Transcript for:
Romans 7:15,25 -Deliverance- Pastor Rick Beaudry 2023-06-11

Romans 7, 15 through 25. Would you please open your Bibles and stand with me? Romans 7, 15 through 25. For that which I do, I allow not. For what I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me that is in my flesh dwells no good thing. For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would, I do not. But the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity of the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord, so then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. Father I thank you for your holy word and as the Apostle Paul as he came out of Judaism and being a Pharisee of Pharisees, just concerning his contemporaries, he exceeded them all with the external keeping of the law. But Lord when you arrested him on that road to Damascus and he learned that the law dealt with the inward man, Lord he was convicted, he was undone, he was guilty. And Lord we see the struggle here in Romans 7 and Lord we're anxious to get in Romans 8, but Lord we need some clarity, we need you to illumine our hearts and minds of that battle between the flesh and the spirit, the battle of the old man, the old edemic nature as it wars and fights with us in our new nature, being born again. Lord we want to be delivered, we want to experience the victory, we want in an ongoing way to grow and be transformed and changed from glory to glory in the image of Christ. Lord help us to discover the truths that are here, that Lord we might walk in victory and not be so defeated as Christians. In Jesus name we pray, amen. Would you please be seated. Paul says in verse 14, for we know that the law is spiritual but I am carnal, sold under sin. That word carnal is the Greek word sarkos and it speaks of the flesh, that part of man that seeks to be independent of God, the old fleshly nature, sold under sin. So sin has closed the mortgage and owns its slave. There's three types of men. When Adam and Eve were in the garden, when God told them the day you eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall surely die, they went from being a trinity, body soul and spirit, to being body and soul. And so what died was their spiritual part of them. So Nicodemus you must be born again. So you have the spiritual man first of all, we can be born again in 1 Corinthians 2, 9 and 10. Now this is a passage that many use in verse 9 describing heaven. And we write songs I can only imagine and you know we can use it that way, it's fun, it's exciting. But you've got to continue reading to see the context of what's really being said here. So Paul's talking about the spiritual man, talking about the revelation, the understanding, the spiritual illumination that comes to the spiritual man in contrast to verse 14 in the same chapter of the natural man. The natural man's edemic in nature. So the spiritual man, eye has not seen, so your eye faculties looking through your natural senses, eye has not seen, your natural ears haven't heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, don't trust your heart, the heart's a deceitful above all things, desperately wicked, and who can know it? You don't even know your heart. So eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither has in the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love him. And we stop there. But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit. You and I as Christians, God is revealing unto us the realm of the Spirit. But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. So you and I can go deeper and deeper and deeper in our relationship with Jesus as we study God's Word and rely upon the Holy Spirit. Jesus says it's expedient that I go to the Father because I'm going to send the comfort of the Holy Spirit, and he's going to teach you all things. And it's not just a, it's not just like the chat GBT, an accumulation of knowledge, a sterile knowledge, it's intimate knowledge, knowledge of God. God's revealing himself to you and I as we are born again, no longer separated from God, because the natural man, he understands, receives not the things of God, the spiritual things of God, and to him they're foolishness, neither can he know them because they're spiritually discerned. So the natural man doesn't receive the Spirit, doesn't receive these spiritual things. There's a gulf there. The natural man, when he prays, God doesn't even, you know, hear that prayer or answer that prayer because he doesn't have access. He has no ability because he's still in his sins. And so the natural man is the unregenerate man. But here's the anomaly in chapter 7, the carnal man. The carnal man, the sarkicos, is the fleshly Christian person, the person that may be born again but is dominated by the flesh. The flesh is dominating this person, so much so that the person is not yielding to the Holy Spirit. And so 1 Corinthians 2, 9 and 10, the spiritual man, 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14, the natural man. And now you go to 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verses 1 through 4. Paul says, are you not carnal? Are you not fleshly? Are you not, you know, I tried to feed you with meat but, you know, I give you milk. I can't give you meat because you're carnal, because you're fleshly. You know, you've been carnal, you've been fleshly. Hitherto and even now you're still carnal. I have to treat you as babes. I have to treat you as babes in Christ because of your carnality. And he says, and he drew a picture there of the factions, the fight that was taking place. And so let me read it for you, the first four verses of 1 Corinthians chapter 3. And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, the spiritual man, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto you were not able to bear it, neither yet are you able. For you are yet carnal, for whereas there is among you envy and in strife and divisions, are you not carnal? And walk as men. For while one saith, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are you not carnal? So the factions, the divisions, the church of Corinth was very gifted. They'd move and work in the gifts, but they were using the gifts in a poor way. So Paul is shown in chapter 12, 13, and 14, the proper usage of the gifts, without love you're nothing, in chapter 13. So they're gifted, a very gifted group of people, but they were also very carnal. They're very immature in their walking relationship with the Lord. And so I heard a pastor this week say that the majority of the apostate church today, the Laodicean, Laodicea means people rule. So the people ruling, when we do surveys and we do polls and we knock on doors and ask the people what they want in a church, which you never see the Bible doing, Jesus is never asking you what you want in his church. All right? Do you understand that? But the Laodicean church is on the throne. They think they're in control. And they're looking for teachers having itching ears that teachers will tell them what they want to hear. These teachers recognize that and appeal to their senses, appeal to their flesh, so that their flesh is fed, so their flesh is, you know, they get, they're told that your best life now, they're told you're healthy, wealthy, and wise. They're just told a whole lot of fables and things, you know, no emphasis upon repentance. So watering down on the Word of God, milk, just only give it a milk, maybe give them the very basics of the gospel each week, or maybe not. Jump off of a verse and then go into story, story time. So doctrines of demons and fables and fairy tales, and that's the kind of second grade level of most of the church today, especially in Kitsap County. And they're big churches. It appeals to people. So you come here to Calvary Bremerton, and you're overwhelmed with how much scripture we're going to go through. And you say, man, that's a lot of scripture. And, you know, I think they're using too much Bible. Well, that's what the church growth movement taught these pastors. The more of the Bible you use, the smaller your church will be. Verse by verse teaching is death to a church. That's what they've been taught over the last 20 years, these guys. So where's it led us? It's led us to a place of apostasy, falling away from the truth, and now we're embracing an existential humanistic philosophy, which is the Laodicean church, where they've kicked Jesus out of the church. They're insipid, they're powerless, they're lukewarm. Jesus says, you make me sick, I want to spew out of my mouth. That's a carnal apostate falling away from the Lord's church. And many are going to hear the Lord say, many of them are unregenerate, going to hear the Lord say, wait for me, I never knew you. Now, my pastor may have fed me milk when I first got saved, but there was always some broccoli soup mixed in, and there was there was always some meat, some fish, some chips, you know, dessert. And so there was a balanced diet that if there was somebody there that had been a Christian 30 years, they're going to get fed. If there's a brand new babe in Christ, we've got to feed the babies, got to give them some milk. So it was a well-balanced diet that we see in Acts chapter 20, where Paul said, for the space of three years, I ceased not night and day to bring you the full counsel of God. And so there was just a really good discipleship taking place where we'd go through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you began to grow. So for me, he didn't insult me. He didn't treat me like a baby after five or ten years being there. He took knowledge of where I'm at in the Lord. And so what I'm saying to you is, I respect your level of intelligence. I respect your ability to read the Bible and to learn. I'm not going to disrespect you and dummy it down, water it down, and only teach you the entry-level truths of the Bible so that we can get into the fleshly aspects of what it means to be a human being and entice you with the messages of the flesh, of humanism, of existentialism, to appeal to your senses. So one of the pastors this week said, the apostasy is in three forms. One is the apostasy, the falling away from the truth theologically, getting away from the word of God. Secondly, an apostasy, a falling away from the truth morally, the immorality that's crept into the church. And thirdly, the methodology, the way that the churches have at Christmas time a high wire and then Santa Claus is flying through the sky and stuff like that, and smoke machines and all that. All that sensory, all that stimulation to the people's senses and all. It's entertainment, but when you walk out that door, you haven't been edified. We're told to do everything to edification, to build you up spiritually. So to use a phrase that Pastor Chuck used that I use from time to time, you could come in here being a Christian for 30 years but have an arrested state of development. You could still be a babe, a carnal Christian because you haven't been fed. Healthy sheep reproduce. Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep. Tend my lambs. Feed my sheep. So the job description of a pastor in Ephesians 4, he's a pastor teacher. He's got to teach. Go and make disciples. You've got to teach them. So Paul's saying to the church of Corinth, you know, I couldn't teach you at first and give you meat. You're babes. I had to give you the bottle, you know, and how difficult that is to take a 40-year-old person and put them in your arms and feed them like a babe. It's ridiculous, you know. If you're a brand new believer, that's fine. We understand that at 40 years old. But if you've been a Christian for 15, 20, 30 years, you've been in a church and you're still a babe in Christ, you know, number one, we have to look at your pastor and we have to say shame on him. And number two, we have to look at you and say, why? Why did you put up with that for so long? Why did you continue in that? Why did you support that? Why are you still there, you know? Like even when COVID happened and we stayed open and people came, many of you came, why did so many go back to those insipid, powerless churches? Why when they seen, when they tasted and they realized what happened, why do you go back to that? Is it because you want to hide? Because you want to hide from the truth? You don't want to hear prophecy? Don't want to hear the Bible? Don't want to hear what's happening today? You want to be in denial? You want to live in denial? Wouldn't you rather study prophecy? Wouldn't you rather know if God's provided 27% of the Bible is prophecy? Wouldn't you want to know that? So if artificial intelligence is going to write a Bible, guess what part they won't be able to write? It's the prophecy. Can't write the prophecy. Why? Because the devil who's behind it all is not omniscient. He doesn't know all things. The devil's a student. The devil can read the prophecies we have and say, all right, this is what's going to happen. But they can't write a Bible and prophetically say, hey, agenda 2030 is going to happen in agenda 2030. It's going to happen in 2030 because we said so. No. Many times throughout history, these globalists, these demoniacs, from the time of the Garden of Eden to this present time, there's been a rebellion against God. And the devil who is cast out of heaven because of his coup against God in Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28, has tried to usurp and take over the planet, case in point, the Tower of Babel and other points in time throughout history, and has failed. And God has stopped them, all their efforts in their tyranny to take control of the planet and remove Jesus from the consciousness of the people and all. And they didn't see the church coming. As Robbie said, these guys boasted that they slaughtered our Jesus. Well, you know what? He rose from the dead three days later. Why are you wanting to boast? No man took his life from him. He willingly laid it down. It wasn't a big coup that you did. He spoiled all principalities and powers and triumphed over them. That's the victory that we have. Now they can try to boast and we killed your Jesus or whatever. Well, you know what? You didn't kill our Jesus. My sin nailed him to the cross of Calvary. He went to take care of my sin. My sin put him there. And so you're guilty for what you've done, you crazy religious leaders, and all God's going to hold you accountable. But don't be misunderstanding. It was all according to God's plan. Over 300 prophecies were fulfilled in this first coming. Eight prophecies being fulfilled would be 10 to the 17th power of compound probability. So you AI guys, you guys that think you're so smart, going to write a new religious book, if you will, good luck with that because you're not going to be able to bring a prophetic picture to it. Now, if we have 27% of the Bible as prophecy and we don't read it and study it, what good is it to us in the church if the pastors don't teach it? If they say, well, that makes the people uncomfortable in America because they don't want to give up America and the Bible doesn't have America in the prophecy. So that means America is going bye-bye. America is going down so that the world can have a one-world government, a one-world economic system. The dollar is going down and a whole lot of Christians don't want that to happen. So they're praying for the second coming of Trump. They're hoping Trump comes back and moves in that direction. Now, some of you laugh at that, but this week, you know, you've got these people, again, the dog and pony show of, hey, we're going to arrest Trump and not arrest Biden and all that. That's a dog and pony show. They're on the same team. You got to understand they're on the same team. When you get angry and you're standing there with Eric McTaxis and you're doing this big old talk about his new book and awaken the church and all, and you're talking about Target and you're talking about Bush and you're talking about the Dodgers and you're talking about all these woke corporations and all, how evil they are with their LBGTP agenda, and then you say President Trump put three Supreme Court justices in, President Trump was ordained of God to be in there, but you left out last year he had a meeting, a party at Mar-a-Lago, his home for the LBGTP, and Kerry Lake from Arizona was there, and he's saying we're going to fight for your rights. Wake up. Don't be drawn into this idiocy of Jesus putting his hands on Trump's shoulders and God's going to use him to fix America. You're being duped. You're being lied to. It's going down, down. Put a fork in it. It's over. So get ready. Get ready for the horses and the chariots. Get ready prophetically that things are going to get tighter and harder. The biggest nuclear bomb that's going to go off is the collapse of the dollar. The whole world's going to change. The central bank digital currency is going to be so tight, so difficult for people to get around. In Australia there was a whistleblower there and they shut her bank account down. In Canada the truck drivers had their bank account shut down. You're not going to be able to whistleblower or say anything against it because it's a banker coup. It's BlackRock. It's State Street. It's Vanguard. It's the Rothschilds, the global bankers that are bringing the digitalization. They finally have the technology to bring the tyranny they envisioned. They couldn't do it before, but the Bible told us 2,000 years ago that no man's going to be able to buy or sell without a mark on his right hand or his forehead. So for me it's not doom and gloom. It's look up. Jesus is coming again and everything's happening as he said it would. And so I want to be a spiritual Christian. I want to have the Holy Spirit reveal things to me. I don't want to be able to be duped when a pastor says Trump was appointed by God. I talked to my dad about that and he says, well maybe he was. Well dad, you're right. Biden was appointed by God. It's a part of the Lord putting people into power to mirror who we are as a culture. That's what's happening. We get the leaders we deserve. And God can use these Revelation 17, 17 guys to take the country down. What's that mean? Set the stage for Jesus to return. And when you're looking at the different movies that are coming out, the predictive programming of the artificial intelligence, you know, setting off a bomb in L.A. and such, kind of like the Terminator type technology movies from days ago. You look at it and it's an Oppenheimer moment. The scientists with the development of the atomic bomb and all, Oppenheimer saying, you know, this technology potentially could destroy the world. Well that's what the Bible says. The Bible says except those days be shortened, no flesh would be saved. But for the elect's sake, for the nation of Israel, Jesus is going to intervene. These men are going to reach a place of perplexity, of no way out with what they're doing with this artificial intelligence. Elon Musk trying to warn some people, but he's a globalist too. He's part of it. You know? And so it's moving in a direction that God told us prophetically it would. And I don't want to be a carnal Christian and be ignorant of the times we're living in. What time is it? I want to know the times we're living in. And so the exhortation here first is that be spiritual. Don't be a babe. Don't be a babe. Don't be a soy boy. You know? Just put your big britches on and, you know, if you're weary in the time of the footman, get ready. Just strengthen yourself. Endurance. Practice some endurance training, you know? Go through some trials and stand for righteousness and watch how much the devil comes against you. Watch how the Lord gets you through it and you get stronger. You're getting stronger. So verse 24, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? So Paul describes the law and the carnal man saved but dominated by his flesh. Notice first of all the struggle within. Verse 15. For that which I do, I allow not. For what I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that do I. So Galatians 5, Paul says the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. These are contrary one to the other so that you cannot do the things that you would. So there's a battle. What's the battle? The battle is you're born again. But you still got an old, edemic nature that's fighting against your spiritual nature. And so you're no longer, we saw in Romans 6, sin shall no longer have dominion over you. Not going to dominate you. For you to go into bondage now, you've got to give the devil, the world, and the flesh permission. You have the power of choice to say no to the tree of knowledge and good and evil, Adam and Eve. But Adam and Eve, after they partook, they became captive, so to speak, to the devil. He became the little g-god of this world, the prince of the power of the air, a usurper. So our first federal head, Adam, failed. The devil usurped that authority, that dominion over the earth. But the last Adam, Jesus, comes on the scene and we see in Revelation 5 he's got the title deed to the earth. So he has rights of ownership over redemption by creation and redemption. He created you and he purchased you with his blood and he's delivering you from the power of the world, the flesh, and the devil. And so you're operating from a position of strength now. And so the flesh against the spirit, the spirit against the flesh, they're contrary to the one or the other. And there's at times where you cannot do the things that you would. There's times where you're going to fail. Seneca said men hate their sins and love them at the same time. Those secret sins. Those things that haven't been crucified as of yet. In public nobody knows, nobody sees, but behind the closed doors our hard drives are going to tell everything one day. So how do we alleviate the struggle? Where do I find peace of mind? There's a guy named Anton LaVey in the 60s. In 1967 he started the first church of Satan in San Francisco. In 1969 he wrote the Satanic Bible. The dominant group of people that were attracted to him were people with church backgrounds who were overwhelmed with guilt, guilty consciences. And so what he told them was is that he was an atheist and he was using Satan as a symbol, notice, to help people deal with the guilt of a guilt-ridden conscience. So you've been raised in a moral society in the 50s. Even the unbelievers know that adultery is wrong. They know pedophilia is wrong. The laws are in place saying it's illegal. The laws are in place saying marriage is between a man and a woman. The laws are in place and even the psychiatric establishment recognizes that pedophilia is a mental illness. Homosexuality is a mental illness. But as they infiltrate the different levels of the psychiatric boards and such, these homosexuals change those laws, change those rules, change those definitions, and even presently they're trying to use the words good. It's good for children to groom them in this way and all. So we're living in a Sodom and Gomorrah type situation. But at his time he was saying he's using the atheist, Satan, as a symbol to help people deal with their guilt-ridden conscience. So he told his followers everything the church told you is a virtue is actually a vice. Everything the church told you is a vice is actually a virtue. So calling good evil and evil good. Welcome to 2023, right? Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil. They're switching everything over, you know. And then he told them life's a party. Enjoy it. That of hedonism. Just go out there and look. So the sexual revolution of the 60s, you know, the Hugh Hefner's, the guys with the pornography and all the different ways to stimulate, to incite, to inflame is a better terminology. To inflame the flesh. To inflame the flesh of people and removing the moral standards, removing the boundaries, if you will, of what's acceptable moral behavior. So a moral redefining taking place. And so President Clinton, he was attending a human rights campaign, a dinner for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. At that time, they didn't have the P in there. The pedophilia was still looked down upon. Epstein and his guys, Bill Gates going there 30-some times, you know. All these different people going there to Epstein Island. And the Pizzagate, the Podesta and Obama and all the sex trafficking and all the stuff that's taking place presently. Horrific. And Jim Caviezel, Mel Gibson are trying to bring attention to it and developing movies and ways to try and get the word out to people. Just the $36 billion business, that of not just sex trafficking. There's a two year shelf life of these children that are abducted, many of whom don't have birth certificates who just wind up going missing. And it's also a part of organ harvesting, of taking their organs. And you know, the adrenochrome. And I've mentioned adrenochrome before. And one of the mothers was alarmed. If you're alarmed, just cover your ears. If you've got children in here, cover your ears. But adrenochrome is where you take the babies and you smack them, you beat them. You do things to cause their adrenaline to spike, their adrenal glands to spike. And fight or flight kind of a thing. And then you vampire them. You take their blood out and you put it into George Soros. You put it into these old pedophiles, these weirdos. And they see a vitality in it. They're getting children's blood, which helps them stave off the aging, so to speak. But really it's with the mutilation of these children and changing it all. It's a part of their worship system. It's a part of their worshiping of Satan. The mutilation of children and this sort of thing. So it's satanic. So immoral redefining. How are we going to deal with the guilt? And so President Clinton, he said, former President Clinton said, moral law is evolving. Look at that word evolving. Moral law is evolving. We're redefining in practical terms. Notice words. Words have meaning. The immutable ideas. There you are, ideas. We're in a war for ideas. The immutability, God doesn't change. But he's saying these immutable laws are evolving. Which is it? You can't have both. It can't be immutable if it's evolving, if it's changing, you know. So every man doing that, which is right in their own eyes in the book of Judges, right? So let me read it again before I go crazy. All right, here we go. So his moral law is evolving. We're redefining in practical terms. That's just impractical. It's impractical. How often I hear that. It's impractical, you know. Well, it's biblical. We're redefining, you know, it's impractical that, I couldn't sleep with her outside of marriage, you know. The tax laws are such that it's just, it's impractical. We're better off being singles, you know. So moral law is evolving. We're redefining in practical terms the immutable ideas that have guided us. But Cal Thomas, a reporter for the LA Times, he says, covering the story, he says, if ideas are immutable, so think in terms of truth. Absolute truth that's given to us by the Mosaic Law, by a Judeo-Christian ethic, the Old and the New Testament, that our society is built upon. That's where we derive our truth. That's where we understand where God reveals to us that stealing is wrong. Thou shall not steal. Thou shall not murder. Well, abortion, what's abortion? Well, it's a fetus. Well, that's Latin for it's a baby, you know. It's life at conception. So you want to destroy millions and millions and millions of babies, but not call it murder. You want to commit adultery, but redefine the morality and just call it an affair. You want to water it down. You want to redefine marriage, Obama, and parade it with rainbow flags all over the White House and tell all the people who voted against it twice and won overwhelmingly that they got it wrong. And then now you are not going to look at the check and balances of authority. You're a tyrant and you're going to just simply decree that marriage can be between dogs, cats, bees, men, women, children, all of it, three, four, five. Where do you go from there? Where do you go? And so the redefinition, the redefining. So Cal Thomas says if ideas are immutable, defined as not capable of susceptible or susceptible to change, how can they be redefined? Now that's a thinker. That's a guy that can think. That's a guy that went to school. That's a guy that has a dictionary and looks up words. That's a guy that knows not only his Bible, but the definitions in grammar and such, you know, where we don't seem to have that anymore, you know. Somebody just says it and they say it loud enough, often enough and keep saying it. And pretty soon you give up your constitutional rights and give in to mandates. You quit thinking. You were filled with fear. And it was the greatest coup, one of the greatest coups of all of history. The globalists love their COVID coup that they lied to us all with. And presently they're doubling down with climate change. They're setting forests on fire. Setting them on fire and saying the fires are happening on their own and it's because of climate, you know, change, you know. And the idiocy, the cars and the windmills and the whole electric thing goes against good environmental care. The lithium batteries, the mining of the batteries, the mining of the lithium, the getting rid of the batteries when they're too old. It's going to affect the environment far worse than burning carbon, you know, hydrocarbons. And far, far, far worse. But what's the agenda? To get people into where they get rid of their gas stoves. When I hear that New York's outlawing gas stoves, it makes me want to buy five gas stoves, you know. I don't know how I'm going to use them, but I'm going to use them somehow, you know. And buy huge propane tanks. Every time they say we're going to eat bugs, I buy a freezer load of beef, you know. They say that cows and in Ireland right now, the nut jobs are wanting the farmers to get rid of their sheep. And the farmers are fighting back. In the Netherlands, they're fighting back. People are awakening. They're fighting against the idiocy. They're trying to make it immoral to eat meat. Forbidding to eat meat. To have food, real food. So, oh boy. You just can't think. You go down that path. So in verse 16, if then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that is good. So my admission of guilt agrees that the law is good and that I am bad. Trying to change or redefine the law doesn't work either. The law is immutable. You can't change the law. He changes not. So I may not like the law of gravity. I may insist that I was born to fly. And I may go up on top of this building here and show you. The devil take me up on top of the building and said he's given his angels charge over you lest you dashed your foot against the stone. Jump off of here, Jesus. You can fly, Rick. You can fly. I want to fly. Well, if I violate the law of gravity, Rick's gonna splat. Rick's gonna die right there. And I can whine and cry and talk about how where's the entitlement and oh it's because I'm white. It's because I'm fat. It's because I'm poor. It's because I was raised in Bremerton. Oh, it's so unfair. It's so unfair that I can't fly. They need to change the laws. They need to change. They need to redefine the law of gravity. Well, God says, hey, what if you discover the law of the spirit? What if you discover the laws of aerodynamics which supersede the laws of gravity? Then you can fly, right? So we are chained. We're bound to the immutability of the law and the law condemns me. But the law of the spirit, the life of the spirit, elevates me and allows me to flow in the power of the spirit where I can overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil, the tyranny of self, the tyranny of the struggle that's within. I can get the victory. Laws that supersede that of gravity. Oh, wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The struggle within. Secondly, the sin within. Verse 17. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. Now, we talked about psychiatry, psychology, therapy, all that. The root problem, as you're moving through this passage now, notice the personal pronoun I and me. Over 40 times Paul is looking inward. Inward. Within himself. We're going to conclude at the end of this we're to be looking up. We're to be looking to Jesus. Quit looking within. All you're going to find within is failure. The struggle within, the sin within, the I, the I, the I, the I. Satan had an eye problem. An obsession with self will destroy you. You're dead. Rick's dead. That Rick died. No longer me living, but Christ living through me. Get it through your head. There's your victory. Old things are passed away. All things are become new. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things are passed away. All things are become new. His mercies, because I struggle within and I sin, because sin is present within, but his mercies are new every morning. Every morning I get a fresh new start to walk in the Spirit. If I get into chapter 8, I'm going to circle the word Spirit, Spirit, Spirit, Spirit. If I circle the word I here, I get over 31 times I. If I circle me, I get up over 40 times Paul alluding to himself. Pay close attention to the grammar. The eye of the new nature warring with the old sinful nature in me. Verse 18. For I know that in me that is in my flesh dwells no good thing. That's the opposite of what the psychiatrists tell you. The psychiatrists tell you, you were born good. You're a good person. You're a really good person. It's the environment. It's your mom, your dad. It's the blame game. It's society's fault. You know, right now we've got to blame whitey. Whitey is the problem. We've got to redistribute the wealth of the world because the white people have the overwhelming, you know, percentage of wealth. So we've got to, we've got to do the communism where we spread it out a little bit. Well, whose money are you going to take to spread it out? Not going to take Bill Gates money. Not going to take BlackRock's money. Not going to take the Rothschild's money. You're going to try and redistribute the middle-class wealth of people that have been working and producing, whether white, black, brown, yellow. The producers, people that produce don't play that game. They're already provided for because if a man don't work, he don't eat. They don't need somebody else's money. One of the things that amazes me is that the last two generations of kids have been raised by single moms through divorce. And guess what? These moms are super moms. And I've been kind of trying to understand it. I can't understand how that works. That's not my generation. My mom's married seven times, but every one of her husbands took care of her. Well, these women, they're like 38, 39, 40 years old, and they've got the responsibility of raising these kids. And one waitress over at McLeod's told me, because I'm worried about them. I'm thinking if they could just find a husband, everything would be great. Double income, they get some help with the kids, all that. That seems to be reasonable to me. And they're like, no, I don't need a man, and I don't need their money. I've got my own money. And I'm like, whoa, independent women. And then I find out further that the boys that are being raised in these homes when they do get married, they think their wife should do everything because mom did everything. They watch mom do everything. She's super mom. You better be super mom. You better be super wife. And then they realize, I don't need this guy. He doesn't do anything. He's a weight on me. Mind-boggling to me, just mind-boggling how prevalent it is. So you're the gamer boy, so even if you do have a job, you bring the money home, you don't help raise the kids, you just do gaming all night like you did when you were a kid. You don't even need sex because you're into so much porn. Now they're going to come out with a robot for you. Let's don't go there. Let's not go there. But it's true. Get the heebie-jeebies, man. Oh, yeah. God's way is so much better. God's ways are just, oh, Lord, thank you. Thank you for your ways, Lord. These people are, they're demented, man. They're going down the sewer. For in me that is in my flesh dwells no good thing. That's where you got to be. If you think there's something good in you that God, that's why he chose you, or God's going to mightily use me because there's something good in me, you're going to be put on the shelf. Any strength you have, anything you're strong in, those are the areas that God's going to break you in. Because if he allows you to succeed or to serve him and all, your head's going to be puffed up. Your head's going to be filled with pride that you worked harder, you're smarter, you're better, you're more loving, nicer. So he says, you know what, I use the foolish things to confound the wise. I typically choose the most foolish guy out there to make a pastor, you know, so that when I use him, you guys all know it's me and not him. Let's you be puffed up. And that's why I get so angry at Christian celebrity. That's why I try and pop your bubble on all these guys that you think are so this, that or the other. Don't fall into that. Don't make Trump your celebrity. Don't live your Christianity through another person. You live your Christianity. God wants to use you. Don't sit there with the channel changer and say, go get them, Rick. No, you go get them. You guys are always telling me I'm going to jail. Why don't you go to jail with me? Let's have a Bible study in jail. Crazy. Do we really believe this? Isn't there some vestige of good in me? At least I can take comfort in knowing that I'm better than you. I may be bad, but I'm better than you. You're scum, man. You know, I find out something about you, you come and you need counseling, and boy, it's either going to wind up in the sermon or something, you know, I'm going to gossip about it. 75% of the people that commit suicide are self-proclaimed perfectionists. And when they don't live up to their ideal of their imagined perfection of being superior and better than everybody, they wind up committing suicide. So when the economy crashes, remember, poor people don't jump out of buildings. They're rich in faith. Rich people, if that's all they have and they lose it all as in a moment, they've got nothing left. They've got to face the music. They've got to face the humility of being broken. And many of them can't cope or handle it and just jump out of buildings in 1929. And so why are we surprised? God is not surprised. God knows my frame. He remembers that he fashioned me out of the dust of the ground. When I fail, God doesn't say, oh, bummer, I thought he'd make it this time. No, God knows I'm going to fail before I even fail. And he picks me back up and dusts me off. And I say, you know what? You can't use me anymore. I'm tired of this. I'm going back to fishing. No, I'm going to use you. I'm just breaking you. I'm humbling you. I'm emptying you out. Moses, you think you're a deliverer and you think you're going to look to the left and the right and you're going to kill an Egyptian. Did I just say that? Can I say, did Moses kill somebody? Oh, he's a murderer. He didn't look up. Oh, God saw it. So Moses spent 40 years in Egypt being schooled in all the wisdom and the knowledge of the Egyptians. And then the Lord had to empty him of all of that confidence that Stephen talked about in Acts chapter 6 and 7. Eloquent of speech, voted most likely to succeed, possibly the next pharaoh. And he's going to be a deliverer in the arm of the flesh. But it doesn't work in the flesh. It's carnality. It's not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Not your natural might or power that you can battle the devil and battle the principalities and powers and think you can overcome. It's not going to happen in the natural. Except the Lord build the house, they that labor, labor in vain that build it. God's got to build it. God will build his church. Lord, it's your church. You build your church, Lord. It's amazing to me that in the utilization of us that he can get anything done. Why not use angels? Why not use artificial intelligence? Why would he use us? So susceptible to failure. So, I mean, failure is what we're good at. That's something we're really good at is failing. Happens every day. This morning, I swiped the toothpaste from where Kathy brushes her teeth in our home, and I took it over to where I take a shower. And man, it felt good. I had some good toothpaste and everything. And then I'm thinking, everything's great. I'm getting dressed to go to church, and all of a sudden she's like texting me. Texting and dinging and everything. I'm like, what's up? What's up? What's up? You took the toothpaste. Why did you take the toothpaste? I said, well, you got 20 bars of butter. Use the butter. Why do you click so much butter? You know, there's only one thing of toothpaste around here. All right. So anyway, I blew it. I started off on the wrong foot. So I put the toothpaste in my pocket and I got into the van to come here and I hand it, here's some toothpaste, you know. So compliment on her brighter teeth look this morning. Her breath is good. All that. I gave her a breath mint. You know, I just can't win. I just can't win. He says, Psalm 51-5, David, behold, I was shaped in iniquity and sin did my mother conceive me. David was a murderer. David was an adulterer. David sinned. And in Psalm 32, Psalm 38, Psalm 51, David is repenting. He's describing what it was like to be a failure. And he concludes against thee and thee only have I sinned. All my sin is against you, God. And if I look at who I am, you've made me from the son of Jesse, you've made me, you know, the giant killer of Goliath. And I ran from Saul for 10 years. But, and I'm a man after your own heart. But Lord, I blew it. I sinned. When a time when, you know, kings go out to battle, I was idle. I was enjoying the prosperity, enjoying my harem of women. And Bathsheba went out there. It's her fault. She was out there bathing on the rooftop. It's her fault. David, you're the man. David, you sinned. And then he comes to the conclusion. Behold, I was shaped in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. You've never had a good day. You've never had a righteous day. You've never had a day where you're 100% like Jesus. You will, though. You will in the future. He will deliver us. In Job 25, 4, how then can a man be justified with God? Or how can he be of clean that is born of a woman? He's talking about the edemic nature. We're edemic in nature. Our first federal head, Adam and Eve, when they sin, that sin nature, that fallen nature transferred us. We sin because we are sinners. The sin is within me. The struggle is within me. He says, verse 18b, for to will is present with me. I want to do good, but how to perform that which is good, I find not. I'm powerless to perform. I struggle with, and you can fill in the blank. Some of us overcome this struggle immediately when we become Christians. Some of you are still smoking cigarettes. It's a nicotine addiction. It's hard to overcome. And as we said before, it doesn't mean you're going to hell because you have that addiction, because you're doing that. It just means you're going to go to heaven sooner. That's all. Smoking or non-smoking. I mean, we're all going to live forever, right? It's just a matter of where. Where are you going to live? Smoking doesn't send you to hell. There's no guilt trip here about that, or eating too much chocolate, or being overweight, or none of that stuff. It's the heart. Your heart changes. You've got a new nature. You're born again. The external is perishing. It's all perishing. But there are things that we struggle with, maybe struggling with alcohol, or drugs, or illicit sexual activity, or covetousness, those kind of things. I want to stop. I don't want to do it. Seneca says we hate our sin. We love it at the same time. There's this battle going on. Powerless to perform. In Matthew 26, 31, Jesus told his disciples, all ye shall be offended because of me this night, for it is written, it's written in Zechariah 13, verse 7, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. So at crunch time, at a critical time, three and a half years they've been hanging out with Jesus, and now Jesus is going to be apprehended. He's going to be taken to the house of Caiaphas, the son-in-law of Annas, and then taken over to Annas, then taken officially before the Sanhedrin, three Jewish trials, and then he's going to be taken to Pilate, over to Herod, and then back to Pilate. Six trials in one evening, beaten beyond the recognition of man. And when the shepherd's smitten, you guys are going to scatter. You guys are going to bail. You don't want to be guilty by association. A little maiden's going to come up to you, Peter, this woman, and she's going to accuse you of being a cowardless, a coward, a coward, not cowardless, but a coward, a coward. You're a, you're a Galilean. Your speech betrays you. You were with him, and you're going to be cursing and saying, I know not the man, you know. I don't even know the guy. And so I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. And Peter in verse 33 says, though all men shall be offended because of you, yet will I never be offended. How'd that go, Peter? How'd that go with you? Jesus said, Peter, verily I say unto you, this night before the cock crows, you're going to deny me on three different occasions, bro. Three times. Oh, that could never happen. That could never happen. Not me. Not going to happen. If any man thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall. And then Jesus takes the guys after that encounter, and he takes them to the garden of Gethsemane, the olive press. And Jesus is praying. He's praying three times unto his father. Father, if you're willing, remove this cup of wrath from me. But nevertheless, not as I will, but thy will be done. But he asked Peter, James, and John, the two sons of David with Peter, hey, come pray with me. Watch in prayer, lest you fall into temptation. Peter, if you'd have gotten this one right, if you'd have got this right in this time of prayer here, maybe you wouldn't have wimped out. You see, lest you enter in temptation, lest you fail. Hey, are you weary with the footmen? Wait till the horses and the chariots come. If you get it right now through prayer and strengthen your inner man, as it gets worse, as they grab ahold of me, you're not going to wimp out. You're not going to quit. When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith upon the earth? Many men's hearts failing them for fear upon the earth with the things that are coming upon the earth. How do we as the church respond? How do we respond to the injustice, the cruelty, a time of war maybe? How are we going to cope? How are we going to continue to walk by faith? How are we going to do that? So Peter, pray with me. Terry here and watch with me. And they fell asleep. Have you ever told yourself, I'm going to start getting up early, and I'm going to pray, and I'm going to read for a half hour before I go to work? I'm going to, I'm going to pray and read. I'm going to shut my phone off after work at night. I'm going to pray and read for a half hour, an hour. I'm going to go through the Bible this year, you know. And you have really good intentions. Really good. And you get up early, and you get the coffee going. You got it on the bread maker, and you got the butter in it. You're ready to go. And you're nodding off, you know. Nodding off. And you try again. Nodding off, you know. And the next thing you know, your face is in something. And oh man, your pen. I have this pen, and I'll be sitting there and thinking and thinking. I got the pen. And next thing I know, the pen's in the Bible. And when I wake up, there's all this ink all over my Bible. Slobbering, you know. Oh, what happened, you know. But, but if I, if I turn the television on, I'm wide awake. Wide awake, you know. Because it's feeding my flesh. But when it comes to feeding my spirit, my spirit's worn against the flesh, and flesh against the spirit. And I might have to pray while I'm walking, you know. That way I can stay awake, you know. Better go on a prayer walk, you know. And I better not wear too many jackets, or I'll fall asleep walking and run into a pole, you know. So, you gotta, you gotta do what you can do. I, I've been hearing that what really works for a lot of people is these ice baths. That, that works. You pray quick, you know. Real quick. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Verse 20. Now if I do that, I would not. It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. Oh, wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this death? Paul describes the law and the carnal man saved, but dominated by the flesh. The struggle within, the sin within, and thirdly, the slave within. Verse 21. I find then a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me. And Jesus said in John 8, 34, Whosoever committed sin, practices sin, is the servant of sin. Verse 22. For I delight in the law of God, after the inward man. So, none of us are saying, well, let's get rid of the law. The law is the problem. No. We have already saw the law is holy. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my word will not pass away, Jesus said. Anybody that were to teach the laws, you know, subservient or passed away, is gonna be the least in the kingdom of God. In Psalm 1, 19, 97 it says, Oh, how I love thy law, it is my meditation all the day. Love God's law. Psalm 1. Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. So you're walking, standing, sitting. Peter warmed his hands at the fire of the enemy. Peter warmed himself with the enemy, right? Blessed is the man. Oh, how happy is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly. You getting all your news from Fox News? You're walking in the counsel of the ungodly. Even be careful of Tucker Carlson. Be careful of the controlled opposition. If you only have two choices, and you walk through life saying, I'm gonna work, vote for the lesser of the two evils. You got four, four different stations you can listen to on mainstream media, right? Well, why not more choices? How about alternative media? How about somebody that checks them out, facts checks them? Why do they have a monopoly on information? Why don't people research and critical think 9-11 or, you know, coronavirus, the vax, all these other things? Why are they so duped? Why are they so brainwashed, you know? But what if there was a third party? What if there was something besides a Democrat, Republican? What if there's a third party, an independent party? What if you didn't have to vote for the lesser of the two evils? Isn't that the definition of insanity? Repeating the same thing over and over with the same results? Isn't there a point where you say, hey, there's the controlled opposition. They're identifying all the evangelicals. They're moving toward Trump. Trump promises, promises, promises, but doesn't arrest anybody. Then he's arrested, and the other guy's not. Now we got the dog and pony show, and the guy's, you know, the guy's, I can't even say it. It's so indecent what's happening to him when he comes on stage, this guy. Just, just like, just like he fills his pants right there on stage. It's just, just so sad, sad. Just the whole world's looking with laughter, mocking America as we crumble from within. No longer confident that America has competent leadership, that they can trust in our leadership, the dollar, our military, or any of it. America is going down by design. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law does he meditate day and night. I vote for Jesus. I'm going to get into his Word. I'm going to let Jesus speak to me, give me perspective on what's happening. He shall be like a tree that's planted by the river of waters, that bring forth its fruit in its season. Its leaf shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. But the ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. You want to enrich your life? Be a man of the Word. Meditate upon God's Word. Be in the Word of God. So we say, oh, that's the Sermon on the Mount, you know, the AI Bible that they're going to make. Maybe they'll incorporate the Sermon on the Mount. It's awesome. Everyone agrees. Wow, that's awesome. What a great way to live, to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile, to love your enemy, love thy neighbor. Oh, those are great. Those are great. That's great. Jesus came up with that. That's awesome. Let's incorporate that. Well, just try to live it. Very difficult to live without the help of the Holy Spirit. Verse 23. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members, bringing me into captivity, the slave free. I'm a slave within. 2 Peter 2.19, Peter says, Of whom a man has overcome, the same as he brought into bondage. So you and I are set free. We're delivered. But if we give the devil permission, we can go back into bondage. I read of a pastor that had a problem historically, previously, in his B.C. life, with heroin. And an addict, a guy in his church, came in for counseling, saying, I'm having trouble. I've got to get rid of, you know, I just came to the Lord, and I've got to get rid of these drugs and the needles, the paraphernalia and everything. And the pastor says, oh, I'll take it for you. I'll get rid of it. I'll dispose it. Do you know that he engaged, and he ruined his life in ministry? He fell all the way. Just, he was free. But he thought, well, let's try it one more time. I could stop any time I want. And it wound up destroying him. I hear about addicts, heroin addicts, one of which that I buried, a friend of Jessica's. And he quit doing heroin in Bremerton here, in Manette. And he had a heart problem. He had problems physically from a lot of years of doing drugs. And I went to the hospital to visit him and all, and it seemed like he was doing better. And then he relapsed. He took some heroin. And the mistake one of the addict guys explained to me, what happens is, is you start out with heroin with just a tiny amount. And then you add to it, and you add to it, and you add to it to get the same thrill. And you reach a point of, you know, this is what it takes to get you high at a certain point, and your body can handle it. And then you quit. And then you make the mistake of when you go back, when you relapse, you start up here. And that's what overdoses you. You didn't start back down at the bottom. And that's what he did, and that's what killed him. And very tragic. Good news is, he was a Christian, and his family was so thankful that we were able to minister to him in his last days. 1 Peter 2.11, abstain from fleshly lust, which war against the soul. Great, but how? How am I going to do that? Psalm 142.7 says, Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise your name. Oh, wretched man that I am. Verse 24. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? That word wretched speaks of exhausted after a battle. You're tired of the struggle. You're tired of the sin. You're tired of the slavery within. You see an addict. This is what happens. Oh, wretched. So many times I've tried to stop, and I can't stop. I've tried to reform. I've been to the self-help, and the 12-step, and the five-step, and all these different things. And my mom had 20 years of sobriety, but they talk about still within, that slavery within, the tyranny within, the dry drunk I think is how they address it. You're really not free. You're not free. You're in your flesh. You're trying so hard to resist each and every day. Take it one day at a time. And I applaud the effort. I applaud so many that have, you know, come to sobriety in that way. But self-reformation in many cases only works for a period of time. And that demon that you cast out goes out and finds seven worse demons and comes back. And your addiction is even worse later. Or your anger problem, or whatever other problems associated there. So one area of your life, you're free. And thank God that, you know, they're not going to die of the alcohol or the drugs presently. Lord, get a hold of them. Lord, help them discover the power of the Holy Spirit to really set them free. Get them sober first. So the sin and the slavery within. So this is the plight of the carnal, fleshly man, independent of God, who tries to deliver himself. He tries in his own strength to live up to God's standard, God's law. So he says, all right, I'm going to try harder. I'm going to read more. I'm going to pray more. I'm going to serve. I'm a Christian now. I'm going to try and clean my life up now. And he keeps struggling. The things I want to do, I don't do. The things I don't want to do, I do. And what's going on? You And he cries out, oh, wretched man that I am. If I truly want deliverance, this is the conclusion I must come to. I'm a sinner. I'm lost. I can't do it. Come to the end of yourself. I'm a wretch. I'm lost. I need help. This body of death, this corpse is killing me. And when Paul talks about this body of death, in many instances in this culture, what they would do is if you're a murderer, the authorities would take a dead body and attach that corpse, that dead body to you upon your back. And the corruption of that dead body would permeate your body and eventually kill you with the corruption. He says, oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? It's a picture of you and I as Christians carrying around this dead corpse, this old rick, this old nature is always there. I need deliverance from that. I need to be, I need to walk in that newness in Christ. I need to reckon that man dead and me dead. We both need to die so that Christ can live, you know, through me. I can't do this in my own strength. Jesus said, come unto me, all you that labor and heavy laden, I'll give you rest. Jesus got to take that burden, got to take that corpse off me, take the guilt of the law away from me, remove it. Your yoke is easy, your burden is light. Help me. So you cry out. So notice what Paul doesn't say. He doesn't say what program will deliver me. How many churches rely upon programs, always new programs to make you holy, to build the kids up. And you know what, you know only thing missing is your 50 grand. If you send in 50 grand, we can implement this program and give the kids a great summer. Doesn't that sound good? And then what other program? We're going to do the Daniel diet. We're going to, we're going to stop sex trafficking. So send in your millions there. You know, we're going to take a percentage of it. Oh, by the way, if that doesn't work, we've got, we've got a pill for you. We've got this behavioral pill. If you take this pill, it takes away all your addictions, all your sins. Just take this pill. The pharmaceutical companies, they've come across with this pill that's going to make you healthy, wealthy, and wise, you know, and vita vita medium, you know, and whatever it is, you know, whatever comes along. So he says, it's not a program, not a pill or a procedure, but who will deliver me from the struggle, the sin and the slavery within? He says, Oh, wretched man that I am, who? Pay close attention, who? He was saying, I, I, I, I, I, me, me, me, me, me. How? What's the how? How's this going to happen? How am I going to be delivered? The how is a who? The how is Jesus. Who shall deliver me from the struggle, the sin, the slavery within? Who? Fourthly, the Savior within. You've got the struggle within, the sin within, the slavery within, and Paul's saying, focus on the Savior within. You've been born again. Jesus, the Holy Spirit lives and dwells within you. You're no longer body and soul. You're body, soul, and spirit. Don't give in to the carnal fleshly nature. Give in to the Holy Spirit. Allow the Holy Spirit feed your spirit. Feed your spirit with the Word of God. Be in fellowship and prayer and serve the Lord. As you grow spiritually, you'll be able to overcome the impulses and the cravings and the desires, the tyranny of the flesh. But you've got to reckon the old man dead. You've got to mortify the deeds of the flesh. You can't feed the flesh. You've got to starve the flesh out. You've got to control what comes in through the eye gate and the ear gate, the impulses and the sensory apparatus, your old man. You've got to feed your new man. Your new man has an appetite for the Word of God. If you don't have an appetite for the Word of God, you're in a bad place. Get into God's Word, tell you do. If you don't like to pray, pray till you do. Fellowship, evangelism, these are the things that will help you grow spiritually. One of the best ways to grow is to begin to serve the Lord. Lord, here am I. Use me. Go and make disciples. He says, verse 25, I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. There's your solution. That's the how. I thank God through Jesus Christ, your Lord. It's only through Jesus. And He's not subservient to you. He's your Lord. Put Him on the throne of your life. Allow Him that place of preeminence in your life. Listen to Him. Obey Him. Walk in fellowship with Him. Be a doer of God's Word, not a hearer only. I thank God through Jesus Christ, not just my Savior, but Jesus Christ, our Lord. So Jesus be in the answer. Jesus delivers me. Jesus my Savior within me. He conquered sin, death, and hell. He rules and reigns. He's on the throne. But does He have the preeminence in my life? Is He on the throne in your life? Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Is He Lord? Are you carnal? Are you fleshly? Are you trying to live independently of God? Are you frustrated, defeated, unloving, proud, and miserable? O wretched man that I am. Agree with God. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Look to God. Thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Yield to God. And so as we yield to Jesus, as Christ our Lord, He saves me from within. He changes me from glory to glory. A metamorphosis, a transformation takes place as He's changing me as I go through these trials, these difficulties, this testing. And He's changing me from glory to glory. He gives me the aptitude. He gives me the strength. He gives me the ability, the endurance. I'm not worried about the times of the chariots and the horses coming, the swelling of the Jordan. I've been in training. I've been learning all along. I've been growing all along. I'm no longer a babe in Christ. I'm feasting upon meat and veggies and some sugar, you know, some dessert too. And I have a balanced diet and a voracious appetite. I love the Word of God. I love being with God's people. And so I'm growing. And one day I'm going to see Him face to face, and I'll be like Him. I'll be perfect. No more struggle, no more sin, no more slavery. I'm going to be delivered. John the Beloved, he says in 1 John chapter 3, he says, Beloved, now are we the sons of God. It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And He that has His hope in Him purifies Himself, even as He is pure. And so we're yearning for, as Kathy points out, I'm yearning for the day that I can put off this old man. I have to keep carrying this corpse with me. I have to keep carrying this old, endemic nature that keeps warring. But I'm looking forward to the day, even though I'm growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus, I'm becoming more like Him. I'm not practicing sin like I did. I still sin. I still fall, and it grieves me and bothers me. I look forward to the day where there will no longer be that struggle, that day where I'll finally be perfected. Paul said, I didn't arrive. He hasn't arrived. But I pressed toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus that I might apprehend that for which I was apprehended. I want to see my life perfected. I want to see my life be the life that Jesus intended me to be. And so I'm working out my own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God I'm living out my salvation. I'm living it out. I'm growing. For it is God who is at work in me, putting in me both to will and to do of His good pleasure. I'm not living according to the law. I'm living according to love. The desire within my heart is to live a life that's pleasing unto Jesus. And that's the most fulfilling life that any of us can ever have, that we can ever experience. I have no confidence in the flesh. I'm looking to Christ in me, the hope of glory. And so Paul now he gives a summary to those who want to do it by themselves, by the law. He says, 25b, he says, so then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. Who are you, the natural man? The natural man receives not the things of the spirit, their foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they're spiritually discerned. The carnal man is a babe in Christ. The carnal man is dominated by the flesh. Are you the spiritual man? Are you the spiritual woman? Where eye is not seen or ear heard, neither has it entered into the hearts of the natural men the things which God has prepared for them that love him. But God is revealing them unto you. You're being captivated by the life of the spirit, the Jesus that's being revealed to you. Paul says that I might know him. You want to know him and the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death, growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord I've been delivered. I'm being delivered. I will be delivered. What do we mean by that? That word salvation means deliverance, means healing, and it's in three tenses. In the positional, you've been delivered. In the present tense, you're being delivered. You're being changed from glory to glory in the image of Christ. The future tense, you will be delivered. You will be perfected. He's going to complete that work that he's begun in each of us. Freedom, salvation, deliverance, safe from self, safe from sin, safe from slavery. How? Because of my Savior within me. Let's pray. Father, we thank you. We thank you for your love, Lord. We thank you that this work that you've begun in us, that you're going to complete it. I thank you, Lord, that every time I fail, every time I blow it, Kathy's there to remind me. No, I'm just kidding. Lord, you show me the cross. You show me the cross. You remind me that it's not a surprise to you, that you love me, that I didn't choose to be saved. I didn't. It wasn't my idea, Lord. You chose me. You saved me. You intervened. You invaded my life, and Lord, you gave a desire within my heart to know you. You gave a measure of faith for me to act upon. Lord, you chose me before the foundation of the earth, before you formed me in my mother's womb, Lord. You ordained that I'd be a child of God. And Lord, this is your work, your work of salvation. This is your work of perfecting us. And Lord, we hear Paul and what he's saying resonates with us. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? Lord, we want to be delivered from this body of death. We want to be delivered from this putrid world, this Sodom and Gomorrah. We want to be delivered from this world system and the whole corruption that's taking place. Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. And Lord, we pray until you do come for us, we pray that we would shine ever brighter in this dark day. We pray that we'd be a beacon to people who have lost hope, people who are burdened with their sin and just being destroyed by the wicked one. And God, we pray for the children, that you'll rescue the children, that you'll raise up a standard against this wickedness to enslave them, to change their gender, to change their hormones, to enslave them, Lord. To pray upon them, these predators. And God, I pray there'd just be a huge righteous indignation against the lies and the propaganda, that you'd expose the darkness, you'd shine the light bright. Pray that the churches would teach your word, live your word, proclaim your word. And no longer, Lord, would we have a second grade remedial understanding of you and your word, but Lord, we'd be students of a voracious appetite. We desire your word more than our necessary food. Help us, Lord, we pray. And if there's anybody here this morning and you don't know Jesus, you don't have a relationship with Jesus Christ, we want to give you an opportunity, an invitation. As Jesus says, come unto me, all ye that labor and heavy laden, I'll give you rest. Jesus went to the cross, he said, it is finished. To Talistai, paid in full, he paid for all your sins, he did all the work, the work is complete. And he invites you to come because of his grace through faith. You exercise your faith in him, you see his finished work, that his body was broken, his blood was shed, that he paid for your sins, past, present, and future, and that you cannot deliver yourself from this body of death. You cannot deliver yourself from your sin and the slavery you're suffering in. There's a person, his name is Jesus, and he can deliver you. He wants to deliver you. Anyone here this morning, just lift your hand up. We want to lead you in prayer. It's through prayer that you receive his help. As you pray, as you cry out to God, God be merciful to me, a sinner. Come into my heart and life and transform and change me. As I turn from my sins, as I cry out to you, come into my heart and life, make me new, cause me to be born again. Pray that prayer, make that cry. Today is the day of salvation, for why would you die in your sins? Father, thank you. As we partake of communion now, Lord, we pray as we worship you, as we meditate upon what we learned today. Lord, we pray that you'd speak to us, give us ears to hear. Speak to our hearts, Lord, speak to us the deep things of the Spirit. Give us visions, give us dreams, give us just a better, greater understanding of who you are as we study your word. Blessed now we pray, in Jesus' name, Amen.