Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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If you're able, please remain standing
and let's give our attention to God's word
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in Romans Chapter Seven. Roman seven
will continue our reading of this passage.
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I'm going to read from verses seven
through the end of the chapter. What,
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then, shall we say that the
law's sin? By no means.
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Yet if it had not been for
the law, I would not have known
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sin, for I would not have
known what it is to cove it if
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the law had not said you shall
not cove it. But sin seizing an
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opportunity through the commandment produced in me
all kinds of covetousness. For, apart
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from the loss in lies dead.
I was once alive, apart from the
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law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.
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The very commandment that promised life proved
to be death to me, for sin
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seizing an opportunity through the commandment deceived
me and through it killed me. So
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the laws wholly and the commandment is
wholly and righteous and good. Verse Thirteen.
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Did that which is good then bring
death to me? By no means
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it was sin producing in producing death
in me through what is good, in
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order that sin might should be shown
to be sin. And through the commandment,
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might become sinful beyond measure. For
we know that the law is spiritual,
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but I am of the flesh,
sould under sin, for I do
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not understand my own actions, for
I do not know, for I do
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not do what I want, but
I do the very thing I hate.
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Now, if I do what I
do not want, I agree with the
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law that it is good. So
now it is no longer I who do
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it, but sin that dwells within
me, for I know that nothing good
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dwells in me, that is in
my flesh, for I have the desire
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to do what is right, but
not the ability to carry it out.
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For I do not do the good
I want, but the evil I do
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not want. Is what I keep
on doing. For if I do what
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I do not want, it is
no longer I who do it, but
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sin that dwells within me. So
I find it to be a law that,
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when I want to do right,
evil lies close at hand, for
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I delight in the Law of God
in my inner being, but I see
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in my members another law, waging
war against the law of my mind and
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making me captive to the law of
sin that dwells in my members. Wretched
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man that I am who will deliver
me from this body of death, thanks
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be to God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then, I
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myself serve the law of God with
my mind, but with my flesh I
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serve the laws, and you may
be seated. So this passage is not
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an easy one to understand, or
an easy one, I'm to interpret,
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like most passages that we might say
that of there are things in the passage
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that seem to resonate and be immediately
clear and immediately obvious, but then there
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are other things that aren't that way
and in particular, understanding how it all
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connects together is a somewhat challenging and
so throughout the history of the Church there
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have been various interpretations of this passage. One of them, which I'm not
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going to present to this morning,
is true in a sense, and that's
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this interpretation, which I myself have
held to until just recently, is that
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there is within us a battle.
I'm waging a war between the flesh and
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the spirit, and this is a
true thing. Paul Talks about this in
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Galatians chapter five, versus sixteen and
Seventeen. He says there but I say
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walk by the spirit and you will
not gratify the desires of the flesh,
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for the desires of the flesh are
against the spirit and the desires of the
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spirit are against the flesh, for
they are opposed to each other to keep
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you doing from the things you want
to do. So here in a passage
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like this, he describes the reality
that we all resonate with and then,
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in some ways seems to also be
said in Romans Chapter Seven, this reality
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of I want to do these things, these good things, and yet I
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don't do them. That war,
that's there, but that's not exactly the
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question Paul's dealing with. In Romans
seven, Paul isn't here to talk about
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this internal struggle that we have.
He's particularly answering this objection. Is The
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law good? Is the Law Holy? How do we understand our death and
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what the law is capable of and
what it's not. So this is something
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that perhaps we can compare and contrast
these views, maybe at another time.
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I think we'll get a little too
deep in the weeds if I try to
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do that all now. Plus a
present what I believe the passage is saying.
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So I'm going to just give it
a positive presentation of what is going
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on here in Roman seven, and
then perhaps we can continue that conversation.
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But essentially what's going on here is
Paul is doing as he's often done in
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the letter. He's sort of dealing
with these objectors. You might imagine this.
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Imagine you were going to or imagine
you regularly debated people on a particular
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point and you went out and you
debated, you had on these one on
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one conversations. But then somebody write
you a letter and says, Hey,
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I want to understand this issue that
you often speak on, and then you
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decide to write them a letter.
But you have all these experiences right of
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people objecting and uncountering and all these
things that you're concerned about, and so
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because you can't debate it right in
front of this person or because you can't
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have a conversation, you sort of
write it all down, including these objections,
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these things that people say, wait
a second, Paul, what about
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this and what about that? Well, that's what Paul's dealing with here and
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he's done that a few other times
so far in the book. He brings
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here. The objection he's dealing with
is, well, if all of these
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things you're saying about the law is
true. Well then, are you calling
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the law bad? Are you calling
the law sinful? If the law leads
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to death, if we are under
slavery, if we're under bondage, as
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Paul says in Second Corinthians, that
the law of the Law of Moses is
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a Ministry of Death and condemnation?
Are you really, Paul, Paul,
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are you going to really say that
about God's word? Are you going to
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say these terrible things about the word
that God spoke to Moses? And it's
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not just about his word in general, but the word that actually promised life,
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not death? Well, actually both. The law, you see,
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promised life. It said, do
these things and you will live, you'll
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be blessed, you will know God, you will be close to him and
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be in his presence. Fail at
these things and you will find curse.
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The law of God is good.
Paul very much wants to defend against that
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objection, and so he says this. But he'd also says that the law
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is weak and unable to do something
that we desperately need it to do.
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So let's consider these things. First, that the law is good. Paul
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begins this way in verse seven.
What, then, shall we say that
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the law is. Sin Is the
law of God. Sin Is the Law
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of God, evil, wicked,
morally wrong. The answers very clearly.
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He says by no means, and
then even shows the goodness of the law
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by saying what he says next.
If it hadn't even been for the law,
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this good law, I would know
what sin is. And then he
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gives the example of coveting. He
also know that. We also know that
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the law of God is good,
because God is good. God doesn't command
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evil things, more immoral things,
wicked things. We also know that it
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is on the spirits work in us. The intention is, though, that
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we can bring forth the fruit of
the law, or the the good fruits
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of obedience, would maybe be a
more precise way to put it right,
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God cares about the law because that's
what he's saving us to do. He
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saves us so that we can produce
these things, so that we can do
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good works. The Bible says that
these are things that God himself has prepared
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beforehand for his people whom he's saving. Does God care about goodness? Of
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course. Does God want our obedience? Absolutely. Is God's law steering us
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in another direction? No Way,
by no means he says God's law is
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good, but at the same time
he says it's weak. This is actually
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expressed most clearly in the next chapter. If you look at verse three,
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he says of Chapter Eight. For
God has done what the law, weakened
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by the flesh, could not do. The law was weakened by the flesh
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and couldn't do something. So God
stepped in and he did something. This
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is what he describes in Romans Chapter
Seven. Something happens. There's this working,
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this relationship between the sinfulness that's in
us and the law that God gives
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that steers us towards death. That
brings about curse. As I mentioned before,
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at a time the law promised life. If you will obey the law,
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you will find the verdict of righteousness, of justification, blessedness, communion
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with God. We know this deep
down inside. You do good things and
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good things happen. You do bad
things and bad things happen. That's the
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principle of the law. But in
the fall, Paul says and has explained
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in other places, Romans five for
example, in the fall that possibility of
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life drops away and all that remains
is curse because of sin, because Adam
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sinned because he plunged in the entire
a human race into sin and misery.
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Whenever we come into this, into
contact with this good thing, sparks start
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flying. It doesn't work. Instead
of good this happening, instead of righteousness
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happening, it fails. We fail
because of sin. Paul personifieses this very
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unvividly. In Verse Eight, he
explains how this happens, he says,
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but sin seizing an opportunity through the
commandment produced in me all kinds of covetousness,
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for, apart from the loss in
lies dead, I was once alive,
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apart from the law, but when
the commandment came, sin came alive
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and I died. The very commandment
that promised life, do this and you
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will live, proved death to me, he says, for sin seizing an
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opportunity through the commandment deceived me and
through it killed me. You see how
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he separates, he makes this distinction
between law and sin. It's like sit
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like it, you could imagine,
the law is being a hammer, this
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thing that does good things, a
tape, hammers and nails, it builds
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houses, things like that. Sin
Grabs that hammer and starts beating people to
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death. The law is good.
There's nothing wrong with the law. It's
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sin that grasps these things and steers
us in the wrong direction and takes us
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in the wrong way. So that's
why he says by no means sin is
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sit when sin is close at hand, the law and our obedience to it
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goes wrong. Now Paul, in
using this word I throughout this passage,
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could be describing himself on this in
many ways, does describe people's experience with
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the law in this way. They
hear the law, they know the law,
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maybe they even love the law,
and yet they don't do it.
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This doesn't seem to be Paul's experience. Of perhaps it could have been,
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but Paul, in other places tends
to describe himself in other ways. He
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says I was great. He says
I didn't have any problem obeying the law.
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I heard the law, I know
it, I did it, I
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was schooled in the law with the
best teachers, I studied the law,
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I worked hard, I was righteous
beyond all of my brothers. That's how
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Paul describes his righteousness in comparison with
the law and other places. In those
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other places he goes on to say, I'll add, he would give it
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all away and compares at all to
filthy garbage, to rubbish, to disgusting
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things. I'm compared with the righteousness
of Christ. But here it sounds different,
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doesn't it? Here there's this other
kind of reaction that people have with
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the law, in which they're struggling
to do it. What seems to be
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happening is he is taking us and
having us think in this very personal way
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about what life in the Old Testament
was like, life, as he puts
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it in verse six of Chapter Seven, in the old way of the written
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code. He's describing this economy of
this this time under Moses, and he
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has been since the beginning. Remember
when, in the early chapters, he
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spoke to the Jews and he said
to them, you know, you have
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the law, you know these things, you believe that it's good, and
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yet you don't do them. There's
this that kind of reaction that he's describing
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here. One kind of curious thing
that leads us to think that he is
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speaking in kind of a corporate way, of belonging to this covenant and not
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necessarily of his personal experiences, is
verse nine. He says, I was
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once alive apart from the law,
but when the commandment came, sin came
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alive and died. Well, at
what time was are any of US alive
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apart from the law, in a
spiritual one on one situation with the law?
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At no time. But there is
a way in which, in the
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Old Testament, when God gave his
laws, the mosaic lots, to his
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people, there was a time when
they didn't have that law, a time
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when they did and then a time
when they sinned immediately after. So you
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remember, God brings his people out
of Egypt, he takes them to Mount
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Sinai, he declares their law to
them and then they obey it. Well,
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no, they don't. He brings
them out of Egypt, he takes
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them to Mount Sinai, he declares
his law and then they make a golden
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calf idolatry, which Paul says is
coveteousness in several places throughout the New Testament.
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The sin that he identifies here.
Paul is saying this is what happened
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when the Mosaic Law was given,
this law that is good and holy and
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righteous. The people didn't become righteous. Instead, what happened? We,
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I, he says, sinned.
He identifies his self with the people,
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his old the old people of the
Old Testament, his people, the Jewish
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people, and he says this is
not what happened. Whence the law was
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given. Sin Came Alive and we
immediately disobeyed, and that happened throughout the
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Old Testament. The law came and
instead of the people living in the land
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and and enjoying their time there and
being filled and blessed over and over and
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over again on into eternity, they
were kicked out of the land. God
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describes the the that action as vomiting. Maybe some of you have had this
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stomach flew lately and you remember what
it's like to vomit, that expelling of
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things that are bad inside of you, that forceful, powerful, those muscles
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contracting. That is what the land
did, that is what God did when
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he spewed his people out of the
land because they were bad, because they
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didn't obey the law. When the
law came, unrighteousness was increased, and
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this is what happened. This was
the way of the old written code,
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as he calls it in verse six. That's why he says in Corinthians that
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it was a ministry of death and
condemnation. The law is good Paul says,
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as a good Jewish Pharisee, the
law is good, it's holy,
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it's righteous. He says that as
a Christian, but the law, weakened
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by the flesh, was unable to
save us. Now, why is this
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important? This is very important and
it's very practical. Because if you imagine
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yourself in Rome. Okay, imagine
yourself in Rome, in this mixture of
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Jews and gentiles, imagine that you
just came, as a gentile, as
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a non Jew, out of paganism. Right a week ago you were worshiping
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trees and you were going to the
temple of some goddess and doing all kinds
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of unspeakable things there. But now
you're a Christian and somebody comes to you
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with the Bible and says, Look, God has given us his law.
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Obey these things and you will be
saved. Do these righteous things and you
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will live. That would be pretty
tempting, wouldn't it? It would be
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very tempting, very attractive to say
here is God's law, the God who
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has done these things. If I
obey them, I can have life.
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That's what the Judaizers were promising and
that's what the Jews, in many ways,
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were resting their hope and salvation on
by obeying the law. And this
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is in some ways because of the
fleshly part still in us, the trying
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harder, the striving. If I
just perceive the depth of the law more,
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if I just try to do more
than perhaps this will work out.
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But notice how Paul describes our situation
under the law in this passage. And
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we could go to other places too, but he says we are in the
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flesh. Verse Fourteen, sold under
Sin. He says that we are kind
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of crazy in a way, if
I can put it that way. In
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Verse Fifteen, for I do not
understand my own actions, for I do
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not do what I want, but
I do the very thing I hate.
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What but that's exactly what we do
when we are under the law, he
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says in verse eighteen. Nothing good
dwells in me. He says in Verse
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Eighteen, I have no ability to
do the necessary and good thing that I
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need to do. He says in
verse thirteen, my handwriting sloppy here.
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He says that we are captive to
the law of sin. At the end
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of this chapter he describes himself as
a wretched man in a body of death.
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These are his not the typical language
of the Christian life. Being sold
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under sin, being in the flesh, having nothing good in you, having
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no ability to do what is necessary
in what is good, being captive to
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the law of sin, being a
wretched person, being in a body of
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death. This is not the resurrected
life. Paul's going to describe that in
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Chapter Eight, which will get to
next week. Their life under the law,
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though, is these things. Now, sure there is some good right.
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He says in Verse Twenty One that
he wants to do what is right.
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He says in Verse Twenty Two that
even delights in the law and is
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inner self. In Verse Twenty Five, he says he serves the law of
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God in his mind, you know, not in his actions, but at
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least in his mind. But that's
true of many people. Even Pagan Philosophers
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and writers have spoken to these things
and you've seen it in your own lives
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with people who are not Christians.
Let me just read to you a couple
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quotes. One from hippolytis for four
hundred and eighty two, four hundred six
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PC. He says, I believe
in a play. That which is good
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we learn and recognize, yet practice
it, not or ovid around an older
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contemporary of Paul. He says I
see the better and a prove it,
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but I follow the worse. These
are experiences of people who are under the
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law. You know it, you
call it good, you see the good.
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Maybe you have people in your life
that are like this and yet they
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don't do it. You might compare
it to a man who is walking towards
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the edge of a cliff and God, in opening their conscience, opens their
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eyes and they see, oh,
going to the Ende of that cliff is
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a bad thing. But what do
they do? They walk right off.
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That's what being in the flesh does. That's what being in the sin.
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Sin Sees death and runs toward it, since he's curse and says that's what
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I want. Want. It's insane, but that's what sin loves. Sin
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Loves what is what a sin loves? A perversion and destruction. Not that
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the curse of God is evil in
itself, but that's what it leads to
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and that's what our sin leads us
to. So it's not enough to have
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the law. It's not enough to
have your eyes open, to have your
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your conscience softened to the things of
the law. What does it require.
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It requires a savior who will deliver
us from the body of sin, as
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pauls that calls it in Romans six, or the body of death, as
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he calls it here in Roman seven. Well, he can't quite hold himself
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back and he's so he he announces
his joy even before he gets to the
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full argument, in Verse Twenty Six, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ,
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Our Lord, and then he finishes
by saying so then I'm myself serve
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the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the
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law of sin. Well, if
you're reading that straight and you haven't read
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Chapter Eight, you might say,
well, Paul, why are you giving
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thanks? Everything you've set up to
now has been terrible. The experience of
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being under the Law and knowing only
our sinful reactions to it does not sound
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good. Indeed, the thing he
says just before that is wretched man that
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I am. But it is in
response to this question, who will deliver
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me to the bought? Who will
deliver me from this body of death,
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that he can't hold himself back and
he kind of foreshadows and gives the answer
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and he says thanks be to God
through Jesus Christ, Our Lord. That's
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the answer, the answer to righteousness, to holiness, to law, oh
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be obedience to the law. Is
Not more law, it's Jesus, it's
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the spirit of God working in us. And this is what he's going to
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say in Chapter Eight. Let me
read a few verses for you. He
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says there is therefore now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ, Jesus
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for the law of the spirit of
life, not the law of Moses,
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but for the law of the spirit
of life, has set you free,
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in Jesus Christ, from the Law
of sin and death, for the law
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has done with the or sorry,
for God has done with the law,
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weakened by the flesh, could not
do by sending his own son in the
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likeness of sinful flesh and for sin. He condemned sin in the flesh in
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order that the righteous requirements of the
law might be fulfilled in US, who
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walk not according to the flesh but
according to the spirit. This is the
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good news, this is the great
promise. So Win The objectors to the
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Gospel of God come to Paul and
say well, Hey, second hold on,
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Paul. Are you saying that the
law is sin? Are you saying
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that God is evil, that God
is wicked in giving the law, he
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says, by no means. But
the law, weakened by the flesh,
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is unable to produce the righteousness that
God requires. But Jesus Christ, whom
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God has given, has fulfilled that
law, has delivered you from this body
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of sin and body of death.
And in him he has done this so
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that the righteous requirement of the law
might be fulfilled in us. So,
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to conclude, is the law evil? Is The law sin? By no
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means the law is good. So
Christians, study it, know it,
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learn it, follow it, ask
God to make you strong in it,
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consider it often and obey it.
You can think of the Law of God
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as these tracts that you're on this
way and the direction that you go.
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If you stay on them, you
arrive at your destination. If you fall
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off, it's a horrible wreck.
But no train ever gets to its destination
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by sitting on a track. It
needs an injune. It needs to move
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and you don't move it by laying
down more tracts, you move it by
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having an injuine, and that injuine
that moves us, the injine that causes
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us to stay on the tracts and
get to our destination. Is Indeed God
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himself, Father, son and spirit, who saves us in order that the
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righteous requirements of the law might be
fulfilled in us, so that we might
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do the things God has called us
to do. So, if you find
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in yourself that struggle that Paul describes
here, of those who are under the
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law, or if you find in
yourself that struggle of the Christian who has
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in dwelling stin sin, still remaining
and there is a war going on,
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the one he describes in Galatians,
what shall you do? You shall go
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to Jesus, you shall seek his
spirits, spirits work in you, you
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shall depend on him for everything and
trust that he will do these things in
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you, even as he said he
will, because he will. The resurrection
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of Jesus promises that, the work
of the spirit, and you promises that.
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God promises that and will bring it
about. So trust in him,
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put your faith in him. Let
us pray
