Sanctification is by the Spirit: Pt 2
Galatians 5:18-21 · Roger Henderson · Oct 17, 2010
Galatians (2010), No. 41
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926217266687

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

Go to Galatians, and let's look in chapter 5 here. Can I get someone to read, starting in verse, in chapter 5, read 16 through 23. So we're going to kind of have the whole package here. Randy's going to cover the last two next week, but they'll put this set of verses in context. So 16 through 23 in chapter 5. You don't have a list of who's supposed to read? I'll go ahead and do it.

I say then, walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. Now when the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in the time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of this spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, gentlest self-control. Against such there is no law. Great. Thanks, Randy. Okay, today we're going to cover basically, actually verse 18 maybe could go with either section. I chose to take it here.

But we're going to mainly focus on the deeds of the flesh here and how, you know, this is a list that the Lord has given us and actually says that at the end that this list isn't complete. This isn't the complete list. So this is a representative list of the deeds of the flesh.

So let's just start with verse 18 here. It says, But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. And actually, if you look back in the context, this is kind of a companion verse to verse 16, which says, Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh, as we talked about last week.

So this is kind of a companion verse, another piece of information that And this actually has a wonderful truth of, and it's actually a conditional statement. I have about three or four ideas in my head here, because I'm trying to say them all at the same time. I apologize for that. A conditional sentence, and it has the idea of assuming to be true, but if, assuming you are led by the spirit, and you are, you are then not under the law. And if you think about that, think about this aspect.

If the God who created the law, I'll say mosaic law, if He is leading you, He's the one that wrote the law, then it's no problem. And that's exactly what it says. If you are led by the Spirit, and we're going to look at this, if you're led by the Spirit, is to bring, to carry, to lead, and it's in the passive voice, if He's leading you, Then the law, really, the law isn't in focus. That doesn't mean the law is bad, it just means that you don't have to worry about that. He's leading you and he will guide you into the truth. And there are many verses that talk about that. Bob? This is profound theology, actually, if you think about it. This is really at the roots and the backbone of the faith.

I mean, just what you're going to read is under law, this envying and jealousy and strife. I mean, that's what the law does to you. It really puts you under that type of performance. But if you're led by the Spirit, the law has no bearing. No, it's not in view.

And actually, if you go back and look in context, just go back quickly to Galatians 3.19. He answers that question. We covered this many moons ago here.

Why the law then? It was added because of transgressions. And I won't finish the rest of it. Just that little piece that it was added because man has a sin nature and he needs to be controlled. And without the Spirit of God leading you, you need law.

I mean, we know that. I mean, society knows that. Without law, it's anarchy. It's chaos. And you can see that. I mean, you can see that in the world. So outside of the word Jesus Christ, outside of the Spirit leading you, you need laws. And the law was given for that reason. And it was in the Old Testament picture of the law.

So anyway, that's what's really cool. So basically, you're being led by the Spirit in the passive voice. And God is doing the leading. And Romans 8.14 says, let's just look at that, Romans 8.14. And this says, for all who are being led by the Spirit, same kind of thing, by the Spirit, these are the sons of God. Actually, being led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. As you're being led by the Spirit, you will see, next week we'll have all the fruits of the Spirit. All those will be manifest in you. And then, basically, as we saw last week, by means of the Spirit, and then referring back to last week's verses.

And this is kind of cool. You are is actually this verb, a very important verb in the Greek, an essence verb. It's a state of being verb. It basically says you will not be in this, this is a negative of that. So the positive of that is a state in which someone or something continuously exists. So it says you will not continuously exist under the law, which is wonderful news. And then under the law, that little phrase is used in other places.

In Romans 6.14, it says you're not under law, but under grace. Another kind of confirmation. That's a mindset of the Christian life, is that the Spirit of God is guiding us. We're under grace. And the law is really not in view. And you're going to you're going to not have an issue because the person who wrote the law is leading you. Any thoughts or questions on this? One thing that sometimes we say that we're under grace. What do we mean by that?

It's like it's a system. Right. Exactly. It says it completely. No, I like that thing. It's a system. It's an operating system. He operates under grace, not under law. And that's wonderful. It's wonderful that we're in that sphere of grace. Keeping it simple, God operates under thanksgiving. That's good.

So now we're going to get into the meat here. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident. So he's going to talk about these deeds of the flesh and he says they're evident. And I think that's true. I don't think any person, if you talk with them about man and mankind, their deeds are on display all the time. I mean, our world right now, it seems like with all the communication we have, we get to see the deeds of the flesh up close. just right there in your face. In real time. You can see all the deeds of the flesh 24-7.

The world recognizes this. And obviously the Lord who made us recognizes this. So he says basically here that the deeds of the flesh, and deeds are acts, works are acts. And if you think about this, what's interesting is, and I have just a couple, We talked last week about the lust of the flesh. Lust leads to deeds. Lust is the root. A person lusts or desires in his heart and that produces what? It produces a deed. And this is what he's going to tell us, all these deeds that the lust can produce. And there's another kind of similar phraseology. It says, deeds of the flesh is another set of words. And let's look at that in Romans chapter.

There's actually a typo here. That should be Romans 13, 12. I apologize. Romans 13, 12. Let's turn there. Romans 13, 12. Did I get someone to read that? Romans 13, 12. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Okay. Actually, and that's probably King James, or is that? King James. King James, right. And the New American Standard has a little bit, slightly different phrasing, but I think it's kind of helpful.

It says, let us therefore, let us therefore lay aside the deeds of darkness. So I found that as a complementary or a similar phraseology. Deeds of the flesh, deeds of darkness. They're talking about the same thing. Deeds of darkness. And that also appears in the Ephesians passage, if you turn over there. Ephesians 5, 5.11.

Ephesians 5.11. And I'll read this, it says, and do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of the darkness, but instead expose them. So in a sense, God's going to expose them. He's going to list them. He's going to list all these.

And we're going to find, at first I was kind of, I said, boy, there are 15 of these. Actually, there's a different count. If you have a King James, there's two extra ones. And I looked a little bit, and some of them are in the best of the tech. There's a critical text. And so if you have King James, you have actually two more. But anyway, so I'm going to cover the ones that are in my version. So I'm not going to get into a discussion about that. But they certainly, in some sense, are covered by these set, those two extra ones in the King James. So what's my point here?

OK, deeds of darkness. So kind of going along with this idea, the flesh, if you think about it, lusts are unseen. The lusts of the flesh, you can't see that. But the deeds of the flesh you can see. So once again, the lust or desires produces the deeds.

The desire of the sin nature, we have the desire of the sin nature versus the display of the sin nature. These are all kind of little comments I collected as I was looking through this. There's the desire of the sin nature and we have the display of the sin nature. So we're going to see the display of the sin nature. And basically, it's the deeds of the flesh. And this is the word sarx, sinfulness, proneness to sin.

And then I read through some of Howell's notes here. And basically, he has a much longer thing on talking about man and his nature. And the very last page has his little discussion about the flesh. And the flesh can be, in scripture, kind of three categories he has. He has material, meaning our fleshly bodies. And he has a couple categories. On the very last page, he talks about it can be material and immaterial, or unseen. And it can be unseen entirely, or immaterial.

So this is a little section on the flesh being immaterial. So that's kind of what we're seeing here. The lust of the flesh, Galatians 5, 16, and 17. And then in the flesh. cannot please God in Romans 8, and in Romans 8-9 we say the believers are not in the flesh. So this is speaking of the immaterial part of God, the immaterial part of the believer, and the unbeliever. So that's the immaterial part, but we're going to see the result of that. I kind of said this about ten different ways, but I think it's important. There's the immaterial part, the fleshly nature, and you can't see that, you can only see the results of that.

Well, maybe you're going to get into this, so I hope I'm not jumping ahead in your lesson, but I think it's critical to understand that that motive, internal part of the way that the flesh operates, when you discuss with somebody and you're evangelizing or presenting the gospel, when you start to talk about sin, they immediately get offended that you'd suggest that they would sin, but if you talk about, because they want to quarrel with you about this list.

Yes, they do. But it fundamentally comes down to the problem is what you're thinking inside and what you're doing inside. It's not just... The desires inside are being manifested or made evident. And obviously they matter because they're hurtful. But people want to quarrel about the list. They want to negotiate about what's on the list. But the fundamental That's good, that's good.

So basically it says, now the deeds of the flesh are evident. And he's going to go into the list here. Evident, basically manifest, made plain. And let's look at the Romans passage, Romans 119. This talks about those deeds being made evident. Can I get someone to read maybe actually 18 and 19, Romans chapter 1, 18 and 19. So it's, you know, it's evident within them.

And that's actually speaking in a positive context there. So it means a little bit, maybe switching gears a little bit on this, but okay. All right, so let's go ahead. So now we're going to kind of get into the, so it says which R could be rendered for example. So this is going to be the representative list.

So in my study, I put this off until last, because I said, I cut it. And then I said, well, I got to go through each one. So I went through each one. And I actually didn't write the verses down, so I'll just tell you, we can go through some of the verses.

But anyway, so the first one is, actually the one, if you have a King James, the first one is adultery, I think, in the King James. Is that right? Does anybody have a King James? I think adultery is the first one. Well, there's a textual issue there whether that's in the best text. OK.

The first one in the American Standard is fornication, which in some ways kind of covers that one in a sense. So fornication, basically illicit sexual intercourse, outside of God's plan and desires. And basically there are 24 occurrences of this word in the New Testament. It's interesting if you look at, I'm not going to be able to turn to all these, but for example in John 8, 41, they're talking to Christ here and they basically, they say, well let's just read it. They claim he's a fornicator. You do the deeds of your father. Then they said to him, we are not born of fornication. We have one father, God.

So the word fornication is used in that sense. It's also used basically abstaining from fornication. It's also translated immorality sometimes, flee from immorality in Corinthians. So it's translated as fornication, immorality, and the concept is we're to flee from that. That's to be a part of our life. We're to agree with God that His plan in marriage is a place for sexual activities.

Next one is impurity. This is uncleanness, sexual sins. And I have some lines, ok I haven't got to that part yet. And some have added pornography in this one to the synonym there. And this occurs about ten times. The reason I say about, because sometimes there will be different forms of the word. So I only did the form that was in this verse.

And in Colossians 3.5 it says, Therefore consider the members of your earthly bodies as dead to immorality, and so on, and impurity. So actually they have both of them, immorality and impurity.

Then in Romans 1.24 it says, God gave them over to the lust of their hearts to impurity. And then the third one in this category, and I've kind of put these little lines in here to what some have thought are categories here, sensuality, absence of restraint, indecency, wantonness.

And this occurs in about 10 times, 2 Peter 2.2. Many will follow their sensualities, and because of them the way of truth will be maligned.

And it talks about Lot in 2 Peter 2.7. Lot oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men. So this group of three here, some have labeled, this is the sexual sin of the group. And then the next set is another category. And some have said that's the religious sins. The first one is idolatry. Basically putting things before the unseen God.

And basically in 1 Corinthians 10.14 it says flee from idolatry. And there are about four occurrences of that, with that particular word.

And there's sorcery. And actually, I didn't realize this. Apparently, the use of drugs in sorcery is the common practice. I haven't studied some of these things, but anyway. So, go ahead. Culturally, part of the sorcery was mysticism and interaction with the spiritual realm. use drugs and get high, and then whatever experience you had in your state of being high, then you would be able to know what the spirits are saying to you. Right. Yeah, St. James calls it witchcraft, actually. Yes, exactly. And that's good. Thanks, Bob. That's good. He calls it witchcraft, right.

And basically, in talks about Revelation, they did not repent from sorceries and murders and immorality. And there are three occurrences of that particular word. And then the enmities, hatred, hostilities. And let's look at this one, Romans chapter 8 and verse 7. Someone can read that, Romans 8 and verse 7. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God and is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. Right. So this is translated enmities with God. And then in James it talks about friendship with the world is enmity with God. And some actually put that in the same category as religious sins. The next category encompasses the next whole set here. That's called Destructive Social Sins. The first one is strife. Strife, quarreling, contention, wrangling.

In 1 Corinthians 3.3 it says, You are still fleshly. There is jealousy and strife among you. In the Philippians it talks about preaching Christ from envy and strife.

We see a lot of these sometimes will come in and people will have this sin and that will influence their message of Christ. They'll do it from a different motive. We might do it because we would want to do it because we want people to know Christ and sincerely to be saved. Other people have other motives, make money, to be famous, and so on and so on.

So this is the political area. Okay. Destructive social sense. I'll let you... Okay, jealousy. Also feelings due to what others have. You're jealous of what they have. Sometimes the word zeal comes up as a synonym here for this one. And this occurs 17 times.

And basically, this is interesting, this is one where, this verse has always kind of intrigued me, talking about the Jewish nation, they had a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. So they were zealous, they were, and it's kind of, jealous and zeal, I haven't really tied them together in my mind. They were jealous for God, but they weren't knowledgeable about that. Not in accordance with knowledge. That's always been an interesting verse to me.

Okay, then outbursts of anger, hot anger, passion, sometimes translated wrath or rage. That's nine, okay. And in Acts 19, 28, it says they were filled with rage and they went around saying great is Artemis. That was, I think, one of the missionary journeys. And then disputes, self-seeking, rivalries. Also, selfishness and ambitions are another synonym here. In Romans it talks about those who have selfish ambitions. Here's another thing. Proclaiming Christ out of selfish ambition.

That's in Philippians 1.17. Dissensions. Go ahead, sure. I'm always scratching my head at that. It's like, how does that even work? I know. But then I think about, we have folks today, like Fred Phelps or whatever, that whole group that goes out with signs and protests at the soldiers' funerals and things like that.

It's completely selfish and it does not show grace. It does not show love. Oh, absolutely. It's unrelenting. It's absolutely... proclaiming the gospel. I know, I know what you're saying. It's modern day happening within what the world sees as Christian. Sometimes you almost, you know, we haven't had cable over the years and so when digital TV came along, all of a sudden all these extra channels showed up. A lot of them are proclaiming Christian messages. But unfortunately a lot of those messages are You start listening to some of these people, and I don't know, I scratch my head and say, Lord, why are they saying anything? I just, you know...

So, some of this I say, they're out there proclaiming Christ, but they're... What are their motives, and what are they saying? Are they really proclaiming the truth, or what's going on? I think it has to do with intent as well, because if you recall in the Gospel, there was a place where the disciples came to Jesus, and they said they tried to stop this guy from proclaiming the gospel. And the answer was that, you know, don't stop them because if they aren't against us, they're for us. So if the intent is to be against Christ or to condemn Christ or to get rid of Christ, which is what the world does, then I think that's the problem. It's self-seeking, or whether you're lifting yourself above to promote yourself. then that's an issue as well. But that did happen, and that was Christ's answer.

There's a lot of people who teach in error. They honestly teach in error. They honestly do not know, and whatever they know, they teach and say, well, this is wonderful, I'm going to tell you about this, and they'll teach all kinds of things that we wouldn't agree with. We question where they got that from. How did you ever come to that conclusion? Right, a lot of new ages that way. You know, they teach this philosophy and it's in error. But they just don't know any better. Good point, good point. Okay. Dissensions. I didn't actually go over that. Okay, that's okay.

If I have to walk it, I have my list here. Which depressing thing are we going to talk about? I know, I know. After I say, why am I doing this, Lord? Okay. There are a whole lot more here. Okay, dissensions. Actually, this is interesting. It says, keeping your eye on those who cause dissensions. That's in Romans 6-17. And then the next one is an interesting one.

Factions, heresies leading to schisms or divisions. And I found this set of verses in Acts that talk about the sex of the Sadducees. the sects of the Pharisees, the sects of the Nazarenes. And then also the way, which was the early church, was called a sect incorrectly. And I think Paul kind of tried to correct that. So factions or sects that are heresies against... Okay, and then continued. So that list are all the destructive social sins. This is the last one. Envying, desire to have what others have.

Part of it is thinking about the cultural things. The factions, it was very common within the Jewish culture to have different factions and sects. be emphasized because it was one of those things where we're all Jews, we all have to go be in the temple, we're all God's people. So there was like this overarching unity without doctrinal unity. It was based on culture or ethnicity.

And so Paul is pointing out in the church Those things don't exist anymore and shouldn't. And we're to be of one mind, we're to be in unity. And that's a good point. That's contrary to what Christianity is about. Contrary to what the church is about. Well, look at all the denominations. I know.

And of course, with what Randy was saying, I think that's where tradition would fall. See, Jewish people were very obviously strong on tradition. And that's where a lot of the sex developed from, and that was the cultural thing, that was the cultural problem, is tradition. Well, the old movie, what is it? Pillar on the Roof.

And what's true of them could be true of us. If you add any ten things together you have eleven opinions. There's a joke I can't remember about Robinson Crusoe. I'm not sure it's not true, but anyway. He's on the island and somebody comes. He's by himself and there's several buildings on this island and somebody comes and says, what are all these buildings? And he says, those are all the churches I used to go to. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. We can discuss that for an hour. No, let's go on. That was a rabbit trail. Built interstate standards.

Yeah, and actually here's another one, another one of preaching Christ from envy in Philippians 1.15 it said they were preaching Christ from envy. There you go. And that kind of scratched, you know, you scratch your head. Preaching Christ from envy, boy. Oh yeah, I like Christianity on my terms, and these guys are trying to undercut me. And then the last two kind of go together, drunkenness and carousing. They kind of both have to do with alcohol and intoxication. And actually there's a good verse that kind of covers both of those. Romans 13. Romans 13, 12 through 14. Romans 13, 12 through 14. Anybody who's there can read it if you want. What was it, 13 through 15? 12 through 14 and 13, Romans 13.

Rejoicing in hope? No, the night is almost gone. I can read, why don't you let me read. Okay, I hope I got the right one here. Okay. It's dead early in the morning, folks. I know, I saw it. We're just not able. I'm not sure we will. Oh, wow. It all sleeps. The night is farsighted. The night is farsighted. It's a typical website. Sunday school is fun. Okay, alright. Okay, so it says the night is almost gone, the day is at hand.

Let us therefore lay aside the deeds of darkness. Notice this, the deeds of darkness, the same phraseology. And put on the armor of light. Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision in regards to his lust.

That's the answer, isn't it? Yeah, that's the answer. I like the last verse. It's interesting, it says habitual in there as well. And this is lifestyle. It is. It is. And we're going to see it shortly here. So basically, and then, just so the Lord, I haven't told you all of them. And things like these. It shows that this list is not exhaustive. There are more. So the sinful nature is a cesspool of sinfulness. Okay, so let's go on. So now, this section here is about, he talks about forewarning us.

Of which I forewarn you, and the idea of forewarn is to declare openly, plainly, to say or to tell beforehand. It's from the Prolego, before to say, say before, and it's in those several verses, but I don't necessarily go to those. And then actually, it's like he repeats himself. Of which I forewarn you, just as I forewarn you. And actually, the words are very close. I have forewarned you is another word, a different Greek word. And it's to say before, to foretell, to speak in advance.

And I'd like to just look at the Galatians 1.9 passage. We've actually been there before, but it's been a while.

Let's say a phraseology or a pattern of words that, and I don't know whether this is Greek poetry kind of things that Verne would do, but in Galatians 1.9 it says, as we said before, so I say it again now. So it's, I won't read the rest of the verse, but it's the idea, I forewarned you just as I have forewarned you. So he's concerned, I'm warning you about these things. These are serious things. It's not trivial things, these are serious things. So he's emphasizing that point by repeating it twice, it seems like. Okay, so now, that those who practice such things, and this word who practice is proso, It's the idea to make, perform, in general, expressing action as continued or not yet complete, what one does repeatedly, continually, habitually.

So actually, will not inherit the kingdom of God, and inherit is this word To be an heir. To be an heir of the kingdom, basically. So here's where, you know, you look at this verse, and so here's where people that want to look at scripture and try to find holes in it, they'll say, well, see here, look at this. Anyone, you know, almost any person that I do, any one of those, that means I want to inherit the kingdom of God.

What are you talking about here? This is, you know, how secure is your salvation? You know, and actually look at that, I mean, I looked at it before, you know, you start looking at it and think, wow, Lord, what's going on here? Is there a hole here in scripture? I don't think there is. There's several parts to this, and the word proso is one of the keys to it. I think Stan mentioned it. This is a habitual, continual action.

This is not just a, you know, well, I have difficulty with my temper, let's say it's temper. Sometimes I get upset. I shouldn't, I realize that, and that's an issue. And I ask the Lord, does that mean that I will not inherit the kingdom of God? But there's really a real cool key here. Maybe you already know it, but I didn't discover it until this morning. I said, Lord, what's the key to this verse?

And it's in the pronouns. It's all in the pronouns. So if you look here, it says, in fact, actually, let's just go back. Actually, that's right. I can show you right here. Do I have a pointer on this thing? You should. OK, there we go. OK, if you notice it, it says, of which I forewarned you, just as I have forewarned you that those, what if I change that word to you? Would you have a different feeling about this verse? Do you think there's something kind of special made about that those? It turns out, I think that's the key of this verse.

It's because he's saying, he's talking about the sinfulness of the sin nature. The deeds of the flesh. But he changes the pronoun to those. He says, that sin nature is so bad, it's going to cause those people to not inherit the kingdom. But that doesn't apply to you. It's those.

If he wanted to say it applies to you, he would put you in there. It's kind of crazy. There would be a you there, I believe, if he intended it to apply to us. To me, that was very satisfying. Now maybe, you know, he'd say, well, Roger, you're getting a little bit nitpicky here. But go ahead, Tom.

The other key is you look at all this list as a continued one unity of the ascendant nature. All these things. If you quit doing one, you're going to start doing exactly just trading in and no one's going to show up right you're right you know you might fly off the handle tomorrow the next one you may be jealous of something or or covet something right and you're right but and believers do that and they and believers can do it you know I think they can do it for periods of time I mean I don't think that's inconsistent with scripture Bob I mean the contrast is very similar to what it is in you sin, you shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

This idea of continuing to perform or practice such things, I hate that interpretation because where do we draw the line? Is that a human thing? Randy's shown me a little bit more anger than is acceptable within this framework. He's continuing to show this, but that's my opinion. The point is, I hate that kind of interpretation. And that bothered me too, Bob.

I just think that either That blinds the distinction between faith and law. I mean, grace and law. I mean, drunkenness. I'm sure there are believers who are drunk much of the time. I mean, who have fallen back into alcohol and are drunken and carousing, and are they not saved? Well, the Bible teaches me that they're safe. But yet they continue to perform drunkenness in their lives.

So, I'm sorry. I think you've done a good job. They, I mean... But the thing is, we all can fall into these lusts of the flesh. Virtually, we fall short of some of these in terms of our day-to-day lives. But the flesh is ugly as can be. It is. And that's what... He wants to show us that. It is ugly. You go through that and you get... I was getting kind of sick after that. I said, look at another one. I want to look at another verse about this. It's not very... But I think that he wants to say, that is so serious.

Those, not you, those will not inherit the Kingdom of God. That's kind of like, whoa. It's kind of interesting because up to this point he's been talking about the fact that you aren't under law. Okay, we just got into a list of a whole bunch of things. So, unless he's actually contradicting himself, And he's, you know, he's now, you said those, and I think that's what he's doing. You are among these, you're not among those. These and the those.

This list, and it can't be a list that Paul is putting them under. I mean, because he's been talking about the fact that they aren't under law, they're led by the Spirit. So, if they're led by the Spirit, then these don't pertain to them. As in, moment by moment, led by the Spirit. But what we learned earlier, back in Galatians, there's this war going on, right?

The flesh and the Spirit. So you're either in one, you're either walking with the Lord, or you're walking in the flesh. One of the two. You can't be in between. You're not an observer. I'll just kind of look to, which one would I want to be in? No, you're either one or the other.

You know, the thing though, the victory here isn't... I mean, you know, we can think about how we all lust after one thing or the other at times, and, you know, the victory isn't to say, oh, I'm a new man in Christ, therefore I'm going to be led by the Spirit. This isn't an intellectual kind of argument.

It's a life by faith that we accept this, and boy, you know, it seems like, you know, I'll speak for, I mean, you fall short a lot. I mean, the lusts of the flesh, they manifest themselves. I mean, it just, it's, anyway, I think I'll put on the spirit now. I'm going to be in him for a while. Anyway, that's not it. That's not where victory comes. What you just said about, I'll put on the spirit now. Well, it's kind of like, in the end, you don't do that as an avoidance maneuver.

I pick the Holy Spirit. It's an operation of faith. You say, Lord, I realize I have a problem with this. If it needs confession, you confess, you agree with God, and you go on. You say, Lord. It's an operation of faith. That's what Scripture says. You're operating by faith.

Actually, this one verse down here It's close to what we're talking about, but not exactly. Let's look at the 1 Corinthians passage here. It talks about a very similar kind of thing. 1 Corinthians 6, verses 9-11. I'll go ahead and read that. 1 Corinthians 6, 9-11.

It says, Or do you not know that unrighteousness shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminates, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, you shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. So he's basically saying that the believer is on a different plane. You're in grace. You're not in this lust of the flesh. You're not there. Those are, but you're not there.

I think another example might be where the Pharisees got Paul and they said, when he was talking about grace, And they said, well, what are you trying to tell us? That the more we sin, the more we choose to sin, the more that we go out there and willfully sin, then we're going to get more and more grace. So why shouldn't we do that? And Paul's answer, of course, is heaven forbid.

You know, you wouldn't do that if you're led by the Spirit. Right. Exactly. Right. That's good. That's good. Okay. Alright. So next week we're going to get the fruits of the Spirit. Using your own words, one of the keys here is some of you were Right. Exactly. Putting them in those categories. Exactly. Versus these.

Yeah, that similar phraseology where he says there's you and he's making that contrast and it's important to pick up on that. And I think that many times you look at these quote verses that people will use to try to put down what Scripture has to say, that many times they'll come down to things like this where careful study will show you that the Lord was very careful about what he said about the believer, what he said about the unbeliever. And people will mix that, they'll cross that line back and forth and mix things up. You have a constant principle in scripture is that you have a distinction between two things that is a very clear line with, for example, federal headship. Who's our federal head? You're under this federal head, therefore you can't even be But these people have a federal head who's at them. Adam is the one who's lying there under. That can't be us.

One of the things that we say quite often is that we're sinners saved by grace. But we're not sinners. No. We are saints. We are set apart by God. Absolutely. You were transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. I taught that verse. Well, I'm hoping to fall back under this other gospel. Right. Paul's teaching in Galatians, you're under law. And Paul said, you know, wretched man that I am, because when he felt that under law himself, what are you but wretched?

But there's therefore now no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus. Amen? That doesn't mean we don't sin, that doesn't mean we don't have lust, it doesn't mean we don't fall under legal principles, it just means there's no condemnation. I don't think you could stand anything better than that. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Amen.

Okay, so next we're going to get to the other part, looking at the flesh versus the spirit. We looked at all the deeds of the flesh, and there's more. Now we're going to look at the fruits of the spirit. So it's deeds, and it's interesting. It's the fruit of the Spirit.

Only God can produce these things. And He's the one that's producing them. We're being led. We're not producing these things. He's producing them in us. And that's so key. It's not like, I'll be better today. I'll be more loving, kind, whatever. No. The Lord is what's going to do it. You can't do it. All right. Good class. Thanks for all the... I'm going to be better than Donald Duck if you try to do it yourself. Donald Duck, you know, Daisy doesn't count the day and you'll be better. And of course, it didn't work with him because he's operating in the flesh. Okay, let's close here. We thank you, Father. We thank you for this day. We thank you for the blessings we have, Lord. For the Lord that we can walk by faith in what you've provided for us. And we thank you for that. In Christ's name, Amen.