- more than that, we rejoice in our sufferings. Now, do you do that? Have you learned to live on this level yet? Do you rejoice in sufferings? Now, this is being ready for life. You see, Paul takes the very worst thing about life, life at its worst, our periods of suffering (not all of life is suffering, thank God, it never will be that), but Paul takes the very worst things about life -- the periods of heartache and sorrow and disappointment, the tears, the crying, the heartbreaks of life -- the suffering, and he says it makes us rejoice: We rejoice in our sufferings. Now, I believe it is time that we Christians take these words very seriously, because this is no special standard, reserved for just a few wonderful saints who, by virtue of great faith, are able to live on this high level -- this is the normal expectation of every Christian. Oh, I wish I could shout that, sing it, paint it -- I don't care how -- just so I could get across that message!

This is what God expects of every Christian, and he not only expects it, but provides for it. Anything less than this is simply sub-Christian living. Have you learned to live on this level? Have you learned to rejoice in suffering? Or, do you still gripe and complain and grumble and murmur about all the circumstances that come?

Do you remember the story of Sophie, the scrub woman, who lived in New York City, and made her living scrubbing floors in the skyscrapers of New York? By that means, she earned thousands of dollars to send out missionaries. That one woman supported some twenty or thirty missionaries, alone. Sophie had a wonderful character of glory about her all the time -- so much so that she used to cause people to stop her and ask what her secret was. On several occasions, while she was working, some office worker would come to work late and would say to her, "Sophie, I wish I had your faith -- I wish I knew God like you know him." And she would say, "Well, if you would read your New Testament right, you could know him." This person would say, "Well, I read my Bible." In fact, she said this one time to a minister. He said, "I read the Bible -- I read the Bible in Greek and Hebrew." And she said, "Well, you don't read it right!" And he said, "What do you mean?" "Well," she said, "when it says g-l-o-r-y in tribulations, you read it g-r-o-w-l, growl. That is the trouble with you, that is why you don't have joy in your heart, you growl in tribulation."

That is exactly what Paul is getting at here, you see. Someone has said that the definition of a Christian is a one who is: Completely fearless, continually cheerful, and constantly in trouble! That's true! Do you know the secret to that kind of Christianity? Let's face it -- most of us feel, really, that being a Christian should excuse us somewhat from trials and sufferings. I know that, if we are asked, we would say that we realize that sufferings may come, but that we don't think of them as really necessary. We think that sufferings are sort of signs that something is wrong, that, if we keep in fellowship with Christ, things ought to go well. And, if we have difficulty, we feel it is a sign that we are out of fellowship, or that Christianity doesn't really work after all.

Now that shows how wrong we are, for when Paul speaks of fellowship with Christ, he speaks of the fellowship with his sufferings (Philippians 3:10). And Peter, in First Peter 5:6-10, says that the matter of suffering is for all Christians everywhere. Let me read it to you:

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that in due time he may exalt you. Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you. Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experience of suffering is required of your brotherhood throughout the world. After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish, and strengthen you. (1 Peter 5:6-10 RSV)

You see, suffering, trials, difficulties, hardships, disappointment are all an indispensable part of the process by which God makes us into what we long to be. He loves us too well to deliver us from this. As we read here, there is a process at work in which suffering produces endurance (or patience); and, oh, how we need patience! I do! Don't you, these days?

Suffering produces patience. You can't get it any other way. Don't ever pray for patience, for God will never give it to you -- he can't give it to you. Patience is something that must be learned, and, if you pray for patience, God will bring you suffering, because suffering produces patience. There is no other way to get it. If you want another word for it, it is fortitude -- suffering produces fortitude -- strength. And fortitude (or endurance, or patience) produces character. All of the most beautiful characters come out of suffering. You can't have a beautiful character without some degree of suffering. Suffering produces character. Character (gradually growing into true manhood and womanhood) makes us hope, for we see that the job is being done, and we know that God is at work and that we need not stand at last ashamed and disappointed before Jesus Christ when he comes.

All this, Paul says, is because God loves us -- so, when suffering comes, it is not a mark of God's anger; it is a mark of his love. That is what Hebrews 12 says, doesn't it? Every son whom God receives, he chastens because he loves him -- not because he hates him -- but because he loves him (Hebrews 12:6). Therefore, there is no necessity to cry out, and say, "Oh, what have I done? What have I done, that God should treat me like this?"

We think that God is interested in getting a certain amount of work done in this world, and we think that the work is the important thing to God, but it is not so. God doesn't need us to do the work that he wants done in the world. He can do that with a rock, or a stone, or a child, or a tree -- it makes no difference. Did not Jesus say, when the Pharisees rebuked the crowds for praising him as he rode into the city of Jerusalem on the triumphal entry -- did not he say to them, "Look, if these should hold their peace, the very stones would cry out," (Luke 19:40). That is, God can use anything to do his work. This isn't what he is interested in. He is interested in our lives -- it is what the work does to us, it is what life is doing to us. It is our character that God is after, and this is why (in love) he introduces suffering, tribulation, trials, disappointments, and anguish into our lives. These are an indispensable part of the process.

Oh, I wish we could see that! These things come because he loves us, and because he has given the Holy Spirit to us to do this very work in our lives.

Let me share with you a brief word from Amy Carmichael; some of you know of her great work out in India. She was a woman who suffered greatly through her life, but accomplished tremendous things for God in southern India. She writes this under the title, The Shadowed Way:

He said, "I will forget the dying faces;
The empty places --
They shall be filled again.
O voices mourning deep within me, cease."
But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in forgetting lieth peace.

He said, "I will crowd action upon action,
The strife of faction
Shall stir me and sustain;
Oh, tears that drown the fire of manhood, cease."
But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in endeavor lieth peace.

He said, "I will withdraw me and be quiet,
Why meddle in life's riot?
Shut be my door to pain.
Desire, thou doest befool me, thou shalt cease."
But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in aloofness lieth peace.

He said, "I will submit; I am defeated,
God hath depleted
My life of its rich gain.
Oh futile murmurings, why will ye not cease?"
But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in submission lieth peace.

He said, "I will accept the breaking sorrow
Which God tomorrow
Will to his son explain."
Then did the turmoil deep with him cease.
Not vain the word, not vain,
For in acceptance lieth peace.

Do you know what that means? It means that the mark of a Christian who has grown to maturity, the mark of a spiritual Christian, is that he accepts everything that happens to him, without exception, as coming from the hand of the Lord into his life, and rejoices in what it is doing to him. Paul says:

In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. (1 Thessalonians 5:18 KJV)

So, if you are a Christian, no circumstance of your life happens to you except that it comes by the choice of God. Now, it is true that he may use Satan, and Satan does attack us, but never without the permission of Christ. Once Peter came to the Lord, trying, in his blindness, to defend Christ, and Christ said to him, "Fear not, Peter. Satan has desired to have thee that he ay test thee, that he may sift thee as wheat. But fear not, I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not," (Luke 22:31-32 KJV). This is what God brings us to. This is the mark of the spiritual Christian. "Well," you say, "I know that I can't do it. I have tried this. I can endure, but I can't rejoice. And, I get awfully upset by these pious Christians who go around with a smile screwed on their faces and pretend like they are enjoying suffering."

I don't blame you! I get upset at this too. But this isn't any pretense. When Paul speaks about rejoicing in suffering, he is speaking about genuinely rejoicing in suffering. You see, the problem is that perhaps you don't see, yet, what is behind this -- what will make it possible -- and this is what we need to see. This answer is briefly stated for us in these next verses as the two sources of our hope: Listen to Verses 6-11:

While we were yet helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man -- though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation. (Romans 5:6-11 RSV)

You have probably heard a great many sermons based on Verses 6-8, and that is as far as they go. But that is only half of Paul's argument. These verses wonderfully show us the love that God has for us while we were yet sinners -- so preachers dwell upon this, and point out how wonderful it is that God gives us a hope of heaven even though we are sinners, because of the death of Christ. But, if this is where you stop, then you miss the whole point of Paul's argument because that is just the first part of it. He goes on to build upon that foundation of the death of Christ and to show us that, if we have learned to rejoice in the hope of heaven because of the death of Christ, it will be much more certain that we can rejoice in suffering because of the risen life of Christ at work within us. In other words, his death makes us fit for heaven, his life makes us fit for earth. Because of the death of Christ, we can rejoice in the future; because of the risen life of Christ given to us, we can rejoice in the present. That is the difference. His death saves us from the judgment of God, but his life saves us from the wrath of God.

Now, the wrath of God here is not hell, nor is it the great tribulation. The wrath of God is the silent destruction of the soul and body that inevitably occurs when men disobey God, and it goes on all through life. Men are experiencing the wrath of God today -- that is what we read in the opening part of this book, didn't we? Notice Romans 1:18:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. (Romans 1:18 RSV)

And then he went on to show us how God has given men over to their bodily passions, their lusts, the foulness of their mind, the pride of their hearts, and how these things are constantly taking their deadly toll out of human life so that life is coming apart at the seams. Men are coming unglued, and destruction is gradually taking over in their heart and life and soul. That is the wrath of God -- being experienced right now. Look at Ephesians 5:3. Paul says,

But immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is fitting among saints. Let there be no filthiness, nor silly talk, nor levity, which are not fitting; but instead let there be thanksgiving. Be sure of this, that no immoral or impure man, or one who is covetous (that is, an idolator) [who has another god besides God], has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. (Ephesians 5:3-5 RSV)

Now listen:

Let no one deceive you [you Christians] with empty words, for it is because of these things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. (Ephesians 5:6 RSV)

Are these Christians? Yes, they are -- Christians who are doing things that the non-Christians live in continually. When Christians do them, the wrath of God comes upon them as well as upon the unsaved: They begin to come apart; they begin to come unglued; life begins to fall apart for them, as well; and Christ has come to save us from this, you see. Now, these words simply mean that Jesus Christ will not stop with justifying you -- and getting you ready to enjoy heaven someday. That is part of it, but it also means that he has made full provision to save you from your meanness, from your stubbornness, from your selfishness, from your nasty, mean tongue, from your bitter rebellious spirit, from your dirty thought life, from your filthy habits, and from your ungracious way. I include myself in this, of course. He has come for this, and he does it, not by hounding me and beating me with the Law, not by taking the Ten Commandments and using them as a whip to bring me into submission, but by the impartation of his life -- his life lived again through me!

You see, when I believed in the death of Jesus Christ, I was "in Christ," but when I began to appropriate his life, then it is "Christ in me." Jesus summed up the whole of the Christian life in these words: "ye in me, and I in you." (John 14:20 KJV). That is the Christian life. Now, this is what we are going to learn about more fully in Chapters 6, 7, and 8. And I tell you that my heart's cry is that all of us will lay hold of this great delivering truth, that we may learn how to live through life taking it all at its very worst and rejoicing in those sufferings that come -- because this is the mark of having appropriated the fullness of the life of Jesus Christ. And, when this day comes, as Paul points out in Verse 11, we will not only rejoice in the hope of the glory of God -- we will not only go around singing, "When the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there," but we will learn to rejoice in God himself -- God will be the important one to us. We will learn: That he is more than any circumstance, that he is greater than all his gifts, that he is fully adequate for every situation in our life, that he is El Shaddai, the God who is sufficient.

Years ago I read a sermon by Dr. Arthur John Gossip, called When Life Tumbles In, What Then? He preached it the day after his beloved wife had suddenly died. He closed with these words:

I don't think you need to be afraid of life. Our hearts are very frail, and there are places where the road is very steep and very lonely, but we have a wonderful God. And, as Paul puts it, "What can separate us from his love? Not death," he writes immediately. No, not death, for standing in the roaring of the Jordan, cold with its dreadful chill and very conscious of it terror, of its rushing, I, too, like Hopeful in Pilgrim's Progress, can call back to you who one day in your turn will have to cross it, "Be of good cheer, my brother, for I feel the bottom and it is sound."

Jesus has come, you see, to prepare us to live -- to take life as it is at its worst, at its hardest, and to find in him those hidden streams that make it possible to rejoice in all the difficulties, all the hardships, all the trials, all the defeats, all the adverse circumstances, all the crushing disappointments, all the heartaches, because they are producing in us the very thing God is after, and making us what we want to be!

Some through the water, some through the flood,
Some through great sorrow, but God gives us song,
In the night season, and all the day long.

Prayer:

Our Father, we want to learn this truth. We pray that the eyes of our hearts may be enlightened to lay hold of it and understand it -- that you have provided a way by which the One who walked in the hills of Galilee 1900 years ago can live that same wonderful life again through us and make is possible for us to be victor over every circumstance, over every heartache. Lord, we thank you for this. Help us to understand this. Help us to lay hold of it as we go on into these chapters, that we may begin to live it, and experience the real glory and beauty of Christian living. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.

TO REIGN IN LIFE

by Ray C. Stedman

When I was a student in Dallas Theological Seminary, I remember Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer, president of the seminary, saying to us in a theology class that he considered the last half of Romans 5 the supreme test of a man's theology, and, also, that this was the most concentrated summary of the basic truths of Christianity in all the Scriptures. He said that when he was visiting in churches around the country, especially churches of Dallas graduates, he always took occasion, when he was in the pastor's study, to see if the fifth chapter of Romans was well worn in his Bible. While Dr. Chafer was alive, I always kept an index at that place in my Bible -- in case he should come to visit me!

Now, this is a very important section -- beginning with Verse 12 of Chapter 5 -- and yet, if you take it all by itself, without relating to what has gone before, it is very easy to miss the whole point. You remember, in the first part of this chapter, the Apostle Paul makes the statement that there is more to Christianity than simply believing in Christ and having our sins forgiven and looking forward to going to heaven someday when we die. And yet, there are millions of Christians who go no further in their Christian faith than that very fact.

It is true that we are delivered by faith in the death of Jesus Christ, and our hope of heaven is made sure by that, and we do have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ -- all this being accomplished by his death for us upon the cross. But now Paul goes on to declare that Christ, through the Holy Spirit, comes to live in each believer's heart. And, if his death gets us ready for heaven, then his life (indwelling us) is there in order to make us ready for earth -- that is, getting us ready to live life now. His death, you see, delivers us from the penalty of sin, but his life (his indwelling risen life) will deliver us from the power of sin over us in our present experience. His death removes the bitterness of death for us; his life will remove the barrenness of our life for us.

I know that some of you are not afraid to face death because you are Christians, and you know that Christ has already bridged the gulf for you; but some are terribly tired of the weary, fruitless, restless, barren, boredom of life as it is lived from day to day. To learn that perhaps there is something more than this for the Christian, I think, to some of us, seems to be almost too good to be true -- yet that is what Paul is telling us!

Now, in this last half of the chapter, he shows us why this must be true. In other words, here is God's provision that every believer in Jesus Christ, without exception, may live in continual, unbroken victory over every evil habit, every impatient spirit, every lustful thought, every discouraging circumstance, and every crushing disappointment in his life. He may enjoy, all the while, the smile of the Lord Jesus and the fellowship of an ungrieved Spirit. Now we are going to examine this morning why that is true. It begins with a look at what a human life is like apart from Jesus Christ, Verses 12-14: We will call this the reign of death:

Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned -- sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. (Romans 5:12-14 RSV)

The key to this section is the two little words, "death reigned." This is the clearest statement, I think, in all the Scriptures, that something is obviously wrong with the human race -- of which we are all a part. When the Scripture mentions the word "death" here, it means not only physical death, with which we are all so well acquainted, but it means, as well, the emptiness and the meaninglessness of life which we experience even while we are yet alive. In other words, there is much of death in life. You understand what I mean by that, I am sure.

Of course, there are moments, especially in youth, when life is exciting, thrilling, and it is great to be alive. It is a wonderful feeling, and all of life ahead looks interesting and fascinating and challenging. But all of us are aware that these moments pass, and they become farther and farther apart in our experience. And, as we grow older, we experience the fact (though we are reluctant to believe it) that life is becoming more and more characterized by a growing sense of futility and emptiness and meaninglessness. And it ends at last in the grave -- the certain, final, pitiless doom of mankind.

Now, this is life apart from Jesus Christ. This is what is going on in the world right around us this morning, and many of us right here in this assembly can testify that this is what life is like to us. We feel a growing awareness of the emptiness of life. This is why men who seemingly have everything that is supposedly worthwhile and valuable in life sometimes express themselves very forcefully as experiencing nothing but emptiness. Earnest Hemingway, before he died, said,

"I live in a vacuum which is as empty and as lonely as a radio tube when the batteries are dead and there is no current to plug it into."

And this is why men who are the idols of the literary world like Hemingway, Jack London, and others, who seem to young people to be the very expression of excitement, glamour, and challenge, take their own lives in hopeless despair and emptiness. This is our inheritance from Adam. This is what we all share, without exception, even little children who cannot choose wrong deliberately, as Adam did. That is what it means in Verse 14: "Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come." Adam chose to do wrong deliberately, but there are many who do not choose to do wrong deliberately, such as little children, yet death reigns in their life. It simply means that the life story of every man is also the history of the world. And this is why the opening chapters of Genesis are so eternally meaningful to us when we read them -- it is because we ourselves are constantly reproducing these stories.

Have you noticed that? For instance, when you read the story of the temptation of Eve (Genesis 3:1-7) you discover that she saw the luscious fruit hanging there, in all its fascination and mystery, and she saw that it was good, and that it was to be desired, and that it would make one wise. She couldn't resist it. We read that story and we know exactly how she felt because all of us have been there too. We have been fascinated by something that seemed to hold an air of mystery about it that would introduce a new realm of excitement and adventure -- if we would just try it.

We read about the shame of Adam and Eve after their temptation, and their desire to hide from God -- and every one of us knows what that means. How many times have we come back from something with self-loathing and disgust in our hearts, and wished that we could find a hole, crawl in, and pull it in after us. We read of the jealousy of Cain and the murderous desire that was born in his heart -- and all of us know what it means to be envious and to be angry at some remark that is made. We feel the burning of resentment and want to avenge ourselves some way. We read of the attempt to build the city of Babel, and we see a whole people set about the task of building a city that would supply all their needs, where they could be completely happy without God. We see such activity going on all around us today, and we are caught up in it ourselves. Our own story, then, is simply a reproduction of the history of the world.

Now, that is what this passage is saying -- we are children of Adam, in other words, and we all wake up sooner or later in some moment of truth to see the self-centeredness of our lives: We see the sheer egoism that dictates all our actions; we know that self is our god; we know that pride is our driving force; and no one had better say "nay."

Now, this is human life without Jesus Christ. It is evil at the core. Though it can be made to appear good and respectable for awhile, its ultimate end is futility and death. There is not a thing we can do about it -- not a thing! This is what Paul calls "the law of sin and death," (Romans 8:2). Like the law of entropy in physics, which declares that all things are gradually deteriorating (the universe is slowly running down), so, in our lives, that feeling of emptiness, futility, and meaninglessness comes upon us.

But there is good news as we read on in this brilliant analysis from the pen of the Apostle Paul. In Verses 15-21 Paul shows us what God has provided against this emptiness, in the reign of life:

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the effect of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. If, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

Then as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous. Law came in, to increase the trespass; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:15-21 RSV)

Now, that sounds very complicated, doesn't it? But it is really a rather simple contrast between the old life we have from Adam -- all of us -- and the new life which we may receive continually from Jesus Christ. The old life produces futility, corruption, condemnation, restlessness, and death -- and who of us this morning (even these young people here) hasn't experienced this already? And it manifests itself in lust and in cruelty, in jealousy and in envy, in hate and in sharpness, in resentment and in bitterness, in laziness and, oh, so many other ways.

Now, tell me, do you have to go to school to learn how to do these things properly? Who taught you how to be lazy? how to be jealous? how to be envious? how to be greedy, and cruel, and impatient, and bitter? Do you have to plan these out carefully each morning when you get up? Do you think ahead, and say, "Well, now, in such a situation, I am really going to let my anger go -- I'm going to blow my top, and, oh, will I tell him off!" Do you plan those things? Do you have to try to be jealous, or proud, or lustful? No! Do you promise sometimes that you will never be good again, and then find yourself breaking your promise without realizing it? Do you? Of course not! No, you accomplish these, as the old song says, by doing what comes naturally. That is all. It is a natural result of the old life that we all have from Adam. We don't have to try to do these things; it is as easy as living. We all find it easy to be bad.

Now listen! God has found a way -- and this is no joke -- this is no blind alley -- God has found a way to bring that old life to an utter, complete end, and to begin a new life in Jesus Christ. When you learn how to let that wonderful, risen life of Jesus Christ (once lived out through thirty-three years of glorious manhood in old Judea) take over in your life today, you will be good as naturally and easily as you are bad now -- in fact, much more so. Listen again to the Scripture: "If, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign..." Where: In heaven? No, "in life." These shall: "reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ." Thus, it is as easy to love as it is to hate when you discover the life of Christ within. If you are drawing upon that life, it is as easy to forgive as it is to be resentful -- just as easy -- even easier, Paul declares.

Now, in Verse 20, Paul shows the futility of the way we usually try to correct this problem of being bad -- i.e., by the Law, or by the setting up of rules, by signing New Year's resolutions, or by "turning over a new leaf," as we call it. It is all law, no matter what we call it. And Paul says that Law came in to increase the trespass. Isn't that an amazing thing? That is, when law comes in, when you put yourself under rules, you simply make things worse -- you increase the trespass. I remember reading one of Charles Spurgeon's sermons some time ago; he told about spending some time down in a little hut in Italy. When he went into the hut he noticed that the floor was as dirty as he had ever seen a floor in his life. After he had lived there a day or two he could stand it no longer, and he sent for a cleaning woman to come in and scrub the floor. The woman came in and she scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, but the longer she scrubbed, the worse it got. Finally, he began to investigate and he discovered that there wasn't any floor -- there was nothing but the bare ground -- and all the efforts of the water to clean it only made it worse!

Now, that is like the Law: The Law is a cleansing agent, and it exists to show us the true situation. You see, if there is nothing but the dirt of our Adamic nature there, the Law can only make it worse. In other words, Law controls the outward effect of evil.

Now, it does have some advantages; later on Paul will show us very fully the advantages of law. Law does control outward wrong so that it makes it possible for human beings to live together. If we didn't have laws, we couldn't exist. We couldn't live on this peninsula together if there were no traffic laws, and other laws, to regulate society. So law has a great advantage. There is nothing wrong with the law, but this is the thing that we must always understand: Law has no ability, none whatsoever, to change the change the heart -- to change the desire. It cannot touch what goes on inside, and all the rules of life only increase the frustration and rebellion with which we face life. And, at best, the Law simply makes you content with outward conformity.

But, now, listen: "where sin increased, grace abounded all the more" (Romans 5:20 RSV), Paul says. That is, if Law does this to you, it is all the more certain that the life of Jesus Christ indwelling you shall create in you a desire to live more and more to the glory of God inwardly. You see, Christ's life is more powerful than Adam's life. That is what the meaning of the "much more" is all the way through, simply because God is greater than man. You cannot control the old Adam inside -- neither can I -- but Christ can!

Young Philip Malanchthon, Luther's young helper and a theologian during the Reformation, once wrote, after years of struggling to try to behave himself, "Old Adam is too strong for young Philippianslip." We, too, discover that after awhile. But this is what Paul is telling us so that we might understand that God has cut off this old life completely, and has found a way to cancel it out and to give us instead a new life -- a totally different life -- from which to draw all our strength.

This life has sometimes been called "the throne life." Coming down from the throne of the universe, where Jesus Christ is seated in power, there is ministered in my heart by the Holy Spirit (given to me by faith in Jesus Christ) a continual flow of the same life that made it possible for Jesus Christ to live and be what he was when he was here 1900 years ago. Within the frame of my life, my body, my spirit, my emotions, and my all, he will live that wonderful life again, in this 20th century, so that men will begin to see, more and more, Jesus Christ walking and living in me.

Perhaps this illustration will help: I have here a glove; it is a very fine glove. It is not even an old glove, for I bought it just recently. It is as good as gloves can be because it is perfectly made, as far as I can tell. Now, suppose I say to that glove, "Now look, glove, I want you to pick up that book." So the glove tries to do it, but it finds itself unable to do so because a glove, by itself, cannot function. That glove is like our own Adamic, human nature. It cannot do what God demands of it -- it cannot love its enemies, it cannot pray for those who despitefully use it, it cannot respond with gratitude and thanksgiving to those who misuse it, and abuse it, and persecute it -- it cannot!

Haven't you found that true? You cannot do it. You know you should, but you cannot, just like the glove cannot pick up that book. So you say to me, "You foolish man, do you know what the trouble is? You haven't educated the glove, you haven't instructed it, you haven't told it how to do it." So I say to the glove, "Now look, it is really very simple: All you have to do is bend your fingers around so that you can get your thumb on the under side and the other fingers on the top, and then you can pick up the book. Now do you understand?" So the glove tries to pick up the book with the help of that instruction. Now, obviously, I can lecture the glove for fifteen hours and it will still be as unable to pick up the book as when I started. Education doesn't do it.

Ah, but you know the answer don't you? There is a way by which the glove can easily pick up the book without any difficulty whatever. All I need to do is to insert my life into the glove; that is all. Then it becomes as able to do as I am able to do. This is the truth that Paul is giving us in Romans 5, 6, 7, and 8 -- that God has provided a way by which the total, risen life of Jesus Christ is made available to us. When that life fills us, as my hand fills that glove, we can do all that Jesus Christ can do. Do you believe that?

So the book can be picked up without any difficulty by the glove. It is the glove that is doing it -- isn't it? -- filled with my life! This is why Paul could say, "I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me," (Philippians 4:13 KJV). And, if you are a Christian this morning, Jesus Christ has come to indwell your heart, and he is perfectly able to do everything through you that God can ever demand of you -- or that life can ever demand of you. As you read the Gospel record, there never was a time when Jesus was confronted with a situation that he could not handle, even though demands were made upon him that were far and away beyond what we (as natural man) could ever handle. When five thousand people stood before him, and they were hungry and had noting to eat, was he able to feed them? Of course he was -- because of the life of the Father perfectly filled him. So his life is to perfectly fill us.

Now, if you learn the secret of letting him live his live through you, all that I have said this morning (and more) will become gloriously true for you. Does that make your mouth water? It does mine! In Chapter 6 we will begin to learn how to lay hold of this delivering secret.

I want to ask you to read Chapter 6 over and over again this week. Will you saturate yourselves with it? Then, when we meet again next Lord's Day morning, you will know what I am talking about when we go through this chapter. Very few Christians live at this level, but it is not because it is too difficult. It is easier to live at this level than it is to live on the level of defeat -- that is what Paul declares here. It is because they have never learned what God has said in Romans 6, 7, and 8 -- that is why. And, when we learn this, then we discover what it is to live in victory instead of defeat. All Christians have eternal life, but very few of them have abundant life. But Jesus said,

 

THE DAY I DIED

by Ray C. Stedman

---

Verses 1-14 of the sixth chapter of Romans are the most important fourteen verses in Scripture, insofar as being delivered from enduring the Christian life to enjoying it is concerned. There is a difference between possessing eternal life, which all Christians have, and possessing that abundant life which the Lord came to give.

In Chapter 5 we learned why we behave so selfishly, and frequently so foolishly, in our lives. It is because we have inherited a selfish nature. We are doing what comes naturally, as the song says. Why does a peach tree grow peaches? -- because it is a peach tree. And, an apple tree grows apples because it is an apple tree. So a son of Adam acts like Adam, simply because he is the son of Adam. This is why problems, difficulties, wrong attitudes, and wrong ideas break out in our lives, and we do not have to plan them, or seek for them. They come naturally. You are an expert at it, as I am, and any successful hypocrite, such as we are, knows this. There continually breaks out some problem of envy, or bitterness, or anger, or impatience, or sarcasm, or lust. It is part of the nature we inherit from Adam.

We have learned that God has proposed a way by which that old life may be brought abruptly and completely to an end, and another Adam put into us -- the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. The risen life of Jesus Christ, ministered continually to us through the Holy Spirit, whom we receive without measure when we recognize Jesus as Lord of our lives, makes it possible for us. Acting from that life, we can be good just as easily as we are naturally bad in Adam.

Now, that is a simple truth, but it is a tremendously revolutionary principle. It is actually easier to be good when we are acting from the life of Jesus Christ, because the life of Christ is much stronger than the life we received from Adam -- for God is stronger than man. Discover this, and you will learn that you don't have to try to be good. This struggle to be good is our greatest problem now. But, when we discover this principle, we need no more to try to be good than we try to be bad now. The life of Jesus produces goodness as naturally and easily as the life of Adam produces badness now.

At this point, the inevitable questions come: "Why aren't Christians living on this level? "If this is true, and this is what God has provided us in Christ, then why aren't Christians living like this? "Why is there so little evidence of this transforming experience of wholesome, attractive Christian living? "Why is there so much of this barren, baffled, grim, boring, frustrated Christian living so evident around us on every side?" It is right at this point that Chapter 6 begins. The first thing Paul shows us is the attitude that brings defeat in the Christian life, Verses 1-2:

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? (Romans 6:1-2 RSV)

The question that he asks is really this: "Because our helpless condition in selfishness and sin drew Christ from heaven in order to die for us, should we go on being selfish in order that he might continue to show his forgiving grace to us?" Is that the attitude we should have? The answer is: "By no means!" Certainly not!

You say, "Well, I'd never say that to God." But that is exactly what we all say! Every time a Christian sins, that is what he is saying to God. Every time a Christian disobeys, and walks in his own way, he is saying to God:

"Look, you have given me the perfect life of Jesus Christ to live within me, a life which cannot do wrong and will never do wrong. If I choose, this life can be my life -- but I don't choose. I choose, rather, to do this wrong thing, because I know when I confess it to you, your grace will abound, and you will forgive me, and then I can go until I choose to sin again."

Isn't that the pattern that we see lived out over and over and over again? We go on struggling to be good, but choosing to do wrong and then confessing it. Then we do it again, and confess that. Finally, we are ashamed to go back any more, confessing this thing. So we give up, and decide that the best thing is simply to keep up as good an appearance as possible. As long as we can, outwardly, be as good as the rest of the people around us, we are satisfied -- so we become content with defeat.

Now, bless your hearts, God never intended that his people, his children, should live that kind of a wilderness experience. We do not need to live that way. Something is wrong when this is the pattern of life; something is missing. Let me show you, in one wonderful verse, what God intends the Christian life to be like. It is simply and beautifully stated in Second Corinthians 2:14:

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumph, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. (2 Corinthians 2:14 RSV)

That is what the Christian life ought to be -- always led in triumph by Christ. What a contrast to this attitude of expecting to keep on sinning because we know that God will be gracious to forgive us. No wonder we are so weak! In the next section, Verses 3-14, we discover the appropriation of faith that brings victory:

Do you not know that all of us have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the sinful body [the life that we have been living in the past] might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6:3-14 RSV)

Does that sound complicated: There are really three simple steps here. But the most important thing about them is the order in which they come. I want you to see that. I saw a sign the other day a sign the other day that read, "When all else fails, follow directions." That is a good sign to hang over the sixth chapter of Romans. It is strange the way we read the Scripture -- we try to frost the cake before we bake it! We are continually reversing the order of the Word of God.

You remember the Lord Jesus said, "First remove the log that is in your own eye and they you will see clearly how to remove the sliver that is in your brother's eye," (Matthew 7:3-5, Luke 6:41-42). We read that, and we say, "Oh, yes, I know what that means. That means if he will apologize first, then I will apologize." No, it doesn't mean that! It means: First remove the log that is in your own eye; start there. Then you will see clearly how to remove the little sliver that is in your brother's eye. So the order here is important. First, you must know what God declares to be a fact, Verse 3:

Do you not know that all of us have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? (Romans 6:3 RSV)

This is what God declares to be a fact. The next step is the exercise of faith, but faith always rests on a fact. Have you discovered that? God never asks us to believe something without giving us a fact to believe. This is the great, solid foundation of our Christian faith: It rests upon facts. And, this is a fact: Not only that Christ died for our sins, but that, when he died, this old life that we got from Adam died with him; it not only died, but it was buried. This is a fact and our faith must rest upon it.

Suppose you are having trouble with your swimming and I come along, and say, "Don't panic now -- just hang on." You say, "Hang on to what?" "Well," I say, "just hang on. That's all. Just hang on." But, unless I give something to hang on to, my words are valueless. Well, here is something God gives us to hang on to -- a fact that he declares is true, and God never asks us to believe something that is not true. That is the fact: Our old nature, that we have been living in, and having all this trouble with, died when Jesus Christ died. It became true for us when we believed in him. It not only died, but it was buried as well, totally put away. Now, let me put a parenthesis in here: The baptism that is mentioned here is not water baptism. It is the baptism of the Spirit, by which we were made part of the body of Christ. Water baptism is a sign of that, but the essential thing here is the baptism of the Spirit.

The way some people read their Bibles, I am reminded of the fellows that go around with witching wands, looking for water. Have you heard of these? They take willow sticks and go around looking for water -- and wherever water is, the stick turns down. (Some) people read their Bibles that way. They go through it, and, wherever it mentions baptism, down goes the stick -- indicating water. Wherever it reads "baptism," they find water.

But, this isn't water baptism. This is the baptism of the Holy Spirit, of which water baptism is a symbol. This baptism united me to Christ, and, the day that I believed in Jesus Christ, God cut off this old life, and crucified it with Christ, and buried it with him, and declared that it no longer had any right to live in his sight. Now get that! This is tremendously important. That was the day I died: The day that I believed in Jesus Christ, God made this real to me, and the reason that he put it to death was because it had absolutely no power in it to do good.

The other day, a friend and I were pushing an old car because we couldn't get it started. The battery was dead. We pushed it to a station where the service man hooked on another battery to the terminals of the old one; then he said, "Now try it." We switched on the starter button, and immediately there came a surge of power into the engine -- utilizing the energy of the new battery. Where once there was no power, now there was plenty.

Now, the trouble in our lives is that we have this old battery that we got from Adam, but it is without power. God declares it to be dead, but we simply refuse to believe that it is dead. We have a certain fondness for it because we have had it so long. After all, it is the original battery that we got when we were born. As a matter of fact, it is a family battery -- it has been passed along from generation to generation, and we hate to part with these old antiques. We refuse to believe that it is no good. Of course, we are encouraged to use it by the flood of sales literature we see, suggesting ways to discover hidden power in our batteries. Or, we are told that the trouble is, we are not pushing the starter button hard enough; if we will learn how to push the starter button harder, we can get it to work -- there is nothing really wrong with the battery, it is the starter button, the motivating source. Or, we are told that if we can hook enough cars with dead batteries together, we can get enough juice to run one of them -- so we organize committees to get things done.

Across this country this morning, in one form or another, there are preachers (who should know better) who are preaching this devilish gospel of "try harder." Nothing could be worse! This business of telling Christians to "try harder and you can make a success of your Christian life" was born right in the pit of hell. I don't know who originally phrased it this way but I have heard many times someone say, "Well, I believe that if I do my best, God does the rest." That is the most damnable lie ever spoken! If you live on that basis, you'll never get beyond doing your best; and, your best isn't good enough, and it never will be! As preachers proclaim the gospel of "try harder," Christians are responding with new resolves to consecrate their old selves to do their best for God, yet, all the time, they are totally ignorant of God's provision of a new battery, available in Jesus Christ, with sufficient power to meet all the demands of life.

All this begins with the knowledge of an unshakable, unchangeable fact: Paul says, "I am crucified with Christ" (Galatians 2:20a KJV). I, all my old self, all that I am in Adam, was crucified and buried with Christ. God finds no good in it, reckons no good in it, and expects nothing but failure from my old self. We must do the same.

The second step is consider -- an attitude of faith resting upon the fact that we have previously seen. Notice Verses 11-12:

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. (Romans 6:11-12 RSV)

The King James Version has, "reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive to God" (Romans 6:11a KJV). This is a word which indicates a continuing attitude. Keep on counting yourselves to be what God says you are! This means we must learn to recognize the sign of the old life within us, and refuse to let live what God has declared has no right to live. We must not presume to find good in that which God says is totally evil. In other words, stop protecting the old battery, stop protecting the self life, stop excusing it, and justifying it! This is the key point. Stop pampering yourself in these matters and making excuses for what God says is wrong, and, thus, letting live what God says is dead. There are many excuses: "Oh, I've got a hot temper, but it is just because I am Irish, you know. My whole family has this trouble, so there is nothing I can do about it." Or, "I am troubled with lust, but that is because I am a Latin." Or, "I am young." Or, "I am hot blooded." Or, "I am cold blooded." Or, "I am red blooded." Or, "I am strongly sexed." Or, we are loveless and we say it is our circumstances that make us this way. Or, it is the other people with whom we work. Thus, we are continually excusing ourselves, and giving the flesh reason to live. Every time you, as a Christian, let enter your thought life any of these things that God has said are the old Adam in you, you are presuming to let live what God declares has no right to live. The only life that God recognizes as having the right to live in you is the risen life of Jesus Christ. But you cannot appropriate that life until you give up trying to make the old life suitable. That is when the death of Christ becomes fully effective to you.

"Well," you say, "does this happen in one great crisis?" Sometimes, yes. But I rather think that it is a result of a series of smaller crises, if I may put it that way. The Spirit of God knows that this thing within us, the flesh, this self-centered life, is what is destroying us. He takes the manifestations of it, one at a time, and makes us face up to them. Any failure to face up to one of these things, as the Lord brings it to our attention, means no further progress until we stop clinging to the specific thing that he is talking about. Whenever we put into action, even in little ways, what God declares to be a fact, nothing can stop us from the third and greatest step, which is yielding to, or appropriating, the life of Christ. Look at Verses 13-14:

Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life... (Romans 6:13a RSV)

Notice that order. What comes first? Death: "...as men who have been brought from death to life." You can't have life till you have experienced death. You can't have Pentecost till you have been at Calvary. That is what he is saying.

...as men who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6:13b-14 RSV)

Here is the great word yield. I know it often means to us "to give in" or "to give up," as though we were to sit down, and wait for the Lord to stick a pin into us and make us go. I find so many Christians miss the point here because they think that resting in the life of Christ is an inactive sitting down and a passive waiting for directions. It isn't that. Yield means "to give over" -- to give over your body, your mind, your will, your emotions, your physical members -- give them over to the indwelling secret of the life of Jesus Christ. You begin counting on him continually to operate and energize you to do whatever is in front of you to do, whatever it may be, whether it is tying your shoe, preaching a message, witnessing to someone, washing the dishes, anything, everything! You need the life of Jesus Christ to do everything!

How simple this really is! In the same way that you received his death as sufficient payment for the penalty of sins, and rested on that fact, so you simply believe that, now, his life is in you to be to you all that you need in any circumstance:

As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: (Colossians 2:6 KJV)

But when you listen to Christians pray, you can see how little they understand this. We say, "Oh, Lord, give me strength. Oh, I need strength, Lord." "Give me patience," or, "Give me purity." "Give me power," or, "Lord, give me victory." And all the time the Lord Jesus is saying, "I don't give anything, I am your strength." "I am your patience." "I am your power." "Take it; just take it!" We don't have to sing the song, "I need Thee, Oh, I need Thee. Every hour I need Thee." No, instead, we should sing, "I have Thee, Oh, I have Thee. Every hour I have Thee."

It is right at this point that the Christian life becomes an exciting, wonderful, wholesome, attractive experience because impossible things begin to happen. You cannot do, he can do. He is the God of the impossible. The Christian life never becomes attractive till you start doing impossible things. That is why it is so boring and frustrating to us otherwise. But when we yield to his indwelling life, we begin to discover the bigness, the greatness, and the glory of God. Life becomes wholesome and healthy and happy because you are no longer in charge -- Christ is! And you never know what is going to happen next! But, whatever it is, you are perfectly ready for it because you are trusting in the One who indwells you, who is perfectly adequate, and perfectly competent, to meet every situation -- no matter what it is.

It is not you doing your best for God. It is Christ doing his best through you. What a difference that is! Here is the whole Christian life in a nutshell. Right here, in these first fourteen verses of Romans 6, you have all the truth for victory in the Christian life. In the following chapters, Paul goes over this again, taking up the problems that develop in learning how to apply these things. When we get to Chapter 12, we will discover we are no further along than we are right here in Romans 6:14.

Chapter 12 begins, "present your bodies as a living sacrifice to God," and Verse 13 of Romans 6 says, "yield your members" (that is, your body) "as instruments of righteousness unto God." That is saying the same thing. What a difference this truth makes. When Christians begin to discover the glory of the indwelling life of Jesus Christ, there is a transformation that is immediately visible on their faces. It is a life of rest. It is the life we sing about:

Not a surge of worry, not a shade of care,
   Not a blast of hurry, touch the spirit there.
Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blest,
   Finding as he promised, perfect peace and rest.

Perhaps you don't understand it all yet, but Paul will go on, in the rest of Chapter 6 and in Chapters 7 and 8, to explain more in detail these great principles. However, it is all summarized right here. This is the secret of the so-called 'great saints' of God. They are common, ordinary people, like you and me, who have learned this secret. This indwelling, risen life of Jesus Christ is available to every single Christian, without exception. We can all be 'great saints' because of this indwelling secret. One of the common people who became a 'great saint' was dear Annie Johnson Flint. This is what she wrote in a poem entitled, Let Us Go On:

Some of us stay at the cross,
   Some of us wait at the tomb,
Quickened and raised together with Christ,
   Yet lingering still in its gloom;
Some of us bide at Passover feast
   With Pentecost all unknown --
The triumphs of grace in the heavenly places
   That our Lord has made our own.

If the Christ who died had stopped at the cross
   His work had been incomplete,
If the Christ who was buried had stayed in the tomb
   He had only known defeat;
But the way of the cross never stops at the cross,
  And the way of the tomb leads on
The victorious grace in the heavenly place
   Where the risen Lord has gone.

So let us go on with our Lord
   To the fullness of God He has brought,
Unsearchable riches of glory and good
   Exceeding our uttermost thought;
Let us grow up into Christ,
   Claiming His life and its powers,
The triumphs of grace in the heavenly place
   That our conquering Lord has made ours.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, we long for this. We sense its possibilities. We realize there is more to the Christian life than this constant cycle of boredom, defeat, heartache, misery, and failure. Lord Jesus, we ask that we may grasp this secret. May it break upon us in all its simplicity, and yet in all its beauty, the perfect provision which you have made for us to live in victory over every trial because it is your life lived in us. Amen.

 

CHOOSE YOUR MASTER

by Ray C. Stedman

---

Now we look again at Chapter 6 of the book of Romans -- as we are roaming through Romans.

The other day my oldest daughter, Sheila, and I were riding together in a car, and she looked over at me, and said, "Daddy, would you teach me how to drive?" She is fourteen. I said, "Yes, I'll be glad to. Maybe this summer we can do that, but I'll tell you how now -- it is very simple. All you do is sit behind the wheel, hold it, push this peddle to go, and push this other one if you want to stop -- that is all there is to it." She looked over at me, and said, "Oh, Daddy, there's more to it than that!" And, of course, she is right; there is more to it than that, as you know. But, in a way, she was wrong. Essentially, these are the major processes of driving, yet there is a great deal more in learning how to do it, as everyone knows. In the same way, Romans 6:1-14 is all there is to know about life and victory in Jesus Christ. But doing it involves a learning process. In the first fourteen verses, we are told that

We need to know what God declares to be a fact. All faith rests upon God's facts, and this is a great fact; this first step is exceedingly important because it makes us realize that it is possible to be delivered from the reigning power of sin in our lives. We need the knowledge of God's fact. In the second step, we are to consider it true in the day-by-day experience of our lives. We are to act upon the fact. We are to maintain an attitude of awareness that God looks at us this way. And we are to look at ourselves in the same way.

Then the third step, and the wonderful one, is yielding, the leaning back, the resting upon the mighty indwelling, conquering life of Jesus Christ which is designed to meet any circumstance that comes our way. As we learn this secret, we discover that it is as easy to be good in Christ as it is to be bad in Adam -- just as easy. Here we discover that it is no longer the struggle to be good and trying to make the old life behave that we have been engaged in so long (and failing in so continually), but it is simply receiving, continually, the life of Jesus Christ which cannot be bad. It is wonderful, but, like driving, this must be learned by living, not be reading or hearing about it. If you expect to learn these truths simply by reading the sixth chapter of Romans, it would be like taking a correspondence course in swimming. Have you ever tried that? No, you have to get into the water. You have to put these things into action, and that is when victory begins to come.

Now, beginning with Chapter 6, Verse 15, we find that Paul applies these truths to life itself: One by one he takes the problems that will arise as we learn to 'walk in the Spirit.' That is what this is -- the phrase "walk in the Spirit" (Galatians 5:16, 5:25 KJV) means to enjoy the fullness of the indwelling life of Christ. The first problem that comes is what we might call the problem of part-time victory, Verse 15:

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! (Romans 6:15 RSV)

You'll notice that this verse is very similar to the first verse of this chapter, and the question that is asked is phrased similarly. In Verse 1 we read, "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?" In Verse 15 we read, "Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace?" And the answer is the same, "By no means!" Certainly not!

Now, there is a difference between these questions that is hidden largely in the tense of the verb that is used. I hope you will pardon my Greek for protruding here this morning, but it is important to understand that there is a difference here. The first verse means "Are we to continue to live in sin, to abide in it, to stay in it?" Is there to be no change in our life now that we have become a Christian? And Paul's answer is, "Of course not; we cannot continue." This is such an important thing, because, if there is no change in your life after you receive Christ, then there is a serious doubt whether you ever received Christ at all. As Charles Spurgeon put it, "An unchanged life is the mark of an unchanged heart, and an unchanged heart is a sign of an unregenerate life."

If there is no change, if your attitudes are the same, if your outlook is the same -- then there is a very serious doubt as to whether you ever became a Christian at all! That is what is involved in the question of Romans 6:1.

The other question is not, "Shall we continue to abide in sin," but, rather, "Should we sin even once now that we are not under law but under grace?" That is the meaning of the question in Romans 6:15. Once we begin to realize the mighty power of Christ living in us, as opposed to the futility of trying to be good, we begin to experience some wonderful, great victories in our lives. This is beautifully pictured for us in the book of Joshua, in the Old Testament.

I hope you have learned to read your Old Testament in the light of the New Testament, and to see how God so beautifully uses these Old Testament stories to illustrate the tremendous truths of the New Testament. One of the most effective books of the Old Testament in this respect is the book of Joshua, for it gives us the picture of Israel entering the land -- and the land is always a picture of the fullness of the Spirit, the walk in Christ, that we are talking about here in Romans.

As Israel came out of the wilderness of self-effort across the river Jordan and into the land, the first obstacle that lay in their pathway was the tremendous city of Jericho, with its great, high walls -- tremendous walls, we are told. Archeologists, who have now laid bare the foundations of these very walls, tell us that they were very likely over 100 feet high and some 50-60 feet thick. This was an impregnable fortress. Ah, but you know the story -- we have heard it sung so many times -- how "Joshua fit the battle of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down." Actually, it wasn't a fight at all: As they surrounded the city in the name of the Lord, and in the strength of the indwelling presence of God in their midst, the walls simply fell down flat -- that is all.

We discover that here is a picture of the life of victory that comes in laying hold of the truths in Romans 6. As we discover and apply this truth, problems that have been insurmountable obstacles to us, problems that have baffled us and mocked us and conquered us for years, simply disappear as we lay hold of the indwelling life of Jesus Christ -- and it is wonderful. We begin to experience victory. But, you remember, that after the battle of Jericho, as you read on in Joshua, the next chapter tells us of the account of the greed of one man, named Achan, in the camp of Israel who coveted part of what God had set aside for himself. The result was a thorough defeat at the little village of Ai. All this is a picture of what we are talking about here in Romans 6:1-14. We see the principle that brings about victories like the victory of Jericho, but, in Verse 15 to the end of the chapter, we see some of the problems that arise that make possible a defeat like Ai.

I hope you are following me. If not, I suggest that you read those opening chapters of Joshua in order to see exactly what I mean. Now, when we discover that there is the possibility of living in defeat, even though we have learned the secret of victory, then we must face the question that is asked in Verse 15. Is the occasional failure permissible? Can we get by on this basis? And the answer is, "Certainly not!"

I know that many experience this. We discover the joy of deliverance. Then we also discover that the old life still has power to tempt us and draw us back into its control. We realize that, even though it is true that Jesus Christ lives within us to be all that he is (which is all that we need), nevertheless the temptation is to strike a balance and work out a compromise. We find ourselves wanting to draw on Christ for the power to meet the times of stress that come -- the big problems -- but we rather like to put on the old comfortable slippers of the flesh the rest of the time, and enjoy that.

This is the problem brought before us in the rest of this chapter, and it is essentially a problem of incomplete acceptance of God's sentence of death to the old life in Adam. It represents only a partial turning from the old life and a partial acceptance of God's sentence of death upon what we are in ourselves. I hope we see this, for it is very important. It is an attempt to settle for part-time victory -- but, of course, part-time victory is also part-time defeat, and this is where the problem lies.

All of us recognize that there are certain aspects of our old life that we inherited from Adam (which we call the natural life, our human nature, if you please) that are wrong and evil. We know what they are -- lying, lust, hate, drunkenness, blasphemy, and some of the more outward things. When we become a Christian, we realize that these have to go, and we give them up quite readily because they hurt us. Many times they have injured us, and we are glad to see them go. But there are other aspects of that same old life that we don't quite so readily see as being wrong, and we cling to these.

I don't know what it might be in your case, but some of the common areas of life that so frequently hang on like this are: Ambition, self confidence, possessiveness (wanting to hold onto our friends, loved ones), depression, and anxiety (worry). You say, "We like these things?" Yes, some of us do! We like to do them. Some folks think they are not doing their job if they don't worry. For instance, we think we are failing as parents if we don't show an anxious, furrowed brow every time some little things happens to our children. And there is also self pity, fear, hardness to each other, gossip, exaggeration -- some of these areas. Now, if we hang onto these things, in effect what we are doing is saying, "Lord, isn't it all right to draw on your life for deliverance from the sins I hate, but to allow the manifestations of some of these little, harmless thing that I love?" But, of course, they are not harmless at all. What we are really asking is what Paul asks here: "Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace?" And the answer is, "By no means!" Certainly not! Not even once! Then he goes on to give two reasons why this cannot be. The first one is the enslaving power of sin. In Verses 16-19, he says:

Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to any one as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I speak in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once yielded your members to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now yield your members to righteousness for sanctification. (Romans 6:16-19 RSV)

Now, I think that you see that the underlying truth of that passage is that man is made to be mastered by something. We need a cause. Every young person is looking for a cause to live for, and to die for. When we are not aware of any cause in our life worthy of the effort, we flounder and feel depraved and deprived and hopeless. And the amazing thing is that, in all of life, there are only two possible masters: Either Christ or self; either one or the other.

Everything we do relates to either one or the other -- Christ or self. Paul brings out here the fact that for so long all of us knew only one master. We served self without reserve: We lived for ourselves, we loved ourselves, we struggled to advance ourselves. we fought to protect ourselves. we hated all rivals to ourselves. we loved only those who catered to ourselves.

As that little jingle says,

I lived only for myself alone,
   For myself and none beside
Just as if Jesus had never lived,
   And as if he had never died.

That is the way we lived, and then we found Christ, or he found us. We found a new master, yet the old love of self was still there. Now this is the problem, isn't it? Jesus said, "No man can serve two masters," (Matthew 6:24 KJV). It must be one of the other; it cannot be both -- not 'it shall not' but simply 'it cannot' be both -- no man can serve two masters.

After we have discovered the delivering power of the life of Christ in us, if we try to keep alive part of the old man, try to compromise, and -- give up lust, but keep ambition, or give up drunkenness, but keep worry, or give up lying, but keep self pity, or deny hate, but excuse fear, or refuse jealousy, but permit impatience, -- what we are doing is simply selling ourselves back again into the power of that old tyrant, self. That is what Paul declares. You see, the second group of sins which we kind of cherish and like to keep around really comes from the same source as the first group. It is all part of the old life -- all of it -- and obedience to any of it puts you under the power of all of it -- that is what Paul is saying. It begins to grow. You let it take root in some little way in your life, and protect it, and, even though the Lord talks to you about it, you say, "Oh, Lord, it isn't very important. It is only a trivial thing. Let's not worry about it." If you do that, you discover that it begins to get a grip on you, and soon you drift back more and more into the control of self. With it comes all the misery, all the heartache, all the defeat, all the boredom, and all the frustration that you once knew.

Now, I know that we don't see all of the old life, and its control over us, at once. Bit by bit, as the Spirit of God makes us aware of these things, these areas must be faced and surrendered to the place of death where God puts them. What does he do with what we are in Adam, what we are by nature, the old man? Why, he simply calls it up before him, sentences it to death, carries it out and executes it, and puts it in the grave because that is all that it is worth -- the whole thing, all of it, completely. Then we must make this real by believing that fact -- that all of it is worthless in God's sight -- ambition, everything!

Do you see? When we come to that place, then we begin to realize victory. But, if we compromise a little, we will soon be back in the old cycle of defeat and barrenness that we knew for so long. However, Paul points out that it also works the other way around. You choose Christ in these struggles and you find that he grows on you, and he gets a grip on you. The power, and the glory, and the strength of his life begin to grow stronger and stronger.

You remember that old story about the Indian who became a Christian and was giving his testimony about what his Christian life was like. He said, "You know, since me become Christian, me find have two dogs inside: One big black dog, all time bad, all time fight; and one big white dog, all time good. And these dogs fight all the time." And someone said, "Which one wins?" And he said, "Whichever one I say 'sic-em' to!"

You see, there is a continual choice, and the choice makes possible further victories. Little choices make little victories grow into larger victories. What Paul is simply saying is: Now choose your master. You can have only one. You can't have both. If it is not Christ and continual victory, then it is self and increasing defeat: Choose your master! These verses have given us the enslaving power of sin, and this is one reason we can never say, as Christians, "Oh well, these things are not important; there are some things that we don't need to get serious about." The second reason is the evil effects of sin, Verses 20-23:

When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But then what return did you get from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:20-23 RSV)

Here Paul asks another very pertinent question: When you lived for yourself, what were the results in your life? Well, what were they? There was some pleasure, wasn't there? Yes. You know there are pleasures in sin, plenty of them. It wouldn't be any fun if it were not so. We love to do some of these things. We like it, and it is fun at the time. We have a good time. Ah, but what then? In Hebrews it speaks of "the pleasures of sin" (Hebrews 11:25 KJV), and then it adds this phrase, "for a season." Just "for a season." What then? Now, honestly, what was the result when you lived for yourself? Wasn't it emptiness and misery, strife with others, unrest and unhappiness, and shame and despair? You remember Lord Byron, that brilliant English poet, who gave himself to enjoy himself completely without restraint all the early years of his life. When he was 29 years old, he wrote these words:

My days are in yellow leaf.
   The fruit of life is gone.
The worm, the canker, and
   The grief are mine alone.

Burned out already at 29! And Paul's question is this: Do you think that, now that you have become a Christian, if you still permit the old self to live when God says that it has no right to live, that the old life will produce any different crop than it did before? Do you think that God will somehow protect you from the results of your own folly? Of course, the answer is "No." "Be not deceived," he says in Galatians. Don't kid yourselves:

Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. (Galatians 6:7-8 RSV)

This is written to Christians. You can be a Christian, know all the delivering truth of Romans 6, be a teacher of that truth, and yet, because you still choose to let live what God declares has no right to live, you never know -- you never realize -- the glory and the freshness and the joy of Jesus Christ living his perfect life through you. As Paul says, the result of serving self is death: "The wages of sin is death."

In Southern California, on the east side of our state, we have a great valley, called Death Valley. Why is it named that? Well, some think it was named that because of the many people who died there -- prospectors, and others, who tried to get through the barren wasteland. Perhaps it was, but I wonder if perhaps it was not named that really because it is such a picture of death, because its very emptiness suggests death, because it is just a barren, worthless wasteland.

Now, this is what the word "death" means here. When it says, "the wages of sin is death," it is not talking about hell because it is written to Christians. Ultimately, it is true that sin -- unredeemed, not brought under the bloodof Christ -- brings us to hell. But this is written to people that are redeemed: The wages of sin in your life is death -- emptiness, barrenness, worthlessness! That is what is taught here. The wages of sin are paid out right while you are living. And you receive the continual results of choosing to ignore the life of Christ within you, and attempting to live a Christian life by doing 'the best you can' -- that is, you experience emptiness. That is the death referred to in this verse.

You can choose this if you want to. That is the dignity that God always gives human beings: We have the right to choose. He never makes us be what we ought to be; we have the right to choose to be otherwise -- even as Christians. Some of you, because you have a good personality, or a handsome face, or some special talent, are continually impressed by what you are apart from Christ in you. You can blast your way to the top of the heap by the power of your personality, or by the force of your special talent, and win the approval of many. But you will stand at last ashamed and repentant before the one whom you have robbed all your lifetime of his right to be himself in you. And you will look back on barren, wasted years filled with death, simply because you chose to be yourself in place of what he is in you.

On the other hand, you can choose to know "the gift of God" which is eternal life. Now, that is not heaven, any more than death is hell here. "Eternal life" here is not glory some day, but Christ right now. You can know the fulfillment, the glory, the satisfaction, the power of the life of Jesus Christ lived out in you through all the years ahead -- until, at last, you stand in his presence with a life that he can approve because it not your life, it is his life all the time, lived out through you.

As Joshua said to the people as he led them into the land, "Choose you this day whom you will serve" (Joshua 24:15 KJV), so God is saying to Christians who discover the possibilities of living in victory in Jesus Christ because of his life indwelling us: "Now choose." You can't have both. You can't have both the self life fulfilled with all its ambitions, with its desire for advancement, with its seeking for approval and plaudits of the crowd around and of men, and also the life of Jesus Christ. You can't have his life for your program -- it must be his life for his program. In Romans 6, God is challenging us, "Choose now! Which will you have?" To those of you who make the choice to believe what God says, it is possible to lay hold of all the fullness, all the fragrance, all the might, all the power, and all the glory of Jesus Christ living his wonderful life again through you.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, we pray that we may make this right choice. We know that we hear the call of the flesh within us, the desire to seek for self advancement, and for self glory, to be in the public eye, and to be in the center of the circle rather than let you have that place! Help us, Lord, to realize that this can never be until we are willing to believe what you said about what we are. But, oh, we thank you, Lord, that, when we do, the opposite is true. As we lay hold of you, you lay hold of us. Your life becomes sweeter, and greater, and more fragrant, more evident, more manifest, more mighty through us, to become effectual, fervent, earnest workers for your name's sake. We ask it may be so, in Jesus's name. Amen.

 

DO CHRISTIANS NEED THE TEN COMMANDMENTS?

by Ray C. Stedman

---

The seventh chapter of the book of Romans deals with the very knotty problem of whether Christians need the Ten Commandments any longer. If you haven't discovered already, I am sure you'll soon recognize this as a sure-fire question with which to start a religious argument. Any time you want to enliven a dull evening, I suggest you pose this question as a topic of conversation, and you'll find that everyone in the room soon chooses up sides -- and off they go. Most people who discuss this question, I have discovered, follow the same method: If they persecute you in one verse, flee to another! And so it goes all evening long -- the discussion generates more heat than light. But this is a very important question, and I hope we can see it now in line with the apostle's whole argument in this section of Romans. You'll notice that Chapter 7 begins with a question:

Do you not know, brethren...that the law is binding on a person only during his life? (Romans 7:1 RSV)

If you have taken note, three times in this section, Paul asks that type of a question, and it is important to trace his argument that way. Back in Chapter 6, you remember, it begins that way in Verse 3:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? (Romans 6:3 RSV)

There Paul is telling us that the old life that we all inherited from Adam (this life of independence from God) ended when we believed in Christ's death -- so we cannot go on unchanged! As Charles Spurgeon said, "An unchanged life is a sign or an unregenerate heart." Though you may have made a profession of faith in Christ (whether as a young person or as an adult, it makes no difference), and, since that time, your life has not changed, then you have just been kidding yourself: You are not a Christian because an unchanged life is a sign of an unregenerate heart. That is what Paul says, "Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?" (Romans 6:1 RSV). God forbid! Certainly not! It can't be because we have entered into his death. In Chapter 6, Verse 16, he asks a similar question:

Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to any one as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? (Romans 6:16 RSV)

Here again he is pointing out something that rests upon the death of Christ -- the fact that the whole of the old life must go, completely, in the death of Christ, and that, therefore, as Christians, we no longer have any excuse whatever for failure in our lives. As long as we excuse any degree of failure at all, we are slaves to it. That is what he is saying here. We are bound by it. You see, it is not a case of "I can't" any longer. If we still continue to live in failure after we have become Christians, it is not because we can't have victory, it is because we won't! We won't be delivered. That is what Paul is saying. Now, in Chapter 7, he has this other question:

Do you not know, brethren...that the law is binding on a person only during his life? (Romans 7:1 RSV)

And in Verse 4 you get the other side of it:

Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law... (Romans 7:4a RSV)

In other words, the Ten Commandments are no longer necessary as a guide to proper behavior in the Christian life for we are not under law but under grace. The reasons why this statement is true are given in the section that follows. If you will permit me to just give you briefly the divisions of this section, perhaps you can follow a little easier: Verses 1-3: The illustration that clarifies; vVerses 4-6: The explanation that verifies; verses 7-13: The application that glorifies. (By now I am sure that you are saying this outline is the alliteration that terrifies! But I think that, as we go through this, you will see what I mean.) First of all, in Verses 1-3, we have the illustration that clarifies:

Do you not know, brethren -- for I am speaking to those who know the law [that is, the Jews] -- that the law is binding on a person only during his life? Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies she is discharged from the law concerning the husband. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. (Romans 7:1-3 RSV)

Now, this is a simple picture. It is a case of a woman who is married twice. The apostle points out that, in her first marriage, she was bound to her first husband as long as he lived. Now, perhaps this phrase "bound by law" is hard for us to understand in these days of easy divorce, but, unquestionably in God's sight, marriage is intended to be for life. That is what is meant, of course, when you married people stood before a preacher, or a justice of the peace, and you said that you were taking each other "for better or for worse until death do us part." That is for life. However, we have some modern versions of that. Hollywood says "for better or else." Or, as some woman has put it, "I took him for better or worse, but he is much worser than I took him for." We are inclined to tone it down like this, but, in God's sight, it is true that marriages are for life. The only exception which the Lord gives us is that of a marriage broken by unfaithfulness -- when a man no longer is a husband, but he becomes a philanderer.

But the central point here in Romans 7 is not marriage; marriage is just the illustration. The key point is that the woman who is married is helpless to change her situation until her husband dies, and any attempt on her part to do so beforehand only violates the law and makes matters worse. She becomes an adulteress if she tries to live with another man while her husband is still alive. It is obvious, as you apply this, that we believers in Jesus Christ are portrayed in the woman.

Well, the question then is, "Who is the first husband?" And here you get a difference of opinion -- some say it is the Law, and some say it is something else. But I think, if you have followed along in the argument of the apostle in these chapters, it is obvious that the first husband is not the Law (the Law is what holds the two together), but it is our old man -- our old self -- our old life received from Adam. What the Scripture calls "sin," that is our old husband, the old life that we inherited from Adam. We were bound to it, linked to it, as a wife is to her husband, and there was nothing that we could do about it. Now, this is true, isn't it? We have to live with ourselves. And all that we are, despite the fact that it may not be very nice sometimes, is what we have to live with. There is no running away from it, or trying to flee from it. We are bound to this, apart from the work of Christ.

Up to this point in our studies of Romans we have been calling this life "our old self" as though it really were us who were like this. But I think, at this point, we need now to understand that this is really "a false self" -- what we would call a pseudo-self (pseudo means false). The Scriptures tell us (now this is God's view of things as they really are, not as they appear to us, but as they really are) that sin, or this old life, is an alien invasion of human nature. Sin inhabited man's spirit at the fall and has been passed along to every human being born on this earth ever since (with the exception of Jesus Christ); it has reigned there, undisturbed and unchallenged, until challenged by Christ.

Now, we have lived so long with this old life that we identify it with ourselves -- we think it is us -- this continual urge to be the center of everything is what we call "our self." In a sense, we do this because it is the only nature we have, the only guiding principle that is in us as fallen men and women. We just feel that this must be us because we feel so driven to be the center of life, the center of interest, and the center of attention: We want to be regarded with favor. We are continually relating everything to ourselves. As someone said of the last German Kaiser, who was a very vain man, "When he goes to a christening, he wants to be the baby. When he goes to a wedding, he wants to be the bride. When he goes to a funeral, he wants to be the corpse. He wants to be the center of everything." How clearly we understand this feeling!

Now, living that way, we have all occasionally felt the Spirit of God (from the outside) making us hungry for true righteousness. I don't think there is a man alive who doesn't some time say to himself, "I wish I were not what I am; I wish I were different." All of us have the consciousness of wanting to be more than we are, and we admire true righteousness. This is what made Jesus Christ the attractive person that he was; people wanted to be like him. He fascinated men, he attracted them, he drew them to him.

The Scriptures speak of "the beauty of holiness" (1 Chronicles 16:29, 2 Chronicles 20:21, Psalms 29:2, 96:9 KJV), and I think, if you realize what holiness is, you can see that this phrase is true. Holiness is health of being or of spirit. And this beauty of holiness was perfectly expressed in Jesus Christ.

Now, all of us have felt the hungering to be like Christ, or to want true righteousness. But all the efforts that we make to be good, or to do good things, only really serve to brand us as hypocrites, because, until we have come to know Christ, though we try outwardly to be good, inwardly we know that we are still the same old self-centered creatures we always were. And that describes a hypocrite, "an adulterer" Paul calls it. We are an adulterer, you see, we are still married to the old life within, which lives only for self and its advancement. We want something else, but the law of our being keeps us from getting it.

When Christ came (this is the story of the Scriptures), he lived a perfect life without any conscious effort to do so. He completely fulfilled the Law, as naturally and as easily as we live our Adamic lives. But, just before he died, while he was hanging on that cross, suspended between heaven and earth, we are told that he took upon himself our old nature. One of the most amazing sentences in all of Scripture is this: "He who knew no sin was made sin -- was made sin -- for us" (2 Corinthians 5:21). And when he became what we are, he became our old husband, then he died. Thus, when Christ died, our old husband, that false self, the self centered ego died, and we were set free. This became true for us when we received Jesus Christ into our life as Lord.

Not only are we free from the rule of the old husband, but also we are free from the law that bound us to him and controlled our life with him, and we are now free to marry another. This time it is Jesus Christ, risen from the dead -- the risen Christ -- so that just as he once became our old self on the cross, now he lives to become our true self, living that same wonderful, perfect, holy, attractive, mighty life through us again in this 20th century, right in this very hour -- today -- now!

This is the amazing declaration of Scripture -- Jesus Christ, entering your life and mine, by faith in his word, usurps this alien invader and sin must leave when he takes his rightful place in the very core of our being, the very center of our life. Sin is now on the outside calling to us and influencing us. We are not delivered from the sound of its voice; we can still feel it, and hear it, and it can influence us. If we yield to it, now that Christ has come, we are again an adulterer, a hypocrite -- pretending to be something that we really are not.

Do you follow me? I realize that this is a bit complicated, but it is a tremendously important truth, and perhaps the next section will help make it clear. Let's look at the explanation that verifies in Verses 4-6:

Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit. (Romans 7:4-6 RSV)

Notice how that fits the illustration: "Through the body of Christ" we are told -- that body that was put to death on that bloody cross -- we died to the Law which bound us to the sin within us. For, every time that we tried to be good (before Christ came in), the Law simply showed us how far short we came. It exposed our inner sin, and we realized that, even though, outwardly, we could meet the demands of other human beings around us, inwardly, we were still the same miserable, self-centered, troubled, unhappy people that we had always been. Do you see?

Now, since Christ has come, we belong to another. It is he who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. This is a wonderful truth! In other words, the only life that is fruitful in God's sight is the life of Jesus Christ in you and me!

May I say that again? This is so important that, if you don't get it, you are going to spend a long, long time trying to serve God, and be acceptable to him, and get nowhere! The only life that God says is fruitful and acceptable and worthwhile in his sight is the risen life of Jesus Christ lived again through you and me. All other effort, any other way of living, is fruitless. Jesus said to his disciples:

He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. But without me ye can do nothing. (John 15:5 KJV)

How much? Nothing! Isn't it amazing how busy we can be doing nothing! You see, while we were living in the flesh, as Paul says, while we were living what we call a natural human life, all our struggles to be good resulted only in fruit for death. There was fruit, but it was fruit for death, and, as we have seen all along in this letter, death is a symbol for barrenness: Much effort, but little effect, much sincerity, but no real accomplishment. Fruit, you see, but it was fruit for barrenness, and worthlessness, and uselessness. We never really did anything! We never really got anywhere!

This is the experience of so many. And the more we read the Ten Commandments, and the more we tried to follow the Sermon on the Mount, the more condemned we felt because we were struggling to do something that we could not do. Even as Christians, we will discover that this is what self-effort brings us -- we produce fruit for death.

The wonderful, transforming truth is that, if we lean back upon the mighty, refreshing, indwelling, conquering life of Jesus Christ within us, quietly counting on him to live and work through us to do all that needs to be done, we no longer need the written code of the Ten Commandments, or any other code, to direct our conduct because, as Paul says, we walk "not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit." Now, let me ask you this question: "When Jesus Christ was here on earth, did he need the Ten Commandments?"

Now, I didn't ask you, "Did he believe in the Ten Commandments," or, "Did he fulfill them?" Of course he fulfilled them because love is the fulfilling of the Law. Any time you act in love, you don't need a law to tell you what to do. You just act out of the heart of compassion that love gives, and you will automatically do what the Law wants done. Of course, Christ fulfilled the Law, but he didn't need the Law, you see, for if the Ten Commandments had never been given he would have been the same wonderful, mighty, attractive person that he was. He wasn't struggling each day, as we sometimes do, to try to be good. He was good -- everywhere he went. His nature is good. His nature is love. He didn't have to work up feelings of love for some of those old hard-crusted, embittered Pharisees. He just loved them.

As Dr. Sanders said last week, "Even though he was sometimes angry with them (and anger is not incommensurate with love), he still loved them, for he looked on them and was grieved because of the hardness of their hearts." Grieving is an activity of love. You see, Jesus didn't have to try to be this, he was this, and he will be this through our lives.

So, if Jesus Christ is living his life through me, I don't need any outward law to direct me. If I love my neighbor, I don't need any sign that says, "Keep off the grass." I won't walk on his lawn because I am concerned for his welfare as much as my own. I would no more think of walking on his lawn until I wore a path through it than I would on my own. Do you see? If I love my neighbor, I don't need any Law that says, "Thou shalt not steal" (Exodus 20:15 KJV), or "Thou shalt not covet" (Exodus 20:17 KJV), or "Thou shalt not lie" (Exodus 20:16 KJV). If I love, I will do these things automatically.

Well, then, should we throw the Law out? Should we just sneer at every attempt to quote it to us, and remind anyone who questions any of our attitudes that "we are not under law but under grace"? Well, let me ask you this: Did Christ? What did he do? What was his attitude toward the Law? Even though he didn't need it, how did he regard it? You know the answer: He honored it; he highly regarded it. Paul moves on now in this last section, Verses 7-13, to the application that glorifies:

What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I should not have known sin. I should not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." But sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, wrought in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law sin lies dead [i.e, undiscovered, inert]. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died; the very commandment which promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and by it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.

Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. (Romans 7:7-13 RSV)

Is that hard to understand? Let me explain it. You see, here we learn the true purpose of the Law. Paul says, "if it had not been for the Law, I should not have known sin." Now, he knew that there were sins in his life (i.e., occasional wrong deeds). All of us know that. But if it had not been for the Law he would never have learned that those sins came from a nature of sin within. That is what he is saying.

And this is the problem, isn't it? Isn't it amazing how all of us are always right in our own eyes? If we were our own judges, how easily we would get by on everything. We might admit to a few mistakes once in a while, or even an occasional fall, but our hearts are right, aren't they?

A couple of weeks ago at Mount Hermon, Don Moomaw was speaking to the high school group and he told us about an incident in his own life just after he was married: He and Carol, his wife, were on their honeymoon down in Palm Springs, and they went into a restaurant in the center of the city and got into the honeymoon corner, way back in the dark. They were enjoying talking to each other, discussing their new life together, and saying all those things that honeymooners say to one another. They finally become aware of a rather large and noisy party of people that were seated at the table next to them (or under it, I don't know which). They had been there for some time and they were well inebriated -- drunk, in common parlance. They were discussing all kinds of things -- politics, what went on in the neighborhood, and so on. Finally, they got around to the inevitable -- a discussion of religion. Don said that there was one woman who dominated the discussion, and they were going on at great lengths about the faults of the church, and everything else that was wrong here and there. Finally, she made the statement: "Well, I don't care what the Bible says, or what all these other people say, or what the church says, I just let my conscience be my guide." Or, as she said it, "I jush leth my conshush be my glide."

You see, if we live according to our own light, everyone does what is right in his own eyes. But Paul says, "One day it came home to me that the Law says, 'Thou shalt not covet' and I realized that this meant not to desire something which belongs to another -- his wife, his property, his honor, his position of favor, anything that belongs to another. 'Thou shalt not covet.'"

And Paul said, "I set out to obey that, confident that I could do it like I had been fulfilling the other parts of the Law -- thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not bear false witness, commit adultery, and so on. But the first thing I knew," he said, "I found myself saying, 'Oh, I wish I had that.' I envied another one's success. I found myself maneuvering behind the scenes to get another person's property. I chewed my fingernails because another fellow got the job I thought I ought to have. I was depressed over the popularity of another man."

And, as he says in Verse 8, "sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, wrought in me all kinds of covetousness. Everywhere I turned, I found I was coveting." And, finally, he said, "The more I tried to suppress it, the worse it got until, finally, I saw that the trouble was myself, my own selfish heart, my sinful nature." That is what the Law taught him, and so he thanks God for the Law. He glorifies it. It is holy and just and good: There is nothing wrong with the Law! And Verse 13 reminds us again of the purpose of the Law:

Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might becomesinful beyond measure. (Romans 7:13 RSV)

That is what the Law is for. So many think that God gave the Ten Commandments to the human race in order to keep men from sinning. He didn't at all. Notice Verse 20 of Chapter 5: "Law came in to increase the trespass" -- to increase the trespass -- that is what the Law is for! It was given to arouse the sin which was in man, and, thus, in making him sin all the more, it made him discover the utter futility of trying to please God by self-effort. As long as sin, in our sight, is just mere peccadilloes -- trivialities, just slight blemishes in our character -- we never get serious about doing anything about it. But: when sin becomes sinful beyond measure, when we see that the reason why we have so much difficulty getting along with somebody is because we are so contrary, so ornery, so self centered, so mean, so desirous that somebody be moved through the screws and be subjected to pain because we have been hurt, when we begin to become aware of how our own life is what is creating the problem in somebody else's life, and they are loveless because we are so loveless to them, then, we get serious about finding out God's process of casting it away and we fling ourselves in helplessness upon the mighty indwelling life of Jesus Christ to simply be himself in us!

Now, I recognize that when we, as Christians, choose to walk after the flesh, the Spirit sometimes uses the Law to show us our folly, and rebuke our barrenness, and bring us to our senses again. That is why Paul, over in First Timothy, says,

Now we know that the law is good, if anyone uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murders of fathers and murders of mothers, for manslayers, immoral persons, sodomites, kidnapers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine. (1 Timothy 1:8-10 RSV)

Whenever we get into that state we need the Law, even as Christians. But when we walk in the Spirit, allowing Jesus Christ to live his life again through us, we need no law. If we attempt to put that life back under the Law, what we are really trying to do is to be faithless to our new husband, the risen Christ. You see, he will be himself in us, and what he is is perfectly acceptable to the Father. So, as A. B. Simpson once put it:

Once twas busy planting,
   Now tis trustful prayer.
Once twas anxious caring,
   Now He has the care.
Once twas what I wanted,
   Now what Jesus says.
Once twas constant asking,
   Now tis ceaseless praise.
Once it was my working,
   Hence it His shall be.
Once I tried to use Him,
   Now He uses me.
Once the power I wanted,
   Now the mighty one.
Once for self I labored,
   Now for Him alone.

Prayer:

Our Father, in the confusion of our sin-burdened minds, we sometimes have difficulty laying hold of the truth that you declare to us, and perhaps this morning some of us are struggling to understand what this means. Father, we pray that thy Spirit may clarify it to us, and that we will simply receive it, and certainly not struggle against it and try to argue against it as though it were not true. For we know that those who discover this wonderful life of Christ within begin to experience the fullness of blessing of the Christian life, and Christ becomes real and vivid and clear to us once again. We thank you for that. We pray now that this may be the experience of each of us, as we turn from the old nature and from the old law and rejoice in the full deliverance that has come to us in Jesus Christ our Lord, in whose name we pray. Amen.

 

FALSE CONSECRATION

by Ray C. Stedman

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This section of Romans is teaching us how to walk in the Spirit, and walking in the Spirit is the only way the Christian life makes sense. If you don't learn how to walk in the Spirit, then your Christian life is going to be an enigma to you and to everyone else, for this is the whole reason we are called to be part of the body of Christ -- that we might learn to walk in the Spirit. This is the process taught us here in Romans 5, 6, 7 and 8.

The problem of walking in the Spirit is not how to walk, but how to keep walking. It's not hard to tell anyone how to walk in the Spirit. In fact, we have it in the first fourteen verses of Chapter 6 in three very basic, simple steps: Know what God says took place on the cross of Christ regarding you and your old man, your old nature, your human life. Consider it to be continually true for every day, every hour, and every moment of every day. Yield, give over, lean back upon the mighty indwelling life of Jesus Christ who has come to live in you and work through you. Expect him to live his life through you and to do it without destroying your personality and without setting aside your activity. That is the simple process, but the problem is not how to do it but how to keep doing it.

Have you ever noticed that even a baby, when he learns to walk, has no problem taking the first step? The problem is taking the next ten steps -- it is not how to walk, but how to keep walking. Almost all babies, as soon as they know how to stand, know how to take a step. They do that automatically, naturally. They put one foot in front of the other, take a couple or three uncertain steps across the floor, and then what happens? Well, you know, they look around, or they get worried about what they are doing, or they get engrossed in the process, or something diverts their attention, and down they go.

This is the experience we have so frequently in learning to walk in the Spirit. I think that all Christians have known some brief times, at least, of the joy and the thrill of walking in the Spirit. There are times (not always emotionally felt either) when all of us have sensed God working through us, and much being accomplished, quite apart from us -- this is the experience of walking in the Spirit.

It is like Peter walking on the water after the Lord called to him. Peter said, "If it be thou, bid me come unto thee," (Matthew 14:28 KJV). And the Lord said, "Come," (Matthew 14:29). Without thinking, Peter jumped out of the boat and started to walk across the water to the Lord. About half way across he got excited about the wind and the waves and began wondering how in the world this was talking place anyway, and he became diverted and distracted, and began to sink. The he cried, "Lord, help me!" (Matthew 14:30), and the Lord reached down and picked him up again. This is a beautiful picture of what it means to walk in the Spirit.

When we begin to walk in the Spirit, there are certain hindrances that come in. This is what Paul is taking up now in these three chapters of Romans.

The first of these we have already looked at. We saw that the first hindrance to a walk in the Spirit is a secret love for our sins which makes us unwilling to accept God's verdict upon them: We are reluctant to call things what he calls them. We don't like the names that God uses about what goes on in our lives. He calls them lying, lust, hate, selfishness, but we prefer our own terms: Instead of lying, we say, "It is just a tendency to exaggerate." Instead of lust, we say, "We have a hot-blooded nature." And we never say we hate somebody, we say, "We have a cordial dislike." And instead of selfishness, it is "sensitivity," which we regard as a mark of refinement.

But light demands honesty, and when God the Spirit turns the light upon our lives, we no longer can call pianos "tables," or tables "pianos," we have to call them what they are. "If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another," (1 John 1:7a RSV). That is the first hindrance.

The second hindrance is what is before us in the last part of the seventh chapter, and the first four verses of Chapter 8. It is what we might call a false consecration to the Law of God.

In the first thirteen verses, that we looked at last week, we saw that the Law has one great effect upon us: It shows us the sinful nature we have in Adam. We learned that it is not only the things we do that are wrong, but behind it, and in back of it, is a tainted spring, a corrupt fountain, that keeps pouring out sin -- a sinful nature. And we also learned that life in Jesus Christ (or Christ living in us) doesn't have any need for the Law at all, no place for it, even though it honors and highly regards the Law.

Now, that brings us to the last section of the seventh chapter where we see further reason why the Christian must not be under law. This section presents three things to us. Let me give you the headings so that you may follow me: Chapter 7:14-20: The Behavior that Baffles, Chapter 7:21-25: The Law that Limits, Chapter 8:1-4: The Force that Frees. In Verses 14-20 we can look at the behavior that baffles. Paul says,

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. (Romans 7:14-20 RSV)

And you say, "My, I didn't know the Apostle Paul knew me so well," for this is a record right out of our own lives, is it not? This is the struggle that the apostle experiences when he tries, as a Christian, to obey the Law or to do good.

You remember the illustration that I have used on several occasions; it was one of Dr. Ironside's favorite illustrations of law and grace: It is the story of the young Indian lad who had never been off the Navajo reservation until Dr. Ironside brought him to Oakland. He had been a Christian only about two years. When he came to Oakland, he was taken into a group of Christian young people one Sunday night when they were discussing law and grace. He listened to them as they argued back and forth about the various aspects, and then the leader called on him to say a few words. He said something like this:

"Me been listening to you talk about law and grace, and the longer me listen, the more me think you don't know what law or grace is."

He said,

"Let me tell you what I think: When Mr. Ironside ask me to go to Oakland with him, we get on a big train down in reservation. I never been on a train before, and we ride and ride and ride all day long, and, finally, we come to Barstow out in desert."

And he said,

"Me very tired so me get off train to walk platform and stretch legs. While me walk around platform, me see sign that say, 'Do Not Spit Here.' Me look at sign, and me think, 'what strange sign white man put up -- Do Not Spit Here.'"

And then he said,

"While me look at sign, before I know what happen, me spit! I look all around platform and I see many people spit here. I think to myself, 'How Strange.' Sign say, 'Do Not Spit Here' but many people spit, and I spit."

And then he said,

"We got on train again and come long way, up to Oakland, and some friends meet us at train, and take us to beautiful home. I never been in such home. Mr. Ironside take me in and show me soft chair and excuse himself for awhile, and I left alone in room. I look around and everything is so nice -- soft, thick rug on floor, beautiful walls painted lovely color, pictures hanging on walls -- everything so nice. I walk around room and I think to myself about something, and I look all around room and all over the wall, and I try to find sign that say 'Do Not Spit Here,' but I cannot find sign. I think to myself, 'Too bad all this lovely room going to be ruined by people spitting on floor.' Then I look around on floor, and see nobody been spitting there -- and then it come to me: When the law say, 'Do Not Spit Here' it makes me want to spit, and I spit, and many people spit. But when I come into grace, and everything lovely and nice, I don't want to spit, and I do not need law to say, 'Do Not Spit Here.'"

I think you will agree that, in many ways, this is a wonderful illustration. It certainly is an excellent illustration of what the Law does to us. It arouses our sinful emotions, as Paul says, and makes us want to do what we are told not to do. Who has not experienced this? But, in other ways, the illustration falls short of what grace really does, for it shows, indeed, how the Law stirs up our inward resentment, but it is incomplete in its illustration of grace. For, after we become Christians, we soon discover that, although we do have new life in Christ and it is wonderful, and we enjoy peace with God, and we have access to him, and we know that we are in the family of God, and we know that we have a certain hope of heaven, and we rejoice in that, despite all this wonderful atmosphere, we still want to spit! We find that grace hasn't taken this problem away; a desire not to spit is not sufficient. For, even though we may be horrified at the thought of defiling the wonderful room of grace by spitting, the truth is we sometimes catch ourselves spitting anyhow!

That is what Paul is talking about here in this illustration. The struggle of this passage is expressed for us in Verse 18, the latter part, where Paul says, "I can will what is right, but I cannot do it." Who has not experienced that as a believer in Christ? What a baffling experience this is! Now, up to this point, we have been learning how subtly the old life leads us into sin in ways we never suspected possible. We have discovered the depths of sin in our life opened up to us by the Holy Spirit that we didn't realize were there. We see the cleverness with which we have been camouflaging, even from ourselves, the hidden perversities within, and the silken subtleties with which we excuse ourselves from these manifestations.

But, led by the Spirit, we go from crisis to crisis, confessing each time these newly discovered manifestations of the old nature. Each time we experience release, and victory, until another symptom is called to our attention by the Spirit of God. Then, at last, we seem to come to an end; we rest in the knowledge that we mean to judge every evil symptom that appears: We face up to the fact that it is our harboring of these hidden sins that prevents us from living in victory in Christ, and we realize that the whole thing must go. As we look at ourselves, and come to that place, and, led of God, we say, "By the grace of God, as I see these things brought to my attention, I'll put them where he puts them -- in the place of death -- and these things shall not reign in my life any longer."

Then we have such a sense of cleanness and we feel that the one thing that has been preventing us from victory is doing and thinking wrong, so we have cleared that up, and now we are ready to serve Christ. Then, perhaps, we go to a consecration service, and we dedicate ourselves to him -- we offer him our time, our talents, and our abilities -- and then we rise up to go out to capture the world for Christ. But, to our amazement, there is no power, there is no effectiveness, no fruit in what we try to do. It is a hard old grind in which we become discouraged and defeated, and, before we know it, some evil that we thought was gone has cropped up again in our life. Then we go to the Lord, and say, "What's wrong, Lord? I am simply trying to serve you. I am trying to do the right thing. Why no power? Why this defeat in my life again?" We know that it is not our hearts that are wrong. We want to do the right thing. We are trying to. As Paul puts it, "it is no longer I that do it." It is not that I am still clinging to some sin that I am not willing to give up: We are wanting to do the right things, but we still find that sin is around, and it baffles us and mocks us. We think that maybe we made some mistakes, so we try again. We consecrate ourselves again. We resolve again.

But it is the same old story: It seems to work for awhile, and then -- defeat! The most discouraging part of it is to face honestly the name that Paul gives to this position. It is in Verse 14 -- carnality! "I am carnal," it says. In other words, this battle is a description of a carnal Christian. "Oh," you say, "wait a minute. I thought a carnal Christian was a backslider, one of these fellows who used to go to church, but now watches TV instead of attending prayer meeting on Wednesday night, or maybe the kind who has run off with someone else's wife -- that is a carnal Christian." Well, you're right. That is one kind of a carnal Christian, but Paul is talking about Sunday School teachers and missionaries, pastors and Christian workers, and good, honest, ordinary, average, sincere Christians who want to do God's will:

They have been to consecration meeting after consecration meeting. They have responded over and over to the appeal, "Christ did all this for you, now what will you do for him." They sense the call to commitment, and, in earnestness and utter sincerity, without a vestige of hypocrisy, they say, "Lord, here I am, I give myself to you." They have gone forward backwards and sideways. They have raised their right hand, and their left hand. They would stand on their heads, if it would do any good. They have prayed harder. They have studied harder. They have wept harder. But nothing seems to help, and they are terribly, desperately tired and discouraged! There are many Christians in this state. Are you there? Such Christians have one thing left to learn. They are still subject to the law of sin and death, as Paul points out, in the law that limits, Verses 21-25:

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Romans 7:21-25 RSV)

Here Paul is analyzing this baffling condition of defeat: The first thing he says is, "I discover that the law of temptation is still present with me. I find it to be a law that, when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. That is, every desire on my part to do right is met by an equal urge to do wrong." This is the law of temptation, and there is nothing alarming about it. I think many Christians make a serious mistake here because they feel that they should expect to be delivered from temptation, from any sense to do wrong. But Paul simply faces the fact that this is a law. Satan is still around to allure us, and, through the flesh, try to tempt us and trap us -- even the Lord Jesus did not escape this -- he was subject to temptation just as we are. Temptation is a necessary part of the process of learning how to refuse evil and choose good. So it is always there, but it is not the problem.

The second discovery the apostle makes is that, though my desires are right, the will is redeemed and set right, and the heart is purified, yet the flesh is not able to respond to the demands that the will makes upon it: My best efforts cannot please God! We learn that the flesh is not only sinful, but helpless -- it is totally incapable of pleasing God. For many Christians, it is shocking to learn that sin is not only doing something wrong, but that it is also trying to do something right in our own effort. That is sin. That is part of the old nature as well. This is what Paul discovered. Now, this is a secret that God has gone to great lengths to teach his people throughout the ages.

This is what our Lord was referring to when he spoke to Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane, as he retired into the deeper shadows of the garden to pray. He said to Peter and the others, "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation," (Matthew 26:41 KJV). That is, ask God to keep you from being tempted now, because, if you are tempted, you will discover that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak! Peter ignored that warning, and slept instead of praying. He boldly tried, in utter sincerity, with the best of motives, and with complete consecration of heart and mind, to serve the Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane. You know the story of how he ended up baffled, and broken, and weeping over his blasphemy and denial -- a living picture of what we have here in Romans 7: "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:24 RSV). This is the secret that Jacob learned, as recorded in Genesis (32:24-32), when, at the brook of Peniel, he struggled to get God to bless him. This is a picture of the way we struggle. We make our plans and programs, and work everything out, and say, "Now, Lord, bless this." And so frequently, nothing happens, and there is no blessing on it. Jacob was doing that. He was struggling with God, trying to get him to bless him, until God finally put his thigh out of joint, in order that he might learn to cling in helplessness to the only one who could be his strength.

That is what Abraham learned after the birth of Ishmael, when he had the promise that God would give him a son who would be the heir of all the promises that God had given him. The years went by and nothing seemed to be happening, and Abraham couldn't wait any longer, and, in complete sincerity, with the best of motives, and with the deepest desire to do God's will, he tried to help God fulfill his will. He took an Egyptian girl for his wife and almost destroyed his home in the process. It wasn't until thirteen years later that he began to see that God not only has a will, but he also has his own way of performing that will.

This is what Moses learned when he tried to deliver Israel after he graduated from the University of Egypt. He stood there on the steps, with his diploma in his hand, trained in all the knowledge of the Egyptians, with all that he felt qualified to be used of God to be the deliverer of Israel. He knew that he had been called to that from his birth, because his mother had told him the stories of his birth, and he set out to do the work that God had called him to do. Within 48 hours he had become a murderer instead of a missionary, and he had to flee from the face of Pharaoh (see Exodus 2:11-15).

This is what Paul learned after he had been three years in Arabia, praying through the Scriptures and learning anew how Jesus Christ is in all the Scriptures. He came back to Damascus and went into the synagogues with confidence that his background as a Pharisee, raised in the traditions of Israel, would give him access to these people. He thought he could be God's instrument to deliver Israel and bring them back to Christ. He went in and began confidently to preach Christ in the synagogues, but they wouldn't listen to him. Then, one night, his friends had to take him out and let him down over a wall in a basket, like a common criminal. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church later and said he gloried in this experience, because then he began to learn how helpless he was in himself, and all that he was, all that he had, all his training and ability were nothing. "God can take me just as I am, a mere man, and use me" -- this is what he concluded. And you remember how he went up to Jerusalem, and there, broken and defeated, the Christians shunning him and having nothing to do with him, he knelt in the temple and the Lord appeared to him, and said, "Get thee out of Jerusalem and go home -- back to Tarsus," (Acts 22:18 KJV). And for seven years Paul waited in Tarsus till he learned the secret that all his training and ability made him highly qualified to be utterly useless. At last he discovered this secret that the flesh can do nothing to please God. Andrew Murray writes:

God works to will and He is ready to do, but, alas, many Christians misunderstand this. They think that, because they have the will, it is enough, and that, now, they are able to do. This is not so. The new will is a permanent gift and attribute of the new nature, but the power to do is not a permanent gift, but must be received each moment from the Holy Spirit. It is the man who is conscious of his own impotence as a believer who will learn that by the Holy Spirit he can lead a holy life.

All this is really just the struggle of the old nature to obey some law, whether it is the Ten Commandments or some other law. We hear sometimes how God uses a man, and we say, "Why doesn't God use me that way?" And we put ourselves under the 'law' of someone else, and try to do the same thing, but it never seems to work. I remember my own experience, if I may just share an autobiographical word with you:

When I graduated from seminary, I thought that the power needed for a ministry lay in the man of God -- so I studied men. I followed them. I saw men that were being used of God, and I said, "What is it that is the secret of their power?" When I thought I found it, I tried to imitate it, and to adapt it to myself. I caught myself aping men -- talking like them. Some of you will remember how, coming fresh from the influence of the ministry of Dr. J. Vernon McGee, I used to talk like him. I wore bright red shirts, because I thought that was the hiding of his power. I finally realized that the power did not lie in the man.

Then I thought the power lay in the message: It must be what men say that is so moving and powerful and potent. So I listened to men, and read books, and when I ran across a passage that I felt would beautifully state some truth, I would almost memorize it -- so that I could repeat it. When I had a message that was particularly blessed of God, I'd say, "Well, that worked. I'll put that one aside, and the next time I am invited to speak at a conference or some special place, I'll bring that one out. That is the one that will do the trick." I would go to the conference, and, in all confidence, I would bring the message out and preach it -- and it would fall flat! I would go to the Lord, and say, "What's wrong? I am simply trying to do what is the right thing. Here is a message that you blessed before. What is wrong?"

At last, baffled and defeated, I learned the lesson that power does not reside in the man or the message. "Power belongeth unto God" (Psalms 62:11 KJV), and God never gives it to anyone. He will live it through men, but he never gives it to anyone: Power belongs to God. Paul sums up this whole picture in Verse 25:

Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Romans 7:25 RSV)

That is, I know there is deliverance in Christ -- thanks be to God for that -- but I have found that as long as I, of myself, serve the Law of God with my redeemed will, then I will also, by inevitable law, serve with the flesh the law of sin and death. In other words, 'Do It Yourself Christianity' Never Works! Now we are ready for a look at the force that frees, in Chapter 8, Verses 1-4:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:1-4 RSV)

We have come to the full noontide of the gospel. When we come to the end of ourselves, both in not doing evil and in trying to do good, then we are ready to rest upon the work of Another to do everything through us that needs to be done. We are no longer responding to the love motive; that is, "Christ did something for me, therefore I must do something for him." But, now, we are acting from the life motive. The only commitment that will hold up, you see, is that which springs from our reliance upon his life in us.

The first word to us here is, "there is no condemnation." Blessed words! When you discover your inability to serve God by much zeal, and much prayer, and much study, and you waken to your frustrations and your bafflement -- then you are tempted to quit being a Christian. You say, "Oh, Lord, what's the use? I have tried, and tried, and tried, and I get nowhere. Why try any more?" Your heart condemns you, and you feel terrible. It is right at this point that John says, "if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, for he knoweth all things," (1 John 3:20 KJV). Though we are self-condemned, God doesn't condemn us. He knows that there is a struggle, and he is not surprised or alarmed. It doesn't shock him as it does us, because he expected nothing but failure all the time! He knows the flesh; he knows it can't do anything, and he's not surprised.

Sometimes, even though we are very disturbed, the greatest moment in our life is when we come to God, and say, "Lord, I quit! I cannot do it." God says, "Good! That is what I have been waiting for. Now I'll do it." And, without a word of reproach or rebuke for our failure, he does through us what we struggled in vain to do -- that is "the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus."

Notice what he says: What neither the Ten Commandments, nor any other law, could ever accomplish, what no standard of perfection that we are trying to follow could ever do, because of our weak, sinful, unable flesh, is now fully accomplished in us by another principle: The indwelling life of Jesus Christ, ministered to us continually by the Spirit to do everything that life demands of us, fulfilling the Law, and more. However, the law of sin and barrenness still persists. It is still present, and ready to spring into action whenever we harbor sin or try to serve Christ by our own will or ability. We will discover this to be so, and that is why Paul puts this struggle in the present tense. But when we abide in Christ, as he abides in us, and we recognize that for everything we do, whether it is tying our shoe, washing the dishes, preaching a message, typing a letter, or whatever it is -- for everything we do, we must rely in total dependence upon the law of the Spirit of life in us; then that law takes over and cancels out the law of sin and death. What we could not do by our own effort, we do through him.

I discovered when I was about 18 years of age that I had in my members a law that was operating, called the law of myopia (or nearsightedness), which made my eyes unable to see what other people with normal eyesight could see. I struggled against that thing and tried to ignore it, and to squint and endeavor to see anyway, but I couldn't. The harder I tried, it seemed, the worse it got, until, at last, I learned of another law -- the law of lens correction. A couple of years ago I had an eye doctor insert a tiny plastic lens into each of my eyes (contact lenses, they call them), and, now, without any effort on my part, the law of lens correction operates to cancel out the law of myopia -- so that I can see with better than normal vision. All I need to do is to be sure that the lenses are in my eyes. I put them in every morning, then, all through the day, I don't have to think about them any more. They are continually operating to correct my sight, and the law of lens correction sets me free from the law of myopia! So too, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus sets me free from the law of sin and death!

This is the exchanged life, the released life. It is a continual paradox. Life in the Spirit is a life of restful activity, and this is a paradox. It isn't simply sitting around waiting for orders from God. It is facing life with all its mystery and fascination, with a continual recognition of, and constant praise and thanksgiving for the fact that, within, is the indwelling life of Christ, ready to do instantly, through me, all that I need to do. As I rest upon it, I find that I can simply go ahead doing the normal, the natural, the obvious, and, in it and through it all, God is at work! Life becomes a continual matter of the expectation of miracles, of excitement, because of what God does through me -- and yet it is rest without struggle.

This is particularly evident in witnessing: I used to be so concerned about to whom I should witness; I would pray that God would lead me to the one that he had prepared, and would try to talk to everyone that I met, if I could. Then I discovered that, many times, I was doing more harm than good -- that I was driving people away from the gospel. I would make them uncomfortable, and they would avoid me, and, as a result, would be much harder to reach because of my efforts. At last, I learned to rest upon the indwelling life of Christ, and now, when I get aboard a train or a plane, I look for the obvious -- the most comfortable seat. I now expect God to lead me to the one he wants me to reach. I talk to the one that sits down next to me in a normal conversation, and, if something seems to develop a little bit, I follow it through -- if it doesn't, I don't worry about it. It may be the man that I will meet at the water cooler is the one, or it may be that the Lord just wants me to enjoy a friendly conversation about the Dodgers and the Giants with this man. This is normal life, you see. Yet, I have had more opportunity for effective witness this way than ever before.

This is not only a life of restful activity, it is a life of captive liberty. That is a paradox too. In other words, everything is right unless I know it is wrong, because it is the job of the Holy Spirit to let me know that something is wrong -- and he does! I feel the check, if I am honest with him. Then I can walk in liberty continually. If I am dishonest, or if I refuse to listen, then I am plunged right back into the same old futile struggle which is here described, in Romans 7. But if I walk in honesty before the Lord, I find that everything is right unless I know it is wrong. I can do all things. The legalist turns that around; he says, "Everything is wrong unless I know it is right." But Christ gives us a life of liberty in the Spirit.

It is also a life of power-filled weakness. "We have this treasure in earthen vessels," Paul says, "that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us," (2 Corinthians 4:7 KJV). Sometimes we are very much aware of the vessel; we get tired, feel weak, have a scratchy throat, or sore muscles. The weakness of the vessel is evident. But we have a treasure within that, even in the midst of infirmities, is able to manifest itself. This is why the apostle could say, "I glory in my infirmities, because when I am weak, then I know that the power of Christ rests upon me," (2 Corinthians 12:9-10 KJV). So it is a life of power-filled weakness. Then, it is a life of joyful suffering. I have told you before that this is the mark of a Christian life lived in the fullness of the Spirit -- rejoicing in suffering. Paul points this out in Chapter 5.

In 1900, when the Boxer Rebellion broke out in China, it seemed as though all the work of the China Inland Mission would be destroyed. Every day new reports would come of pastors beheaded, or missionaries captured. Hudson Taylor was then an old man, and his co-workers feared that his health might break under the pressure of continual bad news. One day, when a particularly distressing bit of news had come in, the office workers went up to Hudson Taylor's home to see how he was taking it. They feared for what they might find, but, as they drew near, they heard the old man singing. As they listened, they heard him sing:

Jesus, I am resting, resting,
   In the joy of what thou art.
I am finding out the greatness
   Of thy loving heart.

Thou hast bade me gaze upon thee,
   And thy beauty fills my soul,
For by thy transforming power
   Thou hast made me whole.

Yes, this is a life of victory over suffering, strength over weakness -- in the presence of weakness. This is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

Prayer:

Our Father, we thank you for this truth. You have said that we shall know the truth and the truth shall set us free. Father, you know that the flesh resents this exposure of the phony nature of its righteousness. We don't like to be told that we cannot do things for you, but we thank you, Lord, that if we are willing to believe you, and lay hold of this, that very self-mortification crucifixion brings us to the place of resurrection, and we rejoice in life in the Spirit. May this be our experience, in Christ's name. Amen.

 

IN THE ARENA

by Ray C. Stedman

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I have entitled this study In the Arena because the whole passage seems to capture the atmosphere of the running of a race, a pressing on in the strength of the indwelling Lord to a goal or a prize to be reached. This is what the Christian life is.

The sports contest is a frequent source of illustration with the Apostle Paul. I rather imagine that he must have, on some occasions at least, frequented the Olympic Games back in those early days, and thus was well acquainted with the athletic contest, since he draws so many illustrations from this source. When he wrote to the Galatians, in his great letter to them, he reminded these people that they had begun in the Spirit, but were now trying to be made perfect by the flesh. He said to them, "You did run well, but who did hinder you?" (Galatians 5:7 KJV). That is, you started the race very well.

Those of us who saw the great Russian-American Games here at Stanford last week will never forget the sight of that tremendous Russian distance runner, Bolotnikov. He, on one day, ran the 10,000-meter race, that grueling endurance grind, and then, the next day, came back to win the 5,000-meter race. I was there on Saturday, seated close to the front, and, as the contestants came around the track, I could see their faces clearly. I took special note of this great Russian runner as the race progressed. I could see his face as they came by, covered with sweat and grime, and evidencing a bit of pain. You could see the lines of increasing weariness as the race went on. Then, the thrill of that incredible last lap when he stretched out, and ran away from all the others, and left them far behind to win that race. It was a tremendous feat, and one that I will never forget.

That is where the race is run -- right down in the grime and sweat and dust of the arena. Also, that is where the Christian life is lived -- right down in the pain and sweat and tears of life, with its mixture of joy and sorrow, its glory and grime, its triumph and despair. That is where the Christian life is designed to be lived, and if we don't get that out of the book of Romans, especially out of Chapter 8, we are missing the dominant emphasis of this passage. Somebody has said that life is like a football game in which the real men are down on the gridiron playing the game while the Christians are up in the stands explaining it to the ladies. Now, if that is your concept of Christian living, you've completely missed the point. The Christian life is the life of Jesus Christ lived again through you:

It's not our trying to live like Christ -- that is a misconception, nor is it our trying to be Christ-like -- that is another misconception, nor is it even Christ giving us the power to live a life like his. It is none of these. It is Christ indwelling us, living his life again through us. And that life was designed to be lived right in the roughest, toughest, hardest, most difficult spot on earth -- your home, your job, your everyday circumstances -- right there! This is the test of whether you are laying hold of the power of the life of Christ in you. Is your home life different? If doesn't make any difference how well you talk out in public, but are you different at home? That is the test -- for that is where the Christian life is designed to be lived. Right here I think some of us need to hear the apostle's question again:

"You did run well, but who did hinder you?" (Galatians 5:7 KJV)

That is, you started out fine -- many of us remember what a change came into our lives when we became Christians -- habits changed, attitudes changed, outlook changed -- we were different: We experienced new joy, we had new power, there was sense of victory -- what a change it was! Everyone could see it! But now, gradually, there has come, through the years, another change in which we evidence that we have lost interest -- we have grown listless, we are indifferent to spiritual values. We may still go through all the motions of Christianity, but there is no power, no glow, no fruit in our lives. Many of us have found ourselves right here in Romans 7 -- living the life of defeat and despair. We are running the race, but we are running it like a paralyzed man, hobbling along in the feeble efforts of the flesh.

Paul sets forth the reason this in the opening verses of Chapter 8: We are walking according to the flesh, and not according to the Spirit.

You say, "I don't understand those terms; I have read that passage so many times, and it seems to say something, but I don't quite get what. What does this mean, 'walking according to the flesh' and 'walking according to the Spirit'?" Well, that is right where we want to begin now, in Romans 8, with a look at these two divisions: Verses 5 - 9: The Analysis of Paralysis, Verses 10-14: The Possibility of Maturity Let's look first at Verses 5-9, the analysis of paralysis:

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God really dwells in you. Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. (Romans 8:5-9 RSV)

We learned in Chapter 5 that there are two sources of life in this world. There is Adam, and there is Christ -- the first man, and the second man. All of us were, by nature, born into Adam. We have the life of Adam, so we behave like Adam. We have the same difficulties that Adam had. But, when we are born again, by faith in Jesus Christ, we are no longer in Adam, we are in Christ. As Paul reminds us in the Corinthian letter, "if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold the new has come," (2 Corinthians 5:17 RSV). But in this section before us we learn something further: We learn that the active agent, the motivating force, which takes this life of Christ and makes it available to us is the Holy Spirit -- the indwelling Holy Spirit. In John 16:13-15, Jesus said to his disciples before his crucifixion, "When he shall come," speaking of the Spirit, "he shall take of the things of mine and make them real to you," (John 16:13-14 RSV). He shall take them and unfold them to you. So the agency by which the life of Christ (and all that we have in Christ) is made available to us is in the Holy Spirit.

Now, on the opposite side, the motivating force that makes the life of Adam available to us is the flesh (or the egocentric self). The reason behind all our actions when we were not Christians was invariably self-interest.

If you look back to those days before you knew Jesus Christ, you will discover, as you look within, that the motivating force -- the thing that urged you on to do what you did -- was your self-interest, your egocentric self, the promotion of self in some form or another. This self can be extroverted or introverted. It can be self which is manifested in self-confidence, self-aggressiveness, and so on, or it can be self which is manifested in self-pity, self-regression, timidity, and other things. But, once we learn what Christ is to us, and what he has come to be in us, then the normal state for a Christian should be one of continual fruitfulness. It is recorded in John 15 that Jesus said, "I am the vine, you are the branches," (John 15:5a RSV); "if my life is abiding in you, you will bring forth much fruit," (John 15:7-8). This is the continual state that we can expect. This is what is called 'walking in the Spirit.' But, after we realize this, we discover that it is still possible to 'walk according to the flesh.' The key to victory or defeat in the Christian life is set forth right here in Verse 5:

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. (Romans 8:5 RSV)

Here is the distinction, but I think that many people get a very false idea of what this means. They think that when it says to "set your mind on the things of the Spirit," it must mean that you go around thinking holy thoughts about God, and meditating on Bible verses all day long, or thinking of heaven all the time. And they think "the things of the flesh" are your business life, the dirty dishes in the sink that need to be washed, the routine of life, the pleasure in which you are engaged, and so on. We seem to think that Christians who 'walk in the Spirit' are those holy men and women, remote from life, who are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly use, but this is entirely wrong -- nothing could be further from the truth. If you've got the idea that, when you become a Christian, you must put your mind on the shelf, and your social life in the closet, and become a 'Holy Joe' or a 'Pious Petere,' you have missed the point completely because that is not what it is.

No, "the things of the Spirit" include the whole range of life, the entire spectrum, with all its changing color, and the fascinating mystery of life: These are the things of the Spirit. Thus, it involves food and drink, clothing and music, life and art, politics and science, marriage and business -- all of life! As Paul says to the Corinthians, "All things are yours" (1 Corinthians 3:21b KJV), "and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's," (1 Corinthians 3:23 KJV). So all of life is involved in this -- in the things of the Spirit -- and Christians make a great mistake in thinking that it is a limited, narrow, rigidly defined area that we are concerned with 'in the Spirit.'

Now, "the things of the flesh" cover the same range; it covers all of life. If you are concerned about living today, you are involved in all of these things -- food, music, clothing, literature, art, politics, business, marriage -- all of it. And these are included in "the things of the flesh," but from a different approach. In other words, the difference between the "things of the flesh" and "things of the Spirit" is not a different kind of thing, but it is the different attitude with which you come to them. It is a different approach, a different sense of values; that is what we are talking about here. Let me paraphrase it this way:

He who sets his mind on the values of the Spirit, on the attitudes of the Spirit, on the point of view of the Spirit, walks in the Spirit; but he who sets his mind on the values of the flesh, on the attitudes of the flesh, walks in the flesh.

Let me illustrate, if I can, by asking you this question: How do you view your work? What do you think about your vocation, your calling, the way you make your living? Is it to you just a way to earn a living, to keep the wolf from the door, to feed and educate your children, to supply the fleshly needs of your life, and, perhaps, also, to give you a little status in society? Is this what your job means to you? If it is, you have the mind of the flesh, you are walking according to the flesh. On the other hand, is your work, to you, God's chosen area for you to exhibit Jesus Christ, and the way that you have of glorifying him by faithfulness and willingness to do the tasks that are set before you? Is it the means that you have of earning money to give to those who are in need around you, and to share the abundance that God gives you with others? Is it the way that you have of fulfilling the joy of giving, and, incidentally, to provide the supply of food and clothing and education that your family needs? Well, if it is, you have the mind of the Spirit, you are walking according to the Spirit. It is the same work, but approached with a different attitude.

How do you view recreation? When you amuse yourself, why do you do it? Is a way to kill time? Is it a way to amuse yourself for an hour or two or maybe give you a thrill; all recreation or amusement exists only that you may have a thrill? Or is it a way that enables you to show off your unusual coordination of body? If it is, you have the mind of the flesh. On the other hand, is it a way to refresh your body and soul, and to challenge your mind and your body to something that stimulates it, and presents a challenge to you? Is it a way to share the delightful activity of some occasion with others, to enjoy the gift of life and strength which God has given you, and to make you fit to get back to your regular work better able to accomplish God's purpose in you? If it is, you have the mind of the Spirit. It is the same recreation, but approached with a different attitude.

This is what the apostle means. All through life, the way in which you view these things is the thing that marks whether you walk according to the flesh or according to the Spirit. To what do you relate everything?

Psychiatrists tell us that every one of us needs a reference point, a reference group. This is the reason, for instance, that young people are under so much pressure, continually, to conform to the crowd. That is why they all have to have the same kind of hat or shirt or pants or hot-rod or something -- because they are relating everything they do to their reference group, to the crowd that they are with -- and that is the mind of the flesh. The mind of the Spirit is relating everything to God, and to his point of view and values. When you do this, Paul says, you are walking in the Spirit. We see the practical results of these two ways of life in Verses 6-7:

To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot; (Romans 8:6-7 RSV)

Remember, the flesh is not only that which urges us to please ourselves and do the wrong thing, but it is also that which seeks to advance ourselves by getting us to try to do the right thing in our own effort. And, no matter which it is, the result is inevitably death in our life (death in this connotation means barrenness, fruitlessness, spiritual poverty) which is a stench in the nostrils of God; it is hostile to God.

It may look very good to man, and you may win your way to some position of favor or influence or position in the sight of men, but, in the eyes of God, if it originated from that self-effort to be somebody, to gain something, to advance yourself, then it is a stench in the nostrils of God. We need to understand this clearly, and I think it is clearly evident in life.

I was listening to Dr. Vernon Grounds on the radio the other day, and he was recounting for us the sordid and unfortunate story that has been in our newspapers -- the story of Billie Sol Estes down in Texas. I was interested to hear the facts about this man: This man is a Christian; he is a lay preacher, and his home has been a center of evangelical activity in the town of Pecos in West Texas. He is a fundamentalist. He neither smokes nor drinks. He has had meetings in his home specially set up for young people: When the world around was putting on enticing programs that would get them involved in worldly pursuits, he opened his home so that they could come in and have a time of Christian fellowship and keep them out of this. In other words, he was accepted and regarded in Pecos as the epitome of a Christian fundamentalist living for Christ in that town. But now we know the whole story: Outwardly, everything was right. Inwardly, the heart was wrong and continually conniving to advance itself. This is a revelation of what is happening, more frequently than we even dream, in lives around us.

Now, if you begin to feel a little smug at this point, let me remind you that the mind of the flesh can be exhibited in an outwardly perfectly moral life. You don't have to have your life suddenly collapse, like Billie Sol Estes, and be exposed to the public gaze, and have everyone see the inward moral rottenness of your life in order to be living in the flesh. You can have a quite moral life, with nothing legally wrong about it, for the carnal Christian is not only (as we learn here) the hypocrite, but he is also the sincere Christian who is trying his best to serve Christ by his own efforts. This is what we struggle with, isn't it? This is what makes it so difficult for us. We say, "Well, what can be wrong with that?" Well, the answer is right here:

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law... (Romans 8:6 RSV)

...even though it tries to, for "it cannot." It simply cannot. When the Russian astronaut, Gherman Titov, was in San Francisco, he was asked what he believed about God, and he said,

"I don't believe in God. I believe in man -- in his strength, his possibilities, and his reason."

I thought, as I read that, there is a clear statement of what Paul means by the mind of the flesh: "I believe in man -- his strength, his possibilities, and his reason." Now, it's possible to show that same attitude and yet begin your statement with the words "I do believe in God" as well as "I don't believe in God." In other words, you can say, "I believe in God" and then live as though everything depended upon you. This is the mind of the flesh that Paul is talking about here, and it is as hostile to God as the attitude of Titov is.

Let me show you something on that; it's taught by type in many places in the Scripture, but there is one that is particularly interesting in Ezekiel 44. Ezekiel is speaking, in Verse 15, about the millennial temple and of the priests of God, serving God, and he says,

"But the Levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who kept the charge of my sanctuary when the people of Israel went astray from me, shall come near to me to minister to me; and they shall attend to me to offer me the fat and the blood, says the Lord God; they shall enter my sanctuary, and they shall approach my table, to minister to me, and they shall keep my charge." (Ezekiel 44:15-16 RSV)

Now these are priests ministering to God, which is a picture of the Christian today.

"When they enter the gates of the inner court, they shall wear linen garments; they shall have nothing of wool on them, while they are ministering at the gates of the inner court, and within. They shall have linen turbans upon their heads, and linen breeches upon their loins; they shall not gird themselves with anything that causes sweat." (Ezekiel 44:17-18 RSV)

Now, why in the world is God so concerned about what his people wear? The answer is in that last statement: "They shall not gird themselves with anything that causes sweat." Why? Because sweat makes you stink, as any magazine will duly inform you if you read the advertisements. And God does not want people stinking as they serve him, to be perfectly blunt about it. Sweat comes from the flesh, and this is a picture for us of the hatefulness in the sight of God of self-effort when he has provided the fullness of the indwelling life of Christ to be the source of strength. To attempt to try to do the right thing and to do the best you can as a Christian is an insult to the indwelling Spirit who is there to be all that you need and more. The carnal Christian, you see, is the one who struggles to do something which is right, and perfectly good, but who ignores the life of Christ and all the wonderful provisions that God has made, at the infinite cost of the cross of Christ, to give to us an adequate source of power to live the Christian life.

So serious is that, that we have a warning against self-deception here, in Verses 8-9:

...those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God really dwells in you. Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. (Romans 8:8-9 RSV)

Notice the difference here between walking "according to the flesh" and being "in the flesh." Those who walk "according to the flesh" are Christians who are living below their possibilities; they are carnal, either sinfully carnal or legally carnal. For it is possible, you see, to be "in the Spirit" but "walk according to the flesh." But, on the other hand, those who are "in the flesh" aren't Christians at all. This is what Paul means when he says, "Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him." He is still "in the flesh" -- he is in Adam, and that is the only life that he knows, and that is the only power he knows.

If you do not have the indwelling Spirit of Jesus Christ, received by faith in Jesus Christ, you are simply not a Christian: you may be a church member, you may be very faithful in religious matters, you may be trying to lead a moral life, but, in the eyes of God, you have ignored the one great provision that he has made, at infinite cost, for acceptance in his sight, and, therefore, you are not a Christian. "Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him."

The clear implication here is that, if a man, though he profess to be a Christian, walks continually according to the flesh, he raises the grave suspicion that he is in the flesh and not in the Spirit -- that he is not even a Christian at all. That is why it is such a serious matter when Christians fail to walk in the power of the indwelling Christ. But now let's move into the section which brings us good news of the possibility of maturity, Verses 10-14:

But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through the Spirit which dwells in you.

So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh -- for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. (Romans 8:10-14 RSV)

This phrase in Verse 10, "your bodies are dead because of sin" has puzzled many people. It simply means that, when you were not a Christian, the deeds of your body, the things that you did, motivated by the egocentric flesh or self, were worthless as far as God was concerned. But when you became a Christian, and the Spirit came to dwell within, that control by the self-life didn't automatically change -- it still continues. In other words, Paul is saying again that those in the flesh cannot please God -- they simply cannot -- and this is the first thing that we need to learn in our relationship with God. Your spirit was made alive by imputed righteousness. You have a new will and a new heart, as we read, but your body is still under the control of the self, or the flesh. You are what is called in Scripture "a babe in Christ" -- carnal, not through willful choice, but through ignorance. This is what we have seen as the first stage of the Christian life, set out in Chapters 1-4 of Romans. However, the point is that you don't have to remain there. No Christian need remain in the place of carnality and defeat. Since the indwelling Spirit is in you, then you have all that you need to realize the victorious life of Jesus Christ in your body right now. This is what Paul is saying in Verse 11:

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through the Spirit which dwells in you. (Romans 8:11 RSV)

"Oh," you say, "I thought that was a promise that we would be resurrected some day." No, it isn't that at all. I used to think that too, until I saw the phrase "mortal bodies," not "dead bodies." Now, "mortal" means "not dead yet," and, as I read in my Greek reference indexes and concordances, I found that Mr. Thayer (than whom there is no whomer when it comes to the realm of Greek authority) says that this word means "subject to death, therefore still living." So, this is not a promise that God is someday going to raise your body out of the grave; it is a promise that right now, in your life, your body can be made subject to the life of Jesus Christ, and his life lived through you will transform your whole experience -- you become a genuinely new creature in Christ Jesus.

This is the same truth that you have in Second Corinthians 4:10, where Paul says we are "always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies." Now, tell me, isn't that what you really want? When you think of the life of Jesus -- that life of courage, and power, and poise, that life of gentleness and calmness and peace and grace -- isn't that what you want living in you and through you? Well, this is the secret: "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus," (2 Corinthians 4:10a KJV). That is, reckoning all my own self-efforts to be worthless, and useless, and nothing in his sight. Unable to do anything myself, I now lean back on the indwelling life of Jesus Christ and I find him present to live again, and to make my body live through him, so that his life is manifest in my mortal body! Not resurrection someday, but resurrection life right now!

Paul concludes we owe nothing to the flesh with its urges to self-pleasing and self-effort, for it results in nothing but death and defeat. But, if we continually lean back upon the indwelling power of the Spirit and do everything in dependence upon that alone, then we learn what life can really be like. Our salvation begins to make sense, and we discover that the same body that once was helpless to please God now becomes the very instrument by which God is served. God's cause is advanced, and Jesus Christ is manifested to others.

Paul then says, "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God." This is an important point. This means that only when we begin to let Jesus Christ live through us do we pass from childhood to manhood, from carnality to spirituality, from infancy to maturity. Then we begin to demonstrate what it is to be a son of God in the world, for only those who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. Paul goes on to show us that we are the children of God the minute we believe in Jesus Christ, and cry, "Abba, Father." We are the children of God, but we have no right to call ourselves the sons of God until we learn to be led by the Spirit in the victory of Jesus Christ.

I am not going to stand here this morning and belabor you with exhortations to grow up and get out of the kindergarten and stop being children and become sons of God -- I never saw a boy yet that didn't want to be a man, and nobody needed to urge him on. I believe that if you are a child of God by faith in Jesus Christ you will never be content to be just that. You will want to be more -- you want to fulfill all the possibilities of life in Jesus Christ and to be a son of God, visibly manifest to the world as such. What Paul is saying is that you don't need anything new for this. You don't need a new experience. You don't need a special gift of the Spirit -- or crisis time. You don't have to plead and wait before God before this can come to pass:

You need to get serious about obeying the voice of the Spirit of God, you need to take the Word of God seriously, you need to begin to believe him. We don't have to beseech him, and pray, "Lord, give me strength." He is there to be our strength. We don't have to say, "Lord, give me grace, give me peace; Lord help me through this." He is there to help us, and we just need to begin to take it, and live it, and claim it, and quit kidding ourselves, and start obeying the Word we already know.

You don't need to run away from life to be a Christian -- a victorious Christian. But, rather, the call is to: Face life, and rise up like men, and walk in the strength of God in the midst of this 20th century world.

I close with this word from Jim Elliott, one of the five missionaries who laid down their lives in Ecuador among the Aucas. He is writing to his parents, and he says,

Mr. and Mrs. Blank have a nice home, and belongings, and two cute kiddies, but are so like the rest of us that it is disheartening. We are so utterly ordinary, so common-place. We profess to know a Power the twentieth century does not reckon with, but we are harmless and therefore unharmed. We are spiritual pacifists, non-militants, conscientious objectors in this battle to the death with the principalities and powers in high places. Meekness must be had for contact with men, but brash, outspoken boldness is required to take part in the comradeship of the cross. We are sideliners, coaching and criticizing the real wrestlers, while content to sit by and leave the enemies of God unchallenged. The world can not hate us; we are too much like its own. Oh, that God would make us dangerous!

I echo that prayer. I don't know what your heart says, but, if I know my own heart, I am so aware that this is the great need of this hour in which we live -- that men may see Christians for what they are, that they may see something else than this namby-pamby, watered-down, milksop kind of Christian living that is content with defeat.

It is time that we take seriously the possibilities that God in Christ offers us, to be a disturbing factor in our generation. This is what God calls us to, and (may I say this to my own heart as well as to yours) you can have just as much of this victory as you really want, because it is when we really begin to take God seriously that these things become possible. Christ is not waiting. It is we who are hindering and holding back the manifestation he wants to make of his life in this world.

Prayer:

Our Heavenly Father, we pray this morning that we may sense the possibilities that are hidden in the words of this chapter, and call into action that manifestation of the life of Jesus Christ -- not by the clenching of our fists and the gritting of our teeth, not by the effort of ourselves to try to be something for you, but by the quiet resting upon your desire to be something in us. Lord, forgive us for the way we set your Word aside in our lives, and do not give heed to it. Teach us to pay no attention to the continual amassing of material things, placing our values on the things of the world rather than the things that you count valuable. Lord, forgive us; we would now begin to rise up and walk like men in this generation. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.

 

THE JOY OF BEING GROWN UP

by Ray C. Stedman

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May I warn you that this is not going to be a sermonette. "Sermonettes are for Christianettes," as someone has said (i.e., for baby Christians). One of the troubles of the church today is that we are plagued with people who have been babies for a long time. Now, babies are wonderful. We have a new baby in our home, and we think she is the finest thing that was ever made -- the latest model is the best -- but after a baby has been a baby for twenty years, it gets kind of tiresome.

One of the problems with the church is the number of Christians who need to be fed Pabulum when they ought to be eating strong meat (as the writer of Hebrews puts it in the fifth chapter). Unfortunately, the usually prescribed treatment for prolonged adolescence merging into premature senility that plagues many Christians has been for the pastor to stand up and whip people and try to make them grow by telling them to try harder. As we have been seeing in these sections of Romans, this will never work, because you can't grow by trying all the exhortations to try harder, to pray more, to study harder, to try to grow. And all the whippings and beatings that come from pulpits across our land are very ineffective as a cure for this condition.

None of you parents do it that way. When you have a child in your home and you are a little bit concerned about his growth rate, you don't get him up before you, and say:

"Now, what is the matter with you? Why don't you try a little harder to grow? If you would just put your mind to this, and set yourself to do it, you would grow. Now think about it, and try harder!"

We don't do that in the physical life -- it is obviously quite an impotent way of doing it. The only way to help someone grow is to help them understand the conditions of growth, and to act upon them. When they do that, then growth takes care of itself. That is what we have been attempting to do in these studies in Romans: To understand how it is God wants us to grow, to appropriate the new life that he gives us, and to act according to the conditions under which it grows.

In this section in Chapter 8, we come to a description of Christian maturity. This is a passage that is rich with suggestiveness. It is sort of like a quick glimpse behind a curtain that intrigues and fascinates you, but never quite explains what is going on. I never read this passage without a sense of the mystery that is involved in it -- it is an intriguing section. There are two divisions here, two very worthy themes: Verses 14-17: The Sign of a Son, Verses 18-25: The Sense of Suffering. Let's look at Verses 14-17 and take the first section -- the sign of a son:

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, "Abba, Father!" it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:14-17 RSV)

You will notice that the apostle uses two words, "children" and "sons." There is a difference between "children" and "sons" -- between a child of God and a son of God. All true Christians, as the apostle points out here, are children of God -- born into the family by faith in Jesus Christ. This experience our Lord Jesus himself called being "born of the Spirit," (John 3:8 RSV) -- the new birth, when, by faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ upon the cross, we believe God and are born into the family of God. These are the children of God.

Now, the sign of a child of God is that he knows the Father. That is always a sign that you belong to the family -- you know the father. This is set forth here in this expression of "Abba! Father!" "Abba" is the Hebrew (or, more exactly, Aramaic) word for "father" and it is the first sound that a baby makes.

I remember hearing a few years ago of Dr. Alan McRae, the professor of Hebrew at Faith Seminary in Philadelphia, and a well-known expert in the Hebrew language, and of the new baby in his family. While Dr. McRae was away on a trip the mother set about teaching the baby to say "Daddy" so that he could welcome his father home with that wonderful word. She struggled for a week or so, trying to get the baby to say "Daddy" and finally got him to say the word several times -- so she was confident that, when his father returned, the first thing that he would hear from his baby would be that wonderful word, "Daddy." The moment arrived, and Dr. McRae stepped through the doorway, and there was the little one ready to greet him. The father held out his hands, and the mother said, "Now, say it!" The baby looked up, and said, "Abba, abba, abba." Of course, knowing that his father was a well-known Hebrew student, he spoke Hebrew to him! Well, that is the first word that a baby speaks, and it a sign that we are in the family of God when we have a sense of fatherhood -- that he is our Father.

Dr. Donald Barnhouse related on his radio program some time ago an incident when a girl had received word that her fiancee had been suddenly killed in an accident. She was a new Christian, and, when she got this word, she was tremendously disturbed. She went into her room, and locked the door. Her mother heard her sobbing, and, after a bit, her mother said to her father, "I think you had better go up and see her. She needs a father right now." So the father went upstairs, and was about to open the door, when he heard his daughter sobbing. Quietly, he opened the door a crack, and saw that she was kneeling beside the bed, with her head buried in her hands, crying out, "Oh Father! Oh, Father! Father!" The man just quietly shut the door again, came back downstairs, and said to his wife, "She is in better hands than mine." She knew her Father!

This is the first mark of new life in Jesus Christ, the sign of being a Christian, the sign of being a child of God -- you know the Father. But the sign of a son is somewhat different. The sign of a son of God is that he is an heir of God, and has begun to possess and enjoy his inheritance. I realize that the son and the child are the same person. If you are a child, this also makes you the potential heir -- this is certainly true. But there is a difference between entering into the full possession of your inheritance and simply having it held in abeyance for you until you reach your age of majority. This is what the apostle is talking about here. In other words, until you begin to live in the fullness of the Spirit of God, you are like a minor child who has not yet entered into his inheritance. For it is those "who are led by the Spirit of God" who "are the sons of God." This is what he is talking about all along. Paul is trying to urge us to enter into our inheritance.

This picture that he draws comes from the Roman custom of adopting their children. A Roman father, if he had male children, never referred to them as his sons until they were of age. They were his children, but they were not his sons. But, when they became of age (which was about 14 in the Roman system) he took them down to the public forum, and, there, they were publicly adopted by their own father and thereafter regarded as his heirs. They entered into participation in their father's business, and had a share in his inheritance. This is what Paul is referring to here. As long as we are just children of God we know the Father, we are in the family of God, but we never begin to enter into our inheritance until we learn to walk in the Spirit as sons of God.

Now, you hear a lot of nonsense these days about the joys of childhood. Every now and then you run across some writer who writes a very descriptive passage about how wonderful it is to be a child. They regard childhood with a great spirit of nostalgia, as being that carefree, happy, ideal time of life. Well, I don't know how you feel about it, but that has never struck me as being true. I had a happy childhood, but I would never want to go back into it because, as I recall, when I was a boy I couldn't wait to be a man! I found the restrictions of childhood rather irksome and frustrating, and I felt so inadequate and so incompetent, and I was always fearful of failure, and of not being quite able to handle a situation. When I grew up, I gloried in the sense of adequacy and liberty that being grown up gave me.

Now, I do hope, as Christians, we begin to see that salvation never really begins to make sense until we start acting as mature sons of God. This is when our salvation begins to count -- when we enter into the wonderful liberty of the sons of God. Now let's see what this inheritance is: Paul says that those who are led by the Spirit of God are "heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ," (Romans 8:17b KJV). An heir is one who possesses what he owns.

"Well," you say, "can you own something that you don't possess?" Oh, yes. I have just been working through my library, and I find that I own a lot of books that I don't possess. I own the books but I don't have them; they are not in my possession. They have been loaned out, and others have them in their libraries. But, also, as I was going through my library, I found a two-volume set that had been given to me by my uncle some time ago. When I opened the cover I discovered that it was a Christmas gift to my great-grandfather, who was a preacher, given to him by his son on Christmas in 1863 -- almost a hundred years ago. Now I have that book, and, in that sense, I am my great-grandfather's heir -- I own what was once his.

This is what the apostle is talking about when he says that when we begin live in the Spirit, and walk in the Spirit, and are led by the Spirit, we become heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ: What once was his now becomes ours. As you read through the record of the life of Jesus, you are struck with that remarkable life that he lived -- the compelling power of his words, the tenderness of his actions, the courage and manliness of his deeds, his keen insight into human nature, the marvelous calm and poise that was his in every circumstance, the unforgettable impact that he made upon everyone.

What is the secret of a life like that? Wouldn't you like to discover it? What are the hidden resources of this sinless life, mighty in word and deed? Is it because he was himself the Son of God, God the Son now come into human flesh? Is his deity the reason he had such a wonderful life? Well, the strange thing is, as you read through the Gospels, you discover that the one thing he kept saying about himself was that he himself was nothing: When they challenged him about his healing of the impotent man, he said, "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do," (John 5:19b KJV). And when they challenged him on the judgment that he passed, he said, "I can of my own self do nothing," (John 5:30a KJV). Over and over this was his continual plea -- that, as the Son, he did nothing.

Then, at last, in the Upper Room, as he gathered with his disciples in the very shadow of the cross, with the air tense with anticipation and fear, when he spoke to them about leaving them and going to the Father, they were very disturbed. They said, "Well, where is the Father?" They were thinking in terms of space and time. They thought, "The Son is here, the Father is somewhere up there." And, you remember, Philip voiced the words of all the disciples when he said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it will be enough for us," (John 14:8), i.e., "open the heavens and give us one glimpse of God, and then we will be able to face the world with confidence, even though you are gone." Do you remember what he said? He said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father," (John 14:9 KJV). "I and my Father are one," (John 10:30 KJV).

Now, if that were all that he said, we might think that what he meant was that he and the Father were the same person. (There are some people who have taken those words in that sense.) But he didn't stop there; he went on. He said to them, "Believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself but: the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works," (John 14:10 KJV).The great secret was out at last. You see, in all that wonderful ministry of his, he was simply living in fellowship with an indwelling Father. He shows us, in his life, that man was intended to be a son of God like that. The true son is one who himself is nothing, but who lives in continual dependence upon an indwelling one within who does everything -- both of them distinct beings, both of them thinking, and feeling, and willing, and acting -- yet one is nothing and the other is all.

And then he said, "As the Father has sent me, even so send I you," (John 20:21 KJV), i.e. "as the Father lived in the Son, so Christ lives in the believer today." The same wonderful secret that made him mighty in word and deed is the same secret that is available to every believer in Jesus Christ who desires to enter into the full inheritance that we have in him.

I hope that you can see that this is not some pleasing and convenient addition to life which we can take or leave. This is not something optional -- there is no other life than this! Anything else than this is living death. The Bible declares it, and experience confirms it. "Without me," Jesus said, "you can do nothing," (John 15:5 KJV). This is a fundamental necessity if I am ever to know life, and live it to the full. That is why Paul puts this right in the very center of the book of Romans -- this is the essential thing! Immediately, the shattering revelation is made that, if you and I begin to live this kind of life, it will lead inevitably into some kind of suffering. Did you notice that?

...heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:17 RSV)

This takes us into the next section, where we consider the sense of suffering, Verses 18-25. Paul says:

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:18-25 RSV)

One of the thorniest questions that is ever asked a Christian is, "Why do the righteous suffer? Why do Christians suffer? Why does a God of love and power permit his loved ones to go through anguish here on the earth?" Any of you who have been in the place of pain and suffering, or have watched others go through these times of heartache and anguish, have felt the full force of that question come home. The Apostle Paul felt qualified to answer it. You know the record of his sufferings; it is rather disturbing to us comfortable saints today:

He was shipwrecked and left afloat on the sea; he was beaten with rods many times; he was beaten with stripes five times, 39 stripes each; he was hounded and hungry; he was in prison often; he was beset with physical infirmity that bothered him all of his life; he was in danger on land and sea: This is the man who now tells us what suffering is for! What is the reason behind suffering?

Well, the first thing that he says is that suffering is an expression of our union with Christ, i.e., we are to suffer with him. This is very important because just suffering alone is not the thing that accomplishes anything in our life, but it is suffering with Christ that does it. There can be a lot of suffering that goes on in your life and mine that is not with him, but it is only the suffering that is with him that accomplishes anything.

I am sure that, if his life is in us, and expresses itself through us, then we are bound to suffer because his life is love -- and love always suffers in an imperfect world. In fact, the test of true love is willingness to suffer. I wish that young people would understand that. Some of you young ladies could give your boy friend a little test the next time he vows to you eternal love: Ask him to come over and mow the lawn for you next Saturday and see if he is willing to suffer a little bit -- because, without doubt, the test of true love is its willingness to suffer. And, if we love Christ, then we find in our hearts a willingness to suffer for his name's sake. There are three kinds of suffering; let me give you these briefly:

First of all, there is that suffering which comes to us as a result of our own folly, our own sin, and this is the most frequent and common, even among Christians. We share this, of course, with all other human beings -- the pain, the heartache and grief, the tears and misery that we just cause ourselves because of our stubbornness, and our selfishness, and our rebellion, and all the evil within us. This kind of suffering, obviously, is not suffering with him; Christ has no part in that.

Second, there is that suffering which comes from circumstances over which we have no control -- what we call accidents -- those congenital deformities with which we are born, the results of other's actions, unforeseen circumstances that come crashing into our lives. This can be suffering with Christ or not, depending upon our attitude toward it. If we take it in rebelliousness, and refuse to accept it, and fight against it, or find ourselves becoming bitter and resentful, then this is simply suffering that comes without accomplishing anything for us. It only makes us hard, and bitter, and difficult to live with. If we take these things, however, as from the hand of a God who knows what he is doing and whom we can trust, recognizing that we need these things to accomplish something that he is after in our life -- in love -- then this is suffering with Christ.

Then, third, there is that suffering which comes from involving ourselves deliberately and willing in the problems and heartaches of others -- shared suffering -- when we deliberately get ourselves involved in somebody else's need and suffer along with them. This is obviously and clearly suffering with Christ; that was what he did when he was here. There are three things you can do about suffering. In the face of suffering, you can either: Break out, break down, or break through -- one of these three. If you break out, you rebel; you leap over the bounds, you break out of the boundaries; you grow bitter and hateful and hard.

Or, you can break down; there is much of that happening today -- becoming neurotic, being filled with self-pity, running away from life, withdrawing from society. Or, by the grace of God, the Christian can break through and touch the hidden springs of the life of Christ within him, and accept the suffering with joy, but gladly counting not our life dear unto ourselves, as the Scripture says (Acts 20:24), but gladly counting it a privilege to bear suffering for his name's sake. This is what you read about in the Early Church, isn't it? When they were beaten and persecuted, the went home rejoicing that they were counted worthy to bear suffering for his name's sake (Acts 5:41). Now, that is breaking through -- what a difference! Then we read that suffering is not only our union with Christ, but suffering with him is the way to glory. It is the process by which God brings glory into our life. You notice, "provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him," (Romans 8:17 RSV).

In Second Corinthians 4:17, Paul says, "this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison." In other words, it is the sufferings that create the glory; you can't have the glory without the suffering. If you avoid the suffering, you cancel out the glory, because the one is the process of the other. This is what Paul declares all the way through this passage, and he says also that it is achieving a gain that is far beyond the cost.

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us [or in us]. (Romans 8:18 RSV)

When you think of the record of Christian suffering through the centuries -- all the beds of pain and anguish, the years of agony that some have gone through, the persecution, being thrown to the lions, burned at the stake, all the tremendous past of Christian suffering -- then put that alongside what Paul says here, it is an amazing statement, isn't it. He says, "I consider that all the sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed as a result of it," Romans 8:18). It reminds me of that line from the poet Clough:

For while the tired vainly breaking
   Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back through creeks and inlets making
   Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

That is, down here it doesn't seem like we are getting very far, nothing seems to be accomplished; but over yonder, where we can't see, the great floodtide of suffering is washing in a great wave of glory which shall be revealed in its time. Then the apostle also says that suffering results in releasing creation from the bondage to futility: He says that the creation was subjected to futility, the whole world of nature around us (and what an accurate phrase that is) was subjected to futility. Haven't you discovered, over and over, as you live through life, that something you have felt would return to you wonderful rewards, something that would be the fulfillment of your dreams, something that seemed to be so bright with promise turned to cobwebs in your hands when, at last, you laid hold of it? It was subjected to futility. It didn't bring you what you wanted. You found that all that you had left was dust and cobwebs. I think that the dead body of Marilyn Monroe is probably one of the most eloquent and mute testimonies we have today to the truth of this statement -- the futility of life as we know it.

Every archaeologist's spade turns up the dust of silent civilizations of the past, where men and women lived, like you and me, with all the hopes and dreams that they had, but they have all long since crumbled away into the dust of the centuries, and been forgotten.

As I drive down the highway, every cemetery seems to me to be a mute reminder of the hunger of the human heart to want to be remembered for all time. Bertrand Russell, who is, of course, the high priest of atheistic philosophy today, has caught this very note of futility in nature, and, in this thought, he says,

The life of a man is a long march through the night surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach and where none tarry long. One by one, as we march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent death. Brief and powerless is man's life; on him all his race, the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for man, condemned today to lose his dearest, tomorrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day.

That is what life looks like when you don't see it from the standpoint of Jesus Christ! But Paul says (listen to this!) that the whole world of creation is standing on tiptoe eagerly craning its neck to see the day when God shall show forth the sons that he has been preparing -- the manifestation of the sons of God Romans 8:19). In other words, this present life in which we are living is just a school time that we Christians are going through, and here we have been placed to learn some lessons that are preparing us for the great day yet to come. And one of these days it is going to be graduation day -- the day when the sons of God will shed their humble attire and manifest that they have been princes in disguise all along, indwelt by the same wonderful secret of life that Jesus Christ had when he was here, indwelt by divine life, a man who is the vehicle of the divine life.

The last thing that the apostle says is that suffering teaches us how to handle the glorified body:

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:22-23 RSV)

I believe that the resurrection body is to be an instrument of such wonderful responsiveness and power and glory that God doesn't dare give it to us now, until we have learned, in the Spirit, how to become subject to him and obedient to his life within us. Until we learn that, he gives us this kind of frail, old, worn body of ours to learn on. In these, Paul says, we groan. And I have heard the groaning, haven't you? But, as the body deteriorates, the spirit grows stronger, and it is getting us ready for those new bodied to come. As Paul puts it, "the outward man perishes, but the inward man is renewed" (2  Corinthians 4:16 KJV) day by day.

The other day I gave my oldest daughter a driving lesson, and she wanted to start driving the Oldsmobile because it has an automatic shift. But I said to her, "No, dear, I think it would be better if you would start with the Chevrolet. It has a stick shift, and a clutch, and it is a little bit cranky and hard to operate at times, but if you will learn how to run this car, you'll have no trouble at all with the Oldsmobile."

You know, in a sense, God has done that with us: He has given us these old, cranky, balky, pain ridden bodies of ours, and has told us that, if we learn how to handle these, if we will learn how to make these obey, and present these to him as a living sacrifice, then we will grow ready in spirit to receive those glorious bodies that are now being prepared for us. And Paul says that, with this hope before us, we can patiently wait for God to teach all that we need to know.

The "outward man is perishing" (2 Corinthians 4:16 KJV): How true this expression is! It is interesting how, as we grow older: The print seems to become smaller, newspapers seem to be farther and farther away, stairways grow steeper and hills grow higher, people your own age are so much older than you are, and those that are younger are so much younger than you were when you were their age! People change, don't they? I saw an old friend the other day and he had changed so much that he didn't even recognize me!

As we move toward the end of life, the outward man is perishing, but what is happening to the inward man? That is the great thing that God is after. What is happening inside? Is he learning how to walk in the Spirit? Is he learning how to be obedient to the divine life within? -- how to walk in continual fellowship and dependence upon that risen life dwelling within? It is this that prepares us for those glorious bodies which will someday be ours, which will be responsive to every demand the Spirit makes upon us, and through which God intends to reach the whole of his created universe to establish his kingdom wherever there is matter in the universe. The closing word here is one of hope. I like that. Paul says,

Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:24b-25 RSV)

This means that the future for the Christian is as bright as the promises of God. We don't have to subscribe to any philosophy of despair, e.g., those words from Bertrand Russell. The Christian looks forward to a greater hope than he had in the day when he stood as a young man facing life for the first time.

I will never forget, a year or so ago, dear old Dr. Russell was invited to speak to a number of the high school young people at a conference at Mt. Hermon. He stood up before those young people, well over 90 years of age, with that wonderful, glorious shock of white hair and with his face beaming, as he told them about how he first came to know Christ some 80 years before. They listened with politeness and interest, but I could see, as I watched, that most of these young people were feeling sorry for this dear old man, for, after all, life was almost over for him and all the wonderful possibilities of life lay before them. All their dreams and their hopes lay unfulfilled in the future, and they were living in a time of great hope, but here was this poor, old man almost ready to drop -- with one foot in the grave -- and they felt sorry for him. But, as I watched them, I remember thinking, "His hope is greater than their hope" because:

All they can hope for is just a few years of the experience of the futility and the frustration of life, if that is all they have, while he is standing on the edge of the most exciting adventure that man can ever know, and iIs about ready, having been prepared by the Spirit of God through long years of patient waiting, for that glorious manifestation of the day of God which will open up into eternal, exciting experience beyond the imagination and comprehension of man. I thought of old Caleb, back there in the Old Testament, who, after 40 years of marching with the children of Israel in the wilderness, looked at the land from Mt. Hebron, and at the giants, and said to Joshua, at 85 years of age, "Joshua, give me this mountain for I am as strong yet as I was in the day when Moses sent me into the land" (Joshua 14:11-12 KJV). He saw that land 40 years before when Moses sent him in as a spy. He saw the mountain, and he wanted it. Hebron means "fellowship" and he claimed that mountain as his own, and, for 40 years, as they wandered in the desert, Caleb, by faith, lived in Hebron -- in the place of fellowship. In appropriating faith, he was there already, and, at last, there came the day when he actually entered into it and possessed it -- even though he was 85 years of age. All through that account we are told the secret of that man's strength, and hope, and faith. It is given in these words: "He wholly followed the Lord his God," (Numbers 32:12).

Doesn't that make you and me feel a bit ashamed? Just such a simple thing -- to wholly follow the Lord our God would bring us through all the encircling years, through all the difficulties and trials, and the heartaches, traps, and tricks of life, to that place where we stand ready to enter into our inheritance -- not only to enter in, but to be ready for it -- that God may express through us what it means to be a son of God!

Prayer:

Our Father, these words have been lifting up our hearts and our eyes somewhat, to look beyond this present life. We thank you, Lord, that the Christian hope does not end here, but looks beyond to realms that are beyond our comprehension at the moment, and into exciting and thrilling possibilities that are far greater than we can even dream at this present hour. But we thank you that the secret of attaining these, the secret of entering into our inheritance lies in this simple thing that we have been speaking of all along -- fellowship with our Lord Jesus -- that he dwells in us as thou, the Father, once dwelt within him -- that we have the same possibilities as he had, of life lived to the full. We pray, Father, that we may begin to possess them, that we may begin to enjoy them as being your sons, that we may begin to understand and to see something of the supernatural possibilities of Christian living. We ask it in Christ's name, Amen.

 

PRAYER, PROVIDENCE, PRAISE

by Ray C. Stedman

---

Romans 8 is a great favorite of many people, and yet, though we love to read this chapter, amazingly, there are relatively few who really live in it. The reason for this is that we like to get into the beauty and glory and triumph and victory of Romans 8, but we tend to skip over the struggle and heartache and darkness of Romans 6 and 7. But you can't live in Romans 8 until you have experienced the reality of Romans 6  and 7. The joy and the victory of this great chapter rests solely on the death and the struggle of Romans 6 and 7.

I wonder if you have learned the principle in your Christian life that Calvary comes before Pentecost -- that the fullness of the Spirit is only possible after having entered into the experience of the death of the cross. I am not speaking, of course, of being crucified in physical terms, but of what this means to you spiritually. All through the Word of God, the testimony of the Scripture is that death precedes life -- that it is out of death that life comes. You remember that the Lord Jesus said, "except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit," (John 12:24 KJV).

This is the unerring principle of productivity and fruitfulness as set forth in the Scriptures. Likewise, it is necessary for you to be an infant before you can enter into your inheritance as a son and experience the fullness of what life is like in Jesus Christ. That is what we have been learning in these opening chapters of Romans, and, if you have followed along, you remember, in our last study together, we were noting how the Christian life is a life of paradox:

It is a life of power lived in the presence of weakness, and you have to have the weakness in order to have the power. It is a life of hope that is lived in the midst of futility, where everything around is stamped with futility, yet, in the Christian, this becomes translated (transformed) into hope. It is all because of the indwelling presence of Jesus Christ in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

I hope that we have seen that the life of the Christian -- the Spirit-filled life -- is not a life designed just for the weekend, just for Sunday, or just for the church. It is a life designed for the home, the school, the shop, the office, the sink -- wherever you are. And it is there that God expects us to live a Spirit-filled life. The Spirit-filled life is not a religious jag that you experience every weekend to make you forget what happened during the week, but, rather, it is designed to meet the need of every moment of that week, and to be your source of strength and power right through all the difficulties of the week.

Let's pick up our text in the 26th verse of Romans 8, where we see now how this begins to work out in our practical life. The first thing that Paul brings before us is to show us how this works in the matter of prayer:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (Romans 8:26-27 RSV)

Notice that Paul admits that we do not always know how to pray, but it is very clear that we know that we should pray -- if we are Christians. In fact, prayer is the instinctive mark of the believer in Jesus Christ.

Remember when Paul was converted on the Damascus Road? He had gone to Damascus breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the Christians, and had already gained a reputation as the most violent and hostile persecutor of the Christians. Then he met Jesus Christ in the dust of the Damascus Road, and was led by the hand, blind and unseeing, into the city to wait there till someone should be sent by God to instruct him further as to what to do. Then it was, you remember, that the Spirit of God spoke to a man by the name of Ananias, and said, "Go to the street called Straight, and there you will find a man called Saul; and there I want you to baptize him because he is a Christian," (Acts 9:11). Ananias objected, and said, "Lord, this man is the most terrible persecutor the Church ever had; I can't go to him!" (Acts 9:13-14). And you remember what God said, "behold, he is praying," (Acts 9:11 RSV). In other words, this is the sign that he is now a believer, and he has yielded himself to Christ -- he prays.

Prayer, I think, is the most distinctive mark of a Christian. If you don't pray, or have any desire for prayer, then it is very likely that is a sign that you are not a Christian at all, because, as the poet has put it, "Prayer is the Christian's native breath." And we can't live without praying -- it is the simplest and best expression that we have of our sense of dependence upon God.

Have you noticed that nobody prays unless he feels a sense of dependence? People that feel independent, and able to run their own lives, never pray. It is only when we come to the place where we realize we can't handle everything that we begin to pray, and out of that sense of dependence comes the instinctive cry of the heart expressed in prayer. In fact, that Christians pray indicates very clearly that God desires us to have a conscious participation in working out our own salvation.

As we have been seeing all along, God himself is in us, having taken up residence in the believer to perform all that is required, and each one of us has a power within which is quite sufficient to meet every need that we have: God is that power. He is the originator and the performer of it all. Nevertheless, he always involves us in conscious cooperation.

This is something that I think many people fail to see. So many Christians get the idea that God is going to do everything, and they just have to sit and wait, and think all they need to do is fold their hands and nothing more than that, and God will do everything. God is going to do everything, but it is going to be through them. You will never grasp the full meaning of the plan and program of God for Christian activity until you see that the human will, and the human mind, and human effort are always involved in what God does through you. This is certainly obvious in the matter of prayer. God expects us to pray. He wants us to ask for things -- even though he knows that we need them.

Christianity is not a kind of sublime welfare state, where you just sit around and the government does everything for you. That is a false conception. But the Christian life is expecting God to be at work in you -- and then going ahead and doing that which is necessary, with a conscious realization that God is present to do it through you. This is quite a difference.

When the Lord Jesus taught about prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, he pointed out that there were certain things that we need. He spoke of eating, and drinking, and living, and wearing clothes, and all these necessary things. He said, "Your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things," (Matthew 6:8 KJV). You don't need to tell him, he already knows it. Yet, at the same time, he said in his model prayer that he asked us to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," (Matthew 6:8). God knows that we need bread, but he wants us to ask for bread. He is ready to supply it; he is ready to meet our need, but there is always this conscious participation in what God is doing in our lives.

So this passage sets forth the fact that we ought to pray, and James reminds us that "we have not because we ask not," (James 4:2 KJV). Much of the time we are miserably poverty-stricken in our spiritual lives, and in our physical lives, simply because we never stop to ask God to give us anything. We expect that he knows what we need, and we expect him to supply it, and we never ask him for anything.

God wants us to ask, but, also, there are times when life is just simply too big, and too complex, and we don't know what to ask for. This is what Paul is speaking about when he says,

...we do not know how to pray as we ought... (Romans 8:26b RSV)

Haven't you been in the situation where you wondered what in the world to pray for? You didn't know how to pray. You didn't know what would be the best solution to the problem. You could see two sides to it, and one way looked like it would work, then you would see the other side and it looked like another, entirely different process would be the thing to do -- and you didn't know what to pray for. We recognize that there could be times when we would be praying conflicting things.

I imagine the San Francisco Giants pray that God will help them win the pennant, and the Dodgers are praying the same things. What is right? I don't know. There are many other situations like that -- when we don't know how to pray as we ought. What then? Paul says the indwelling Spirit helps our infirmities, our weaknesses, and he prays

...for us with sighs too deep for words. (Romans 8:26c RSV)

The word for "sighs" here is really the word "groanings" -- "with groanings to deep for words." Now, what are these? There are some who tell us that this means a special manifestation of the Spirit, such as tongues or ecstatic cries that come from the heart, and there is a movement abroad today to revive the gifts and signs of the gifts of the Spirit. I understand that, in the next few weeks, here in Palo Alto, there are going to be meetings held to investigate this matter of reviving of tongues and other ecstatic gifts in the church. I am not going to go into that subject this morning, except to say that this is not what this verse is talking about -- there are not ecstatic cries or tongues or any special language that is mentioned here. No, Paul specifically says that the praying of the Spirit is too deep for words -- or utterance -- it is unuttered, it cannot be expressed. It is felt only in the heart; it never comes to the surface of the lips; it never can be expressed. In other words, these are those deep yearnings of the soul that all of us feel at times for more of God for ourselves, or, perhaps, for someone else. This what we often call "a burden."

Have you ever sensed a burden in your life for prayer for your own needs or someone else's needs? Well, this is what Paul is talking about. It is that clamant thirst after righteousness that our Lord Jesus said is blessed:

"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled." Matthew 5:6 RSV)

It is a dissatisfaction with the present experience of your life, and a discontent with the shallowness of your present Christian experience, and a hungering after richer fellowship with God which are born of the Spirit within. It is the evidence that, deep within the heart, is a spirit that cries out for more of God. It is expressed in the song, Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts, in the words, "from the best bliss that earth imparts, we turn unfulfilled to thee again." This is the cry of the Spirit within for something more, something deeper, something more precious, something more satisfying than our present experiences -- and it is always according to the will of God, as the apostle says. In other words, the job of the Spirit of God in your life is to keep you pressing on, so that you don't settle down and become satisfied. Now isn't the time to be satisfied.

Have you ever noticed that men and women of God, both in the Word of God and in the history of the church, have been hungering and thirsting after more? There will come a day when we are going to be satisfied, when we will awake in his likeness, but down here there is never any resting place.

We have all experienced this, haven't we? We have come through times of spiritual crisis to the place of victory, perhaps after weeks and months of weary, frustrating defeat. God, at last, brings us to the place of victory, and we rejoice in the freedom and the glory of the new found fellowship with him, and then we say, "Lord, I want to live on this plane."

We are like Peter up on the mountain top: We say, "Lord, let's build three tabernacles here, and let's stay up here! This is wonderful!" (Matthew 17:4, Mark 9:5, Luke 9:33). But God will never let us stay there -- there is always that pressing on which is born of the Spirit within. The Spirit prays within us, creating those restless yearnings for something more of God than we now possess. Then what happens? Well, you see the results of such praying, in this next section. It is what we oftentimes call Proverbsidence.

We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Romans 8:28-30 RSV)

The great statement here is in Verse 28: "We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him." Or, as the King James Version has it, "All things work together for good to those who love God, who are called according to his purpose."

Now, you know that verse, don't you? How many times have you quoted it? It is simply saying that the things that happen to you are God's answer to the silent yearnings of the Spirit within you -- not some things that happen to you, but everything that happens to you, whatever it may be! It is God's way of meeting the cry of the Spirit within to lead you into a deeper and a more wonderful experience of God's grace, and God's glory, and God's person. We preachers tend to expound this as though it only covers the trials and the heartaches because that is where most people have trouble -- they can't accept those -- but it isn't speaking only of trials and heartaches. It is everything that happens, all the delightful things as well.

One of the wonderful things about walking with Jesus Christ is the many delightful surprises that lie along the way. He often has happy little incidents that take place:

While we were in Colorado Springs recently, we drove up to Denver for a day or two. We had planned to take the superhighway that runs between the two cities, but we ended up taking a gravel, wilderness road. The day before, I had taken the family fishing in the mountains back of Pike's Peak. My wife caught a record trout, and we got so excited over the trout that we forgot the baby's stroller, and left it by the side of the lake. So we had to go back up and get the stroller. While we were there, we saw that the gravel road that we were on eventually led to Denver, so, having plenty of time, we decided to take that road to Denver.

It was a wilderness road (i.e., it went through the mountains away from civilization), but we were used to California wilderness roads -- where there is a gas station at every other bend in the road. We went for 32 miles and didn't see a thing, and were beginning to run very, very low on gas. Still there was no sign that we were arriving anywhere! Finally, I saw a car stopped along the road, coming from the other direction, so I stopped to ask him what was ahead. I said to the man, "Can you tell me how far it is to a gas station on up ahead?" He looked at me, and said, "Oh, I don't know. I have been riding around in these mountains all morning and I haven't found one."

So we went on a little way, and there was another car stopped and I asked him, and he said, "Well, it is at least twenty miles on to a gas station." Since, the needle on my gauge was already resting on the empty mark, and I said, "I'm sure that I can't make that!" He said, "Well, I tell you what to do: You go up the road about two or three miles, and you will come to a fork in the road, and there is a sign that says there is a campground about half a mile away. There are lots of campers there, and perhaps one of them may have some gas."

So we began to ask the Lord for enough fumes to get us down the road three or four miles. We got down there all right, and asked the first campers if they had any gasoline. The man said, "Well, no. We don't have any gas, but we have a can -- an empty can. Maybe I could drain some out of the car." We were talking about it when another man walked across the road, and said, "You-all having trouble?" I said, "We are running pretty low on gas, and it doesn't look like we are getting anywhere where we can get some." "Gas?" he said, "I've got 10 gallons of it in the back of my pickup here." So he took us over and gave us 2 gallons of gasoline -- plenty to get us to the nearest gas station -- and our need was provided.

As we were riding along I just thought to myself, "I don't know why this happened, but I just imagine it was one of those little delightful things that the Lord Jesus throws in to show you how well he can take care of you when you need it -- even poor California tenderfeet, wandering around in the wilderness, can be taken care of." It isn't all heartache, by any means, there are so many delightful surprises.

Incidentally, the next day, in Denver, a man who had been down at the conference in Glen Eyrie, and was greatly troubled about circumstances in his life, heard that I had gone to Denver. He chased me all over town, and finally sought me out, and we talked for two or three hours. When I had occasion to relate this little incident to him, his face just beamed as he realized how true it was that God could take care of his own. I think that is why the Lord allowed it to happen.

But there is no need to avoid the other side, because not only does this include the lovely things, but it also includes those heartbreaking and painful experiences where life just seems to collapse around you and fall apart at the seams. Now, these experiences are sent; they don't just happen. This is the testimony of Scripture to the believer. These things are sent -- everything, without exception -- they don't just happen. They are working together for good to accomplish the deep yearning of the heart, awakened by the Spirit within, for more of the grace and glory and person of God.

Many of you remember Wendy Welch, who was here for many years, and the experiences of pain and sorrow that he went through -- how his legs became diseased and had to be amputated, and how, at last, the disease took his life. Just before he died he wrote this testimony, which I read at his funeral:

I asked the Lord to heal me and to make me whole,
   But he lamed me to teach me humility.
I asked him to make me rich,
   But he impoverished me to teach me to trust him.
I asked him to let me run my life and do his wishes tomorrow,
   But he admonished me that there may never be a tomorrow.
I asked him to let me enjoy the sin of pride in material things,
   But he took them away to make me dependent upon him alone.
He gave me nothing that I asked for, and everything that I wanted.
   I have no choice but to trust him with everything, from now to eternity.

That says it, doesn't it? "He gave me nothing that I asked for, but everything that I wanted."

This expresses what God is doing in our lives -- he is working out the situation not to supply our wants but our needs. And those needs find expression in the deep unuttered longings of our hearts, those restless dissatisfactions that show we cannot be satisfied with what we are presently going through, but cry out for something more, something greater, something yet to slake the thirst of our soul.

The great revelation here in Verses 29-30 is that it is all according to a plan. These things sometimes seem to come to us without any pattern or meaning, but they don't. There is a plan and a goal that God has in mind, and the goal is set forth here in Verse 29: "Those whom he foreknew, he also predestined." Don't be afraid of that word "predestined." That means that God thought it out in advance, just like we plan a house before we build. So God planned what he is going to do -- he predestined:

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren. (Romans 8:29 RSV)

You see, God isn't content to have just one Son in his family; he wants a whole host of them. He wants a great crowd of sons, of whom Jesus Christ is the first and the chief.

In order to accomplish that, through the encircling centuries, he has been working out his plan by which he is producing (through the Spirit at work in men's lives) the glories, and the grace, and the character of Jesus Christ -- that we might "be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren."

This is his goal with you: It is not to make you a great prayer warrior, or to make you a top Christian layman. These all may be a part of the process, but the goal that he has in mind is to make you like Christ -- not to look like him, but to be like him. Yet, the amazing thing is that, though he makes all in the same character, there is an infinite variety in their expression; this is the glory and beauty of God's work.

Have you noticed that this pattern is so prominent in nature? God makes everything out of the same simple elements, but they are always different. Every one of us has a nose, two ears, a mouth, a forehead, some hair (more or less), a chin -- and, with these few simple elements, God made faces. But he never makes two alike; with these few simple elements to work with, there is infinite variety.

Now, this is the way God works: Though we all share the character of Jesus Christ, it is not a mold that stamps out the same being over and over and over again, but there is an infinite variety of expression of the beauty of the character of the Lord Jesus Christ. The plan began in eternity past and doesn't end until eternity in the future, but it is such a vast process that we can't comprehend it.

That is why we are puzzled and confused about the parts of the process along the way. We are like the weaver who weaves cloth, and, working from the wrong side of the garment, all we ever see is a tangle of threads that seems to make no sense at all. But, when the process is finished, you can look on the other side, and there is the pattern beautifully worked out. That is what life is like with us. That is what God is doing in your life and mine.

In view of this, the final word here is a great shout of praise!

What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him? Who shall bring anything against God's elect? It is God who justifies; who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecutions, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,
   "For thy sake we are being killed all the day long;
   we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31-39 RSV)

Now, that is a wonderful statement, and, in times of doubt, I suggest that you try to answer these questions. There are eight of them here. Just take them, one by one: "What shall we say to this?" Well, what shall we say? How do you answer this kind of proposition? "If God is for us, then who can be against us?" That is, "What difference does it make who is against us?" If God is for us, is there anything that can be against us that is greater than he? "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also [freely] give us all things?" He who so freely gave the choicest thing that he had to give when we were yet sinners and enemies of God -- now that we are his friends -- will he not complete the process? That is Paul's argument. "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?" What voice is there that can say something that will stand against us, when God is for us? "It is God who justifies; who is to condemn?"

"Is it Christ Jesus?" Is he the one? Why he died for us; he arose again; he is at the right hand of God; he loves us; he intercedes for us. Is he going to condemn us? No! "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" Then he lists these things in two parts: First, he lists the perils of life: "Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril or sword?" No! None of these things! Then he lists all the things of the unseen world: "I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation..." And his conclusion is that "in all these things we are more than conquerors." What does that mean, "more than conquerors"?

If we barely manage to win our way to heaven by the skin of our teeth, we could be said to be a conqueror, but a "more than conqueror" is someone who takes the worst that life can throw at him and uses that to become victorious. "More than conqueror" is one who, by the grace and the gift of God, and in the strength of God within him, actually takes the very things that are designed to destroy him, and they become stepping stones instead of stumbling blocks. That is being "more than conquerors."

Just this week, I finished reading an amazing book written by Ernest Gordon, the dean of the Chapel at Princeton University. He tells of his own experience as a British officer in the Japanese prison camp by the River Quai in Thailand. This camp was made famous by the movie, The Bridge over the River Quai.

He was one of the prisoners that built that bridge, and he tells about that camp, and about their indescribable starvation diet which made them nothing but walking skeletons, yet they were driven out each day to do heavy labor on the bridge. Thousands of them died as cholera, and other diseases, swept through the camp. The morale of the camp plummeted to the bottom -- there was nothing left. It was a hopeless, hideous situation in which men lived in filth and squalor, and walked about as the living dead. He tells how he himself descended, through disease and weakness, to a place where his body was taken and laid away in the death house, among all the corpses. Though he was still alive, he was laid there to die.

In that camp, there were one or two people who, though they were not what we would call Evangelical Christians, nevertheless, entertained a deep faith in God. One or two men began quietly, in the midst of the darkest hour of the camp, to exercise a little faith and a little love, and to do things for one another. Gradually this spirit spread, and soon others became involved. They organized a massage team to go around and massage one another's legs to try to restore health to these members that had ceased working. Gradually this spirit transformed the camp, and faith and joy and hope sprang into being again. They organized an orchestra, made their own instruments, and finally had a 40-piece orchestra. They organized a church. They began Bible study classes, and a man who had been a skeptic all his life was the teacher. As he taught the Bible, he began to see something of the reality of these things.

The story goes on to tell how this whole camp was transformed, and though the outward circumstances were unchanged, the Japanese were as hostile and as cruel as ever, the work was as heavy and the disease was rampant, yet the spirit of those men was literally transformed and they became joyous, happy, victorious individuals -- many of them. The whole camp became entirely different.

He told how, when at last they returned to civilization, they looked forward to coming home -- to a place where they would experience again the joys of life. But, when they got home, they discovered that civilization is an illusion -- that the realities of life were discovered back in the prison camp. It was when they were down in the darkest, and the deepest, and the lowest depths of their lives that they began to lay hold of the eternal verities that strengthen a man's soul. They became, by faith, "more than conquerors."

This is the message of this chapter, isn't it? The eternal verities are not doubt and fear and death, but life and hope and love. Though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet -- and now abideth faith, hope, and love; these three, but the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13:13 KJV). And as God's love, shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5 KJV), manifests itself in your life, you can discover (as Paul discovered, and as every Christian has discovered through the centuries) that faith and hope and joy and peace are the great underlying verities of life. They always work, no matter what the situation may be.

Prayer:

Our Father, we thank you that we have this great testimony from the apostle, and we join with him in these words of praise. Thanks be unto God, who has given us such a One who can triumph in us -- in the midst of the most pressing circumstances of life. Lord, we thank you for the indwelling Spirit who creates within us a hunger for this very experience, and, in the creating of the hunger, brings about the circumstances that will drive to the discovery of these things. We thank you, Father, for this. We know that, though the road be painful, and though it may lead through some times of sorrow and stress and heartache, yet it leads always into the dawning of a day when we shall see and know as we are known, and enter into the reality of rest in thee. We thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Copyright: © 1995 Discovery Publishing, a ministry of Peninsula Bible Church.

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