Romans – The Play Part 5 – Romans 8: No Condemnation, Life in the Spirit, and the Believer’s Freedom

I’m not sure if you were God, your spirit could be better off than it is right now. I mean, your spirit is absolutely isolated from sin—redeemed and eternal—and will never taste death again. It is one with Christ and is indwelled by the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. I don’t know how to make that any better, do you?

And your soul has been redeemed. And the condemnation that is in your body has been isolated to sin—damned and condemned—with the foreknowledge and the promise and the witness of the Holy Spirit that one day He’ll give you a new body, and the mortality will drop off. If you want more than that, you want too much.

Saints, can you believe and understand that’s how God sees you right now? That’s how the Lord sees you right now. Those of you listening to this on the recording—don’t just sit there. Say something!

“The dead dwell in you.
He who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”

Brothers, we are not obliged to live according to the flesh.

“For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die. But if you are living by the Spirit, you are putting to death the deeds of the body—you will live.”

Now then, I am going to say something here. And we will close with this. Just what is, and this is the only thing I can find in Scripture here, what is your relationship? What is the demand that God puts upon you as a believer, with all these things? I’m going to give you a new definition today of flesh.  You are to put off the flesh. If everything that is true up until now is true, you will do this.

What time is it? Alright, that’s not my fault. Y’all met too long tonight, but I’ll try to close right now, so listen very carefully: As I go through the list of things in the Scripture that are really just ugly, and I see those, and I say: That is sin. Now, sometimes you will hear people beginning to say to you that worrying is a sin, being depressed is a sin, not trusting in the Lord is a sin.

Je ne sais pas. I’m not so sure about that. I just don’t know. And you’ll hear that, and you’ll hear it many times, and sin gets very, very wrong. I’m not sure being discouraged is a sin. Boy, if it is, I’m living in iniquity. I’m not sure being blue, discouraged, or down is a sin.
I’m not so sure being anxious is a sin. I still have things in my soul that need working on, but I can’t call those things sin. Maybe they are, I don’t know, but I’m going to tell you those things which are sin, and those things which are flesh and of the flesh—and here’s my new definition.

And these are the things you are to put off as a believer. And I’m going to tell you why you’re to put them off, and how you can put them off. Those things that even society deems as wrong. I know we’re living in a libertine world in which all things go, but don’t come at me with that. I used to be a schoolteacher, and even though I was living and working with people whose standards were lower than the morals of an alley cat, nonetheless, people shook their heads in the presence of murder, stealing, and even adultery, just barely, but they do.  Society says these things are wrong. I’m going to start at the top: murder, incest, physical violence, continuous lying, cheating, stealing, and drunkenness. Don’t tell me society does not condemn that. Society’s got laws against that.

Stealing, violent, uncontrolled outbursts of temper, unrestrained, continuous, and things that are, one thing that’s not listed: witchcraft. And then there are some things that didn’t get listed then, but if they were written down today, dope. I believe you’d have to put abortion in there. See, I’m getting current now, brothers and sisters, but I sincerely believe that under most circumstances, abortion. Drugs, addiction—that which addicts the body and holds it.

Now, let me tell you why those things have to be laid aside—and can be. First of all, they can be because even unbelievers do it. Did you hear me? Even unbelievers do it.