Identification Truths
Mike Doyle · Nov 20, 2005
Identification (2005-06), No. 08
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262337213976

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Now I want to mention next week's questions. I went from the first three or four verses of chapter 6 back to John chapter 17. And the reason I did that, well a couple of reasons, one reason is that on Thursday night at our house we're going through John 17 and as I have been studying for it, I realized that, boy, there's an awful lot of material in John 17 that relates to identification class. And John 17 is a prayer from the Lord Jesus to his Father. And it encompasses basically three parts. The first six or seven verses have to do with the Lord Jesus and the Father. The second group, up to about verse 13, has to do with the disciples in Christ, and then from 14 on it has to do with us and our relationship with the Father and the Son in terms of oneness. So we'll talk about that next week. The questions on the surface look difficult, but they're not. I'm trusting the Holy Spirit to teach you. But as we move along, discussing identification.

I think what you'll see this coming week in John 17, it's precisely what the Lord Jesus prays about 2,000 years ago regarding you and me. What we're discussing in this class is what He prayed to the Father about for us 2,000 years ago. And you know what? If He prayed for it, there's no possibility it isn't going to come to reality. where it isn't already reality. The problem is not the reality of it. The problem is our perception of what the reality is and belief in it. Okay.

So, I'll be praying for you this week. So, we have moved out of Romans chapter 5, the last 8 or 9 verses, into Romans chapter 6. To set this up, what does Romans chapter 5 verse 12 through 21 tell us? What's the basic information or the basic doctrine that it gives us?

Two natures. There's actually two or three things that are different there from everything else that went previous to Romans. Number one, the word sins. S-I-N-S changes to the word sin, S-I-N, and in the Greek it has a definite article in front of it which means the sin. So it stops talking about sins, all those acts that people do, and begins to talk about the sin nature.

The second thing that's mentioned in there are the two men, Adam and Christ, and how they're absolutely essential in understanding, as you go forward as a believer, The issue is who are you attached to? Who are you identified with? And there are consequences and results from being aligned or attached or identified with either one of those men. Both are heads of races, both are federal heads, and both are representative heads, and whatever happens to them and whatever consequences because of their actions accrue to all of those who are identified with either one.

So that Romans 5.12 is known as the doctrines of two men.

Now when we get to 6, basically what the first ten verses of 6 are going to show us is how God, in His grace and His wisdom, severed us from the first Adam and united us with the second Adam. If you understand that you have two men and the issue is you've got to get from one to the other in order to be free, in order to be saved, and in order to enjoy intimacy with God for all eternity, then you have to leave positionally your association with this one man Adam and be united to this other man Christ. And what Romans 6 does, the first ten verses, is describe the mechanics by which and how God did this, how He did it. So, what we're studying in the first few verses here are mechanics, and this is all positional truth.

Do you understand what I mean by that? This is what we're going to study, and even next week when we do John and then back to Romans 6, it's position. We're not talking about condition here. We're talking about position. Okay? Is that alright? Everybody clear with that? Okay. That having been said, Romans 6, 1 says, What shall we say then?

Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? My question was, what does continue in sin mean? The reason that verse is there is because in 5.21 it says that as sin has reigned unto death, Even so, might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life? By Jesus Christ, I should have gone back to 20. Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." So, what does continuing sin mean? Careful with the word, sin. Does it mean continue to do a bunch of sinful acts? What do you think? Our position is no longer in sin, in the old man. So how can we continue in the old nature or in the new nature?

Yeah, that's basically what it has to do. This is instructional. And it's a very logical question. If God's purpose is to have grace reign and grace abounding, either the uninstructed believer or a non-believer would logically conclude, well, that's a pretty simple equation. X plus Y equals C. I'm going to sin, and I'm going to sin a lot more, so the grace would abound a lot more. And that's really what the question is. And the answer is what? May it never be. Do we have a contemporary phrase that would line up with may it never be? No way. No way. See that? No way. When you say to somebody in our language, no way, it means there's no possibility of that ever being the case.

So, the problem with a question like this is that it shows ignorance on the part of the person who's reading, and it also stops the heart of the person who's reading about their sinful behavior. Because there are those that think that because of God's grace, as young believers come to Christ, that it's not appropriate to tell them to stop sinning, that what should happen is that you should just kind of, if you're ministering to them and they're doing some repeated sinful activity, that you just tell them, look, you know, one of these days the Holy Spirit's going to take that sin off of you, so don't worry about it. There is a certain theology in Christianity that preaches that, and there are those that, in an attempt to understand grace, would say that. The point is that Paul's answer to that is, no way. And the logic is absolutely impeccable. It would not become the child of God to live any longer in sin. It would be like if you could take your dog and make him a cat, it would be totally illogical for him to continue barking.

He's not a dog anymore, he's a cat. I mean, that's a pretty simple way to look at it, but that's really what happened. You're not aligned with the old man anymore, you're now identified with the new man, so behavior that's consistent with the old man is illogical.

You see that? It makes no sense. And so my next question is, by what logic would grace increase if we continue to sin? If grace superabounds when you sin, then we ought to be sinning more. See? It sounds stupid to us, but that's the logic of the question. Okay? So, my next... Go ahead. Like we said last week, grace is a rank principle, not a commodity.

Yeah, I think, I don't know if we're going to sing it this morning or not, but I found it interesting. We were going to sing Greater Grace Than Our Sin. I think we are going to sing it this morning. And it's a hymn written by William Newell, of all people.

And it treats grace as a commodity, not as a reigning principle. I think that's a really important thing to understand, that grace is a reigning principle, not a commodity. It would be like crucifying Christ again. If you sin, then you need more grace. No, that's exactly right. If you think about it as a thing, rather than a principle, you always think you need more, you need special for...

I came out of a Catholic background. They categorized grace as I remember sanctifying grace and several others. You know, they had names for them. It's like Ethel Unleaded Premium, you know, that kind of thing. And that you needed a certain amount of it and certain kinds of it for certain difficult circumstances in your life. Well, that's ridiculous from the standpoint.

What is the expanded answer to the question in verse 1? And the answer is verse 2. I said see verse 2. And verse 2 is, God forbid, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer in it? Now, he characterizes all believers as dead to sin. Let's talk about what's death mean. Does it say that sin is dead? So what does it say? We're dead to it. Sometimes you have to watch those little words. The relationship of all believers to sin has been severed. He's not asserting that believers died for sin, but they died unto sin. Now, an example.

If someone, when Yetta Watson died, what happened to her? What happened to her soul and spirit? Did it cease to exist? What happened? It went somewhere else. So Yetta, sitting up there beholding the glory of the Lord, could say, I'm dead to the world. Couldn't she? The world's dead to me, because I'm not there anymore. It doesn't mean the world's dead. It doesn't mean she's dead. It means that there's been a separation between her and the environment she used to live in.

That's exactly what this means. The logic is really cool. How shall we, who are dead to sin, live any longer in it? It would be like saying to Yetta Watson, how shall you, who are dead to the world, be living here any longer? You wouldn't be. That's the point. Next time I sin, I'm going to blame it on the ghost of my old man. I keep tearing pages out of my Bible. So the logical question then is, why is living any longer in sin just not the norm for the believer? I don't mean norm, I mean norm. Why is living any longer in sin not normal for believers? Do you see how simple this logic is? In other words, if you used to live in New York City, why are you still walking around there? If you're a new creation, old things will pass away. Behold, all things will become new.

So the logic is, the reason that you don't sin is because you're not aligned with, identified with, or attached with to the sin nature. That's the reason. So when your faith begins to focus on spiritual facts, this is the fact. The fact is, God isn't going to help you to stop sinning.

What has he done? He's already severed you from the sin nature and he expects you by faith to not any longer live under the control of the sin nature. How many of you read Watchman Nee's Normal Christian Life? Have you ever read that book? It's a really good book. I recommend you read it because he has a great explanation of this issue in there.

He talks about a ship in which the captain was a ruthless guy and there was a mutiny on board and they deposed the captain, but they didn't kill him. What they did was they tied him up to the mast. And so now the ship is under new leadership. But a storm came and the captain tied up to the mast is yelling out orders. And people on the ship's crew that are coming by him are thinking, is he still the boss?

Should I obey what he says? And he uses that as an example of being dead to the sin nature, that it's still talking and barking orders at you, but you don't need to respond to it because you're severed or you're dead to it. The captain on that ship wasn't dead, but his authority was severed. So who is in charge of controlling the sin nature in the believer? Old man? How about the promise keepers? No, sorry. I had a little shot at them, though.

How about getting your life purposeful and driven? Who's responsible to control the sin nature in you? That's a hard question. Whose responsibility is it? Is it yours? No. The Holy Spirit. Spirit, yeah. It's God's responsibility. So what's your role in it? Or do you have one? You believe what He tells you. Yeah, it's based on Romans 6 truth. Your job is to believe Him. It's His job to control the sin nature. And how does He control it? He controls it from the position of truth.

You're going to see a verse next week in John chapter 17 where the Lord says, I sanctify myself for their sake. Sanctify them by your truth." Sanctification means to be set apart. This is set apart. What's the truth that sets you apart? What sets you apart from sin to God is this very issue. This is how it's done. This is what God has done. This next question I think was probably a little misleading.

I didn't ask it very clearly. Do we have the freedom to plead with God about the power of a tendency to sin over which there is no control? Who didn't understand the question? In other words, is it okay for us to go to God and say, to plead with Him about the sin in your life to get it under control when you say to him, well, I don't have any control over this. No. It's not, is it? Why not?

Because you still have the tendency to sin, you still have the sin nature there. You know, the sin nature didn't read Romans 6 and say, oh, well, okay, I quit. As anything, the sin nature reads Romans 6 as a challenge and says, I'm going to show you that the Word of God isn't right. That's right, bring it on, I'm ready. And the other interesting thing about the sin nature is, how many of you here absolutely are persuaded, without the shadow of a doubt, that your sin nature is more than you can control? No hands. One hand. Boy, you guys are tough. Three hands. The rest of you guys need to go into Romans class.

One of the things you discover as a growing believer is that, this seems like a paradox, one of the things we discover as growing believers is that because of our salvation we think that the power of sin has been, the power of the sin nature has been put out of business. and so all we have to do is pray more, study more, try harder, obey more, and that sin will be shoved down. It's like those kids games where the head pops up and you hit it with a hammer and then this one comes up and you hit it like that. That's the way the sin nature is. You keep knocking those suckers down and they keep coming up. You discover as a growing believer the power of sin, and it is greater than your ability to control it.

So God's answer is not to fight it. One, there's the recognition that it's still there and it's still strong. And then God says to you, oh, by the way, it's inconsistent, it doesn't become a child of God to live in sin any longer. So you and your wisdom go to God and say, well, okay, I understand that I've been severed from it, but you know what?

Every time the music starts, my feet are moving. Every time I'm tempted, I'm going for it. And if I'm dead to it, how come? Isn't that a logical question to ask God? What's His answer? How can you who are dead to sin be any longer living in it? Isn't that His answer? So when you go to Him and ask Him a question like that, what are you demonstrating to Him? You don't believe Him. You don't believe Him.

Okay? Isn't that also part of ours, I mean, in belief? Ours is the belief. So I kind of had a thought, I mean, the Holy Spirit is the one dealing with it, but we still have to believe. Yeah, we do. I mean, it's the control. Who are we? Do we believe God or not? So, I mean, the Holy Spirit is working it, but, you know, so in five, I kind of put us as in belief. But see, the problem with faith is that although we're not the precipitating cause, we're not the one that makes it happen. But there is a principle there in which God does not work something into your life conditionally until you believe it. You understand what I mean? It is. And it's simple faith. It's not complicated. I mean, look at the logic here. who are dead to sin be any longer living in it?" I mean, it's a very simple statement.

And your response to it is, yeah. Well, I was just thinking that even if you are pleading with God, He still is at work bringing that prayer around to where you understand what He's actually done. I mean, isn't it kind of a progressive thing that you're talking about here? I mean, you understand it simply, but that's such a many-faceted revelation of what he's actually done. You know, it is and it isn't. I think as you grow, it becomes simpler.

Because your sin nature wants to make it complicated and make it look like it's so complicated it can't be overcome. You know, like if you've ever been around university academics, there are those professors that want to sound complicated because you think they're smart because they sound complicated, when the really wise person is simple. The really wise person is very simple, and they're able to communicate their wisdom in a few words. The guy that's an idiot has a string of three-dollar words at the end of the sentence, you have no idea what he said, And so his agenda is to get you to think he's smart.

So God is simple, but profound. How can you, who are dead to sin, be living any longer in it? What a question. Real simple. Your job is not to do 14 years in seminary to figure this out. Your job is simply to say, OK, I believe you. Once you do that, once you say, OK, I believe you, hang on, because you're going for a ride. Because He's going to prove to you, one, the power of the sin nature, and He's going to prove to you what He did about it. He judged the old man.

He didn't save him. How many think that your old man got saved? Remember we talked last week about how many view yourselves as being a saved sinner? There's no such animal. That's an oxymoron. You aren't a saved sinner. Positionally, once you're saved, you're severed from the man who is a sinner, and you are united to Christ. See that? That's the logic here.

So, God provides a possibility of being delivered from sin's power, and this is the way He does it. He's telling us how He did it. He judged the old nature. and gives us the Holy Spirit. Now what's the job of the Holy Spirit in the believer? It's to reveal Christ to the believer, right? And to conform him to the image of Christ. He does it because the struggle with the sin nature is going to be an experience that every growing believer goes through.

And you have two things going for you. You have the Word of God and you have the Spirit of God. And you have this information that God did sever me from the old man. And what you find out in the end game is that you are dependent upon God alone for deliverance.

And we won't get as far as Romans 7, but Romans 7.23 says, Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Notice the pronoun, who.

It's not a what, it's not a how, it's not a system, it's not purpose, It's not your buddy, it's the Lord Jesus Christ himself. So, if the logic holds true through Romans 6, which it will, the bottom line is this, that the necessity to sin is broken. And not only for your edification, but for those that God would lead in your life, who are troubled by sin, this is the only answer. that the identification with Christ's death, burial, and resurrection is the secret to being free from the power of sin. Believers are free to move about on a totally different plane altogether. Newell says, the arguments in this passage are based upon the believer's vital union by which we are organically, I like the use of that word, united to Christ through baptism into his body.

Now, what does the word baptism mean? And just for you Greek geeks, it's indicative, eris, passive. It means it's reality, it's an accomplished fact, and it was done to you. So what does it mean to be baptized? What does baptism mean? It means you got wet. What does it mean? Identified. Baptizo. Some of the translations mean to dip. In the Greek language though, it signified the dying of a garment.

So I probably should have used Hal's example. Have you ever seen him use that example with the bottle of inky water and the white handkerchief and you put the handkerchief in the inky water and you take it out and the handkerchief now assumes the color of the ink? Can you separate the ink from the handkerchief?

You can't. So what it really means is to be placed into with no possibility of ever being taken out of. That's total incomplete. That's total incomplete. When did you get baptized? For you, personally, in this room, when were you baptized by the Spirit into Christ's death? The moment that you believed. placed into Christ or baptized by the Holy Spirit at the moment that you believed into Christ's death, okay? And so I ask the question, at what point in the history of Christ does a believer become identified with Christ?

Answer is, at his death. So why then? Why is that the critical time? What time would there be? If you were of a covenant viewpoint, you might think you got baptized at the resurrection, or you might think you got baptized into Christ before he went to the cross. I don't know. Why is being baptized into him at the point of his death critical for us to understand? You took care of the sin issue? The sin issue. Right.

Now, why did Christ die? What was the precipitating cause of his death? Maybe I'll make it simple. At what point on the cross, we'll ask this, was Christ, if death means separation, when Christ was on the cross, was there a time in which he was separated from his Father? What time was that? When he had taken every sin from the world, past, present and future upon himself. What do you think about that? When he cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? There are two issues about the death of Christ. One of them is what is known as the substitutionary death. And what does substitutionary mean? He died and did what? paid the penalty for the sins of the whole world, He did that by Himself.

You weren't involved in that part of it. But this verse says, 3 says, you were baptized into His death, so what part are you getting involved in? He who knew no sin, singular sin, was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. So not only does He on the cross pay the penalty for sins, but he gets identified with sin natures. Everybody's sin nature in this room was placed on him. Now, from an identification standpoint, he is a sinner. So what does God do? He turns away. He turns away from him. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That's the point in which you went in. It's your sin nature that caused the Father to turn away from Him.

Now, when He dies, again keeping in mind the word separation, what happens? What happens to Him? Well, maybe an easier question. If He's made sin, if this is the sin nature, and this is Christ and he's identified with the sin nature and he dies, what kind of separations are happening now? He's been separated from his father because he has become sin, but now he's going to die. He's going to be separated from all that he was here in the world. He separates from the sin nature.

You see that? He separates from your sin nature and mine. Where are you? You're with Christ. So once you're baptized into Christ's death, the sin nature, now that you're identified with Christ, when he separates from the sin nature, the sin nature stays away from Christ, maybe is the way to put it. Do you see that? Do you see what I'm saying there? It's a positional truth now. So you're baptized in the point of his death, and that's the perfect time to go in, because that's the time in which you want to be severed, positionally, from all that you were in Adam.

I don't expect you to understand that at first blush, but that's one of those things that you believe God about and over time I think makes it clear to you. So, water baptism could not accomplish that fact by itself. Water baptism is one of those things that is a demonstration of an event that's already taken place spiritually. If you come out of Catholicism like me, they say that water baptism somehow gives you this grace thing and cleans up your soul and you at least have temporary salvation. If that were true, I should have died right after I was baptized because I was in trouble from then on. So water doesn't do anything and baptism as an ordinance doesn't do anything in terms of adding anything to you spiritually. What baptism is, it's not a symbol of washing, it's not even a symbol of life. What is it a symbol of? It's a symbol of death. My death with Christ. See that?

So, you were baptized into Christ, being in Christ, what events in Christ's life does a believer partake in? The word in there is a primary preposition that denotes fixed position. In place, in time, in state, in relationship. Once you're in Christ, it can't ever change. It's permanent. So you're in Christ, and we've already talked about one of the things that happen in Christ's life that you partake in, and that's His death. What else? You were crucified with him. You died with him.

Now, back to Romans 5.12, and back to our discussion about being identified with the old man. You remember over the last 6-7 weeks, as we talked about our identity with Adam, we discovered that whatever was true of Adam was true of us, right? Adam's a sinner, I'm a sinner. I didn't have to send John to sinning academy. He could go in the nursery and watch how sin operates.

Then go downstairs and watch those kids. They get better at it as they get older. Why? Because it's built in. Well, what God has done now, he has severed us positionally from Adam and united us to Christ. The same principle that we studied in Genesis begins to hold true for us positionally. See that?

So, we were buried with him. We died. Now, let's talk about death. In his death, what did he separate from? Sin nature. What else? But you were already separated from his father. When he got identified with us, that's why he was separated, because we were. What else did he die to? Unto? He died unto the world, and he died unto the world the cosmos, which means the world's mentality, the viewpoint. What else? How about the law? He died to the law. How about Satan?

So he died to the entire environment and the entire old creation in which we were born into. Christ died unto that, so what does that mean happened to you? You do. You do. How about burial? This word, sunthapato, sunnapato, means to bury together with. Why burial? Why wouldn't in Romans 6-3 they would even, why didn't they just say you died and resurrected? Why burial?

Burial foreshadows the old scapegoat. You remember on the Day of Atonement there were two goats. The first one was the goat that was killed and the blood was taken into the Holy of Holies. And there was another goat, called a scapegoat. And what did the high priest do? He put his hands on the goat and he transferred the sins of the people to the goat. and the goat was taken out into the wilderness and let go and he never came back, demonstrating that the sins of the people were put out of God's mind.

What burial does is, that scapegoat is an example of what burial is. It's the final demonstration of your severing from the earth and from sin. it consummates the breaking of the last tie between you and the earth, between Christ and the earth. Isn't that true? We go to a funeral, we put the body in the ground and that's kind of the final deal, right? That's it. That's why we're included in the burial. It's a final deal with us. Then we go and have a meal. That's right. We celebrate life.

One of the things, goads that the Holy Spirit used to draw me to Christ was four or five years before I became a believer. I was at a funeral in which a godly man spoke and his whole message was, why are you standing around here watching dead? We should be involved in life. I never heard anything like that before and that sort of, you know, goaded me for years. What was he talking about? Life. Funerals are very sad situations and this guy's talking about the joys of life. and that the person who had been buried was in eternal life now. As a Catholic boy, I didn't understand that at all. That was spookier to me.

So, we're involved in baptism, the absolute and final separation of our association with anything of the world. And then, what else are we involved in? And that's the next verse. But what does resurrection give us? Courtney said that we entered into the new creation. Those of you who have Lewis Barry Chafer's Systematic Theology, there's a place in there in book three about the 33 things that happened to us on the cross. It's worth your looking them up. I may Xerox them and bring them in. Now we have unresurrected ground. We have a new headship. We have a new inheritance.

We have every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. We've been justified forever. We are now citizens of heaven. And all heavenly associations are ours. Do you see what a total change this is? And having said that, do you see how difficult it is for your faith to buy this? Because we look at God and say, yeah, but I'm still here. And he says, no you're not. You say, oh yes I am. I'm still here. The world is still influencing me. I still have a sin nature. I still have all this going on in my life. And he says, no, that's not true. Now your faith has tried. This is a lot tougher than buying salvation, isn't it? And not only that, it's specific. It's specific faith and specific facts. Right?

So is this a new principle that God has just instituted? Where have we seen it before? The principle of resurrects in life in terms of new headship, new inheritance, new blessings, new citizenship, associations. What's the principle I'm looking for here? Life out of debt? No. That's pretty close. How are we doing on time? What's the principle? What's the principle that we found in Genesis in terms of why you are the way you are? Life begets like. Remember that?

Birds beget birds. Dogs beget dogs. Human beings beget human beings. Remember I said there is no such thing as a bird dog, although I have one. But there's no such thing as a dog bird or a cat chicken. You don't see dogs producing litters of butterflies, unless you watch Star Wars.

That's also true in the spiritual realm. Why did Adam produce sinners? Because he was a sinner. He produced just like him. Now, as persons who have been identified in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, Now what's the production principle? The principle is the same. Like begets like. See that? So, what's interesting about these verses is, from an identification standpoint, they are impeccable in terms of the logic. And God's principles didn't change from Genesis to here. It's the same principle.

Have you ever thought that maybe it's insanity for a Christian to sin? If I say to you, Joe down the street, he's insane, what am I saying about him? He's checked out from what we perceive reality to be. So if I say to you, Joe's a believer and he's sinning, I could be saying the same thing about Joe. befit a believer to sin. It's insanity from his positional association with Christ, his resurrected position. You see that? So when a believer sins, it is totally uncharacteristic of who he is.

We don't believe that because we sin so much. Why is it so easy? I think the answer is simple, don't you? The real answer to that question, and the reason it's so easy, is because we don't buy this. We don't believe it. We go to them all the time and say, well, this can't be true, because my experience is that I sin all the time. I'm not going to get better.

Isn't that right? I mean, you really challenge God, you go to God, like all those Old Testament guys say, you know, the spies went in the land and came back and said, yeah, I know God said we could have the place, but boy, there are giants in the land, big cities, lots of high walls, we better not go there. God says, I crucified you, I baptized you into my son's death, you were buried with him and resurrected to newness of life, now walk there. You say, well, no, no, there are giants in my land. Sin is this high. I know what you said, but I can't go there. Okay, so guess what he does? You've been positionally crucified, now you're going to get the conditional part of it.

What did he do with the Jews when they didn't believe him? They did a U-turn and they went into the desert for how long? 40 years. And what happened out there? All those people that didn't believe him 40 years ago at Kadesh Barnea, what happened to them? They all died. So when he gets back to Kadesh Barnea, who's left? Joshua and Caleb, the guys who believe them, and a whole crop of new Jews who have enough faith to go across the Jordan River. So he takes you on this spiritual desert journey to do what? To conditionally put your doubting old man out of business, so that you believe him about this, and move ahead, cross the Jordan into the Promised Land, where you will abide.

You see that? So that's why you learn the position and you exercise faith in the position, or you don't exercise faith in the position, but you know what? If you say to God, I've read all this, and this is really wonderful, but I ain't buying it for a minute, because it's true, and because you're a believer, and because you've been involved by the Holy Spirit, that doesn't stop him one bit.

We're moving. You know, we're moving. Mike, just to understand it, with question number... I'm still struggling with question number six. What that means, I mean, basically isn't that saying that we should just believe and we have no freedom to plead with God to help us believe? I mean, I don't know, isn't that basically what they're saying? So we can't ask God to help us to get into that right spot?

Let's talk about that. Okay, good. Can you, I mean, is it, maybe ask it this way, is it spiritually logical to go to God and say, you know, I really need your help here? just to stop sinning. He already did it. The point is, is it okay to go to him and say, you know, I see it, I understand it, I have a little bit of faith to believe it, but boy, my experience is not what I believe and not what I know. You know, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. What do you think about that? Is that okay? I don't want to give you a set of rules.

The point is that what you discover, and the point of the question was, is that only the old man goes to God and wants to debate with Him about the validity of the truth that He's told us. And he does it on the basis of, well, I know what you say, but my experience doesn't line up with what you say. So my experience, there's some validity to my experience, and that's what I want to talk about.

He won't go there. Why not? What's his viewpoint now of your old man? Separated. That's right. So would it be logical for him to even respond? I wouldn't go down to the funeral home where Yeda was and say, Hey, Yeda, let's talk. Have a conversation. Why wouldn't I do that? She's not there. Right?

Why would I want to engage my sin nature in a conversation with God about how weak it is, or how strong it is, or how much it's sinning, or how weak I am? Discovering that I'm weak is a good thing, not a bad thing. That's why the principles involved in walking in the Spirit are 180 from the principles of the world. The world says, strong. Paul says, when I'm weak, then I'm strong. The world says, accomplish. The Word of God says, rest. The world says strive to produce fruit. God says abide.

It's totally the opposite. And it's tough for us Americans because we have put holy water on the Constitution thinking that if we strive and work really hard we're godly people. No, we're not. We're not Jews anymore. What do you have to say to God then about your condition or do you just ignore it? No. And just look at, try to focus on our position and just rest and It's interesting.

I don't know if we have time to go through the rest of 6 and through 7, Romans 7, because 7 is the struggle. That's what Romans 7 is. But look where 7 is positioned. It's positioned in Romans after all of the understanding of Romans 5, 12 through 21, and after 6.

And 6 talks about identification, freedom from sin, freedom from law, Romans 7.1-7.6 talks about being free from the law.

But what does a guy in 7 do? He's going to try to live this Christian life out of his own strength based on the law principle. And he's going to fail. And he's going to fail miserably. And he even discovers all kinds of really cool stuff. He says that when I want to do something, I don't. So he discovers that his will isn't strong enough to live the Christian life. He finds that he's emotionally engaged in his spiritual struggle and his emotions don't help him either. He discovers that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing. He thought he had about 60% good, then it went to 40, then it went to 20, and finally he says no good. Then he discovers that, I find out that it's not I who sin, the new man in Christ, but sin, the sin nature that's taken up its home in me.

And finally he gets to the point, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me? It's not who shall save me, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I need to be delivered. And the very next phrase is, I thank God through Jesus Christ. Bingo, well that's right, I am delivered, positionally and conditionally. But every believer has got to go through that struggle. I'm convinced of it.

You don't get to jump from six to eight, no matter how hard you believe. Newell says you can, but I disagree with him. Because you wouldn't be of any spiritual use to any other believer who was struggling if you hadn't been down the road. Just because you know the facts doesn't mean you own them.

Did you see that? It must be time, I hear them. Okay, does that answer your question? Dear Father, how we thank you for your word and your truth. And we recognize that not only have you separated us unto yourself positionally by your truth, but you're going to do it conditionally, that we would really, moment by moment, walk in this newness of life that we are in. We thank you. We pray in your Son's name. Amen.