Experiencing the Highest Life – Part 2

Okay, so I like to do this. What does this mean? Oh, it means too much. We might as well get started. Brothers, you have a law in you when you have no life of God in you, and that law is to please God. It is. I’m not talking about the law that is in your flesh that fouls this all up. I just want to talk about you. Don’t think you’re so terrible. You’re not really rebellious. You have a desire to do good. Now, is that true or not? How many times have you wept over not doing good? You go out here, find the worst man in Santa Barbara, California, get him sober for a few days, and he’ll tell you somewhere in his talk, “I want to do good.” I want to do that. He wants to do good. It is the natural desire of man to follow the Ten Commandments. How many people have said, ” My religion is the Beatitudes? My religion is the Ten Commandments, and my religion is the golden rule. I’m always doing good for people.”

Now then, where did we get there? Where did we get there? We got it from the knowledge of good and evil. Now let’s talk about this. I want to ask you a question. Now this is a good question. I want to ask a really good person. Who is kind of a good person? Anyone? Oh, Steve. Steve, have you ever done anything good? You have? I kind of do. Well, you want to do good, but brother, I hate to tell you this, but good is a life form, and you can’t do a life form. You can only be a life form. What is the life form of good? No, God. God is good. God is goodness. What is God? He is goodness. Somebody came up and said, “Good teacher?” And Jesus said, “Only God is good.” Just cut him down right there. Only God is good.

I want to do good. I can’t do a life form. I can only be a life form, and I cannot do God. Therefore, I go around all my life willing to do good because I have the knowledge of good, but I don’t have the life of good. So, all my life I go around willing to do good, and God says, “There is none that doeth righteousness, no, not one. None seeketh after me. None doeth good, no not one. You’re going to get to see. No, no, never. You can’t do something that is. That’s like saying, I am a rabbit. No, you may try all your life to be a rabbit. You can’t be a rabbit. A rabbit’s a rabbit. You can’t be good. God is good, and you cannot be God. The Life…Hallelujah. Oh, wait a minute.

Listen. Let me tell you all this. All my life, I’ve been looking over here, and I’ve been looking at the Ten Commandments, and I have said, oh, I want to obey the Ten Commandments. And God said, Man, there is one thing you should never do; don’t you dare eat that fruit, because you’re going to learn the knowledge of God. And I do; the ten commandments. I have the knowledge of God; I know what I ought to do. And if I could do them all, I’d be God, because there would be no imperfection in me, and only God is that.

Alright, where does that leave me, brother? It leaves me incapable of doing good. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord, I’m liberated! Brothers, you don’t have to do good anymore. You can’t do good. Forget it! Stop eating off that tree! Alright, there is within me a principle to do good. Well, why can’t I? I don’t have the right life for that, but even more, there is a higher Life form in me that cancels out the law of good, the desire to be good.

Boy, I’m a Roman 7 man. That which I want to do, I can’t do. By the way, this same passage, and we’ll not stop to read the scripture, says that my body is dead toward…do good. Maybe I didn’t say it loud enough. Can’t do good. Can’t do good. If you feel the pulse, it’s dead. There is no… It’s dead. I am dead toward doing good. I just can’t do it. But listen, it is my body that is dead toward doing good because of sin, but listen to this. Flesh, body, do something evil. At least 80 times in a minute. It is alive toward sin. It is dead toward righteousness. I have a body that just can’t perform it. That’s what it says, right? Isn’t that what it says? Did we make this up? Praise the Lord.

I find another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into the captivity of the law of sin which is in me. It brings me into captivity. Let’s just read this whole thing again. We can see it again. We can see it now. But then it is no more I, but sin that dwells in me. What is that talking about? In verse 16, if I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. The very fact that I don’t do it proves that it’s a good law. Alright, verse 17 says, therefore it’s no more I that’s doing it. It’s somebody else. It’s sin doing it in me. For I know that in my flesh dwells no good thing, for to will is present with me, but how to perform good, I can’t find it. What it is saying: Do good. And I can’t find it. There’s nothing in me that’ll go with the good. I cannot do good. I really can’t, brother. And brother, if you’ve never seen that, you’ve never taken the first step toward being a Christian.

Brother, you’re the biggest failure that ever walked. You can’t do anything…for God…you can’t do any good. You can’t perform it. He says, I cannot find the way. Alright? Verse 19, For the good that I would do, I do not. But the evil which I would not, that I do. I’m an expert at doing evil. Now, if I do that which I would not, it is no more I, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find in a law that when I wish to do good, evil is present with me.

You know, how many times have you had this experience of saying, “I am not going to do evil,” and then just went ahead and did it?? We’re not talking about good; we’re talking about just not doing evil. A man on dope, he’s taking heroin in the veins, maybe there’s a long story, and he doesn’t want to do this anymore. I will not do evil. I will not do this. I’ll stay away from it. I will not do it. “I will not be broken down by this,” and while he’s saying it, he’s going to prepare the needle. He cannot help it. The sin that dwells in the body pulls him down.

Okay. Verse 22. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members, that’s my flesh, warring against the law of my mind. What’s the law of my mind? To do good. And brings me into the captivity of the law which is in my members. Oh, wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I’ve got this body of death that will not do good. Now, what does this mean to you? It means one thing. Forget this business of doing good. It has no place for you as a Christian. Forget about it. Forget about it. Isn’t that great? Forget it. It not only has no place for you, but you also can’t do it anyway. And you say, wait a minute, Gene, this is heresy. Well, praise God. Hallelujah. We need a little heresy like this. God said to man, “Don’t eat of the tree of knowledge of good.”

There are two things that characterize man. The first one is knowledge. We study the Bible to know, and we dissect this sentence, and that sentence, and when we get full of knowledge, we’re full of death. We pour it into the mind, and the second great characteristic of man is…even the study of the Bible is so much a sense of doing good. Praise the Lord, I’ve just given up Bible study. I don’t study the Bible; I eat it. I found out there’s another tree in that garden. You don’t come, learn, and pack knowledge into your mind. This was the very thing that God was speaking of. Now, I’m not telling you to quit school. Please don’t misunderstand me. I believe every one of us needs technical skills to earn a living. Otherwise, you know, the scripture says if we can’t earn a living for our families, we’re worse than an infidel. I’m not talking about that. We’re talking about a spiritual matter here; a very spiritual matter.