Romans – The Play Part 9, Ep 1

Now, in this room tonight, regardless of all that I have said up until this evening, there is still at least one of you around here who is still trying to please God, and you want to do good, and you want to be good. This is actually an evidence of your fall. This is an evidence of the fall in you. Goodness, I don’t want to get off on this, but someday I’m going to show you where goodness and evil—oh, this is going to really blow your brains here. Goodness and evil—no, that’s not exactly true—but the concept of doing good and the concept of doing evil—that tree—have got nothing to do with Christian life. They have to do with the fall because they both come from the tree of knowledge. It doesn’t say the knowledge of evil. It’s the knowledge of good. And you’ve got good in you. And you want to be good. You’ll be good. And you want to do good, but you can’t be good, and you can’t do good. We’re going to learn that in a minute, but I want you to think from now on: if you could think of evil as a life form, then you would realize it is what is doing it. Right?

Now, in a positive way, could you think of good as a life form? Therefore, you can’t possibly do it, because good is a life form. Now, evil is a life form that is in your members, in your body, indwelling you. And you don’t want to do it. But Mr. Good does not indwell you. The inner man—and you want to do good—you’re trying to do a life form. You remember what Jesus said to Nicodemus? “Why do you call Me Good Master? There is only one who is good.” There is only one who is good: God is goodness. God is goodness. Therefore, you can’t do good any more than you can do puppy or do tree. You are a human; you can only do human. That is correct. You can’t do good. And evil is present in you, but it is no longer you; it is sin and evil that dwells in you. Now, boy, if we could turn that around and say, it is no longer you, but Christ. We need a positive side to this. It is no longer you that is doing it, but it is Christ who is indwelling—who is indwelling—who is indwelling—is indwelling what?

Alright, we’re going to find out what here in a minute, but right now, from what we’re looking at in this passage, here is somebody who’s just really consumed with doing good. This brother right here wants to do good. It just really is his nature to do good. He’s going to be so miserable trying to do that. He will absolutely fail.

Now then, that’s what was happening in Romans 1, 2, and 3. These people were trying to do good; they were doing evil. The Gentiles said to the Jews, “You hypocrites. We know good and well, you’ve lived just like we have, and yet you’ve been trying to get us to do the law, and you don’t obey it.” The Jews stand up and say, “We have been obeying the law, and you have not.” And then some of the Jews get up and say, “No, we have not been obeying the law. We’ve been bluffing it.” And so, the verdict is wrath, condemnation, and judgment. And then it is discovered that an ancient, ancient, ancient way preceded good. In some of the old scrolls, they found that there was a way of being justified without being good. Or doing good—excuse me—without doing good. And it was Abraham’s way. It was the way of death turned to life. It was the way of utter human hopelessness in which God raised the dead. God raised Abraham’s seed out of death at the age of a hundred because Abraham believed God.

You’ve got to believe that God is going to put your flesh to death and raise you immortally out of the grave and give you a new man, a new spirit, a new person. And you believe God, and it is counted to you as righteousness. Whose righteousness? God’s righteousness. How righteous are you? How righteous are you? How righteous am I? How righteous are you? What part are you talking about? That’s so wise, brother. You are so wise. I’m going to try again. Eric, right now at this very moment, how righteous are you? What part are you talking about? You should be able to know that right now, brother. Amen. Amen. Because it is God’s righteousness. Alright. Now, we’ve got to go on here. In Romans 4, Abraham preached the gospel to us, and we all believed. We gave up our good deeds, right? And then in Romans 5, we found out we had been made one with Christ. Then, in Romans 6, we reckoned all of these things to be true, which did us no good whatsoever, and so we were plunged deep into Romans 7.

How often are you going to be in Romans 7? Oh, I’ll tell you how often you will be in Romans 7. You will be in Romans 7 as often as you proceed through true spiritual maturing, true spiritual growth. Romans 7 is such a wonderful state, saints. Always bless God for it; it is proof that you are alive. If you have not and are not experiencing Romans 7, you cannot possibly grow in Christ. Joe, let me ask you a question. When you, last year, gave yourself over to those people who picked on you mercilessly and would not give up and let you hide in any way, shape, or form, did you happen in any way to touch Romans 7?

I sure did. I would say, brother, from all I’ve heard, you lived right in the middle of it. Well, for a while I didn’t realize. Didn’t realize what? I didn’t realize it. The more I realized what I was doing, the more I realized that I was in it. Okay, somebody was showing you what you were doing, and you were becoming more aware. Oh, that’s wonderful. That’s wonderful. That is true growth—when you realize that you were in Romans 7 and didn’t know you were in Romans 7. You were cheating, that’s what you were doing. Somebody caught you and said, “You’re not all that spiritual.”

Brothers and sisters, when you discover you are not living the Christian life, when you begin to have all these exposures and mirrors and light shined upon you, you’re just almost going to die. It’s going to be awfully hard for you to remember that God is for me. Say it: God is for me. He wouldn’t even be for you if it were not for Romans 7. It’s proof that He’s for you, but you don’t know that. Don’t even bother to try to remember, because you’re not going to.

Romans 7 is a horrible place to be. There’s nothing there but despair and despondency. Anyway, Romans 7 is this horrible battle between you and your flesh. There is no way for me to stress upon you—I don’t know how to get serious enough to stress upon you—the inevitability of Romans 7 and the need of Romans 7. There are brothers that I have known for 10,12, and 15 years, who are just as familiar with the Christian walk as they can be, but only right now are having some of the real elements of Romans 7 come home to them. Spend your whole Christian life living a certain way; wake up one day and find out that that was not Christian at all. That everything on earth you had done and committed your life to, and all the things you felt were… well, you know, you gave your testimony on the basis of this. This is where you hung your salvation, friend—and the insights you had in it—and then one day the Lord shows you: That wasn’t Him. That was you. That can be a might discouraging. That can be a might discouraging.

And I’m going to tell you something else. In that day, you’re not going to remember this night, and you’re not going to remember the other night when we looked at Romans 7; you’re not going to remember that. You’re just going to be so down, and you’re going to be utterly hopeless, helpless, weak, and sinful. But God is for you. Praise His name. He is for you. There will come a day when you will feel that there is absolutely no hope for your marriage. Or even worse, that the worst thing that’s going to happen to you is when you’re going to come to the thought that you can’t get out of your marriage. And you talk about dragging around a body of death—or a body of death dragging you around, you’re going to look at this, and you’re going to realize that your marriage is dragging you around, and you’re never going to be happy again as long as you live. That this person, doggone his hide, is never going to change. Will never change. And that this person, be he male or female, is absolutely, totally intolerable. And that you cannot live with this human being. And yet as a good Christian, you’re not going to divorce her. Or him. Kill him, maybe. Or shoot yourself to get out of her. And you’re going to find yourself right in the middle of the inevitable Romans 7. And then God’s grace is going to come to you. Oh, don’t praise God yet.

And you’re going to get up, and you’re going to have hope, and you’re going to say, “Oh, thank God for the grace of God.” And you’re going to have six weeks to two months of peace. You’re going to get up in a meeting and say, “My husband…my wife and I, we just almost came into the middle end, and the grace of God came and saved us. And we’re just… everything is all wonderful.” “That’s right, the Lord really…” About two weeks later, it’s going to start all over again. And then, it’s going to get black. And it’s going to get dark. And it’s going to get hopeless. And you’re never going to remember what I said to you tonight. And the Spirit of the Lord, it seems, will not remind you either. And you’re going to even forget the Christian part of life, I mean, this is down where it really is. And none of this religion, superstition, and all of that. You’re just… here you are, a human being, struggling for life itself. And my heart always breaks when I see a saint give up at that point. Don’t ever bail out of Romans 7, saints. Let your God do His work in your life. Say, Amen! Don’t just sit there and nod at me like that. Let Him go ahead and murder you. Let Him go ahead and do this thing to you, and something in you one day will break that never broke before. It won’t go away, but under pressure, it will yield. And that’s what brokenness is.

So, anything that I say to you tonight beyond this point is really dependent upon Romans 7. The reason I’m telling you this is because of what I’m about to say. What I’m about to say is very important. Two points you must never forget.