Romans – The Play Part 6

He says, “You, if you are a child of God, are led by the Holy Spirit.” Not circumstances. Not scripture. But by Him who lives inside of you. And I have only one thing to say about this whole point, and that is: dear saint, dear child of God, allow the Holy Spirit to lead you. He lives inside of you. Allow Him to increase His witness of your sonship because He’s picky about who He leads. And when He leads you, you will be encouraged to remember and realize that you have something glorious indwelling you; some awesome thing is going on inside of you. And it is a witness that you are a son of God. So, brother, be led.

“Oh, but Gene, we will definitely fall into a pit because of our emotions or our perverted intellectualism or something else.” Oh, go take that somewhere. Dear child of the Lord, this book was not written to an individual. It was written to a body of believers in the biggest city in the world. And if you come in here one day having hammered a thumbtack into the top of your head because you believe the Holy Spirit led you, we will turn you over to the psychiatric ward. If you come in here with a bone through your nose because you believe the Holy Spirit has led you, we will send you to the psychiatric ward. If you come in here having lost 150 pounds, and you only weighed 200, and it’s because the Holy Spirit has led you, we will start stuffing food down your stomach, into your stomach.

Brothers and sisters, you have the sanity of the body of Christ around you. The only way on earth that I know of that you could really mess yourself up is if you got to feeling you were led some way in the body of Christ and kept it an absolute secret and just let it be something that tormented you. If it is known, there will usually be, if you are among a sane group of people, some sort of witness, or counter-witness, or balance, or something. I don’t even like to get off on those things. I just want to tell you something: if you are halfway psychologically normal, of course, that in itself is rare, is it not? You can trust the leading of the Lord in your life. And let the Lord lead you, because, dear child of the Lord, it will encourage you to know you are a child of the Lord.

Now, I’m going to just invert that. If you’re led by the Spirit, it is a witness that you’re a child of God. If you are a son of God, you will be led by the Holy Spirit. The two are the same thing. They cannot be separated. If there is one, there is the other. If you’re led, you’re a son. If you’re a son, you’re led. He lives in you. And this is the ministry of the… Isn’t this an odd thing that Paul would put here? To say this will encourage you in your weakness. I have built a citadel, a cathedral of glory, of what you are, yet I recognize that you still will have weakness in taking the glorious place that you are in Christ, but you do remember what the Holy Spirit is doing and will do concerning your flesh. And also, every time He leads you, remember: He only leads a son of God. Amen. Praise the Lord.

“For you did not receive a spirit that enslaved you, leading you once more to fear. But you have received a spirit of adoption as sons, by which you cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God.”

You’ve got the leadership of His Spirit witnessing to you, and you also have your own spirit witnessing to His Spirit. You have two witnesses that you are a son of God, regardless of how picky or pitiful you may find yourself one day feeling about yourself. Now, I am assuming that you have as many problems being a Christian as I do. Now, if you don’t, this is all meaningless to you. I am assuming that you are as weak as I am. Is that a possibility? I am assuming that you get discouraged sometimes about who you are and what you are. Do you ever have this problem? Yeah? You do?

Alright, then you have the leadership of the Holy Spirit, which says you’re a son of God. You are a son of God. Therefore, you are led by His Holy Spirit. Wonderful. You also have a spirit within you, your own spirit, which is always in another realm, even though that spirit is in this realm. That spirit stands in two places: in you in this realm, and in Him in that realm. And your spirit, your resurrected, enlivened, raised-from-the-dead spirit, is saying to you, You’re a child of God. And the Spirit of God speaks to your spirit and says, You’re a child of God. And your spirit speaks back to the Holy Spirit and says, I’m a child of God. And then His Spirit says to your spirit, You’re a child of God. And your spirit calls back, I’m a child of God. And there’s a witness. I would like to encourage you to do something. And that is, allow His Spirit in you to tell you you’re a child of God.

Now, I’m a child of a guy named Blackie Edwards. We never did know where he got that name. That was the darkest Frenchman that ever lived. The most outstanding feature of my dad was that he left me alone. I can’t say my dad ever condemned me; as far as I know, he left me with no inferiority complexes. That was left to other people to do. But if he took me up on his knee and said, You’re my boy. I know you’re my child. You’re my son, I would feel, in that moment, loved. Encouraged. I’d feel like my daddy was trying to communicate something to me. Put his arm around me and say, “You’re my son. I’m your daddy.”

That’s an intimate thing. Now, if my Father, and His Spirit, and His Son’s Spirit say to me, You’re a child of God, and His Spirit says to me, I’m your Father, then somewhere in the background I ought to be able to hear the strings of a hymn that says: It is well, it is well with my soul, it is well, it is well with my soul.

If I’m being witnessed to by the Trinity, if the Spirit is walking around in me, encouraging me and reminding me and leading me, all toward reminding me of who I am, then no matter what my circumstances are or how I feel, I ought to be able to step back and say, It’s okay.

I’m going to just say a personal word here. I deal with spiritual things like the priests of the Old Testament deal with the altar. That’s hard. I don’t know if I’m given to more discouragement or depression than other people or less. I know that with rare exception, there’s a bottom to how depressed I can get. It just gets down there and stops. It won’t go through the floor. Thank God. Nonetheless, something happens to me that probably doesn’t happen to most of you. Have you ever blown it really badly on the way to a meeting? Have you, Camille? Just really bad? Aren’t you glad you didn’t have to get up and speak that night about the riches of Christ? Aren’t you really, truly glad?

We have some brothers in here who claim that they have been called to the Lord to preach. The nearest one to me here is Eric. Now, Eric is given to being discouraged. But oh, Eric, you don’t know what discouragement is until 6:45 one night and you pull a big one. I don’t know what it’s going to be, brother. There are 10,000 possibilities. 10,000 categories, but some possibility. And you walk into a meeting, and you’ve got to speak. And it’s your turn to speak on the riches of Christ. And I’ll tell you exactly what you’re going to do. You’re going to stagger up to the front and say: “I can’t do it tonight, folks. It’s just—I just can’t. I just can’t.”