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So take away Mike. Romans 8, I'm going to start in verse one. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do and that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin. He condemned sin in the flesh that the righteous requirement of law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh, their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace, because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be. So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God, but you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. And I'm going to stop at verse 11. What do you take from that, Robbie? Just the beginning, coming out of the chute, there is therefore now no condemnation is like a critical understanding in my regular daily walk, that when I start to begin to feel condemned in some way, shape or form, either whether that's through a voice that I'm hearing in my head or from somebody I'm talking to, it's like a big check engine light flashing on my dashboard saying, this isn't from God, this isn't from God, you know, because sure, because he doesn't offer up that condemnation, and so it's a way of understanding the battle's afoot, and that I've got some processing to do because of the way I'm feeling. And there was a quote, and this is not somebody I typically listen to, but it's a guy named Bill Johnson, I think we both kind of liked it, but it says that any area of my life for which I have no hope is under the influence of a lie.
And I don't know if you know anybody like this, but there are some people that I know where every time I'm around them, or every time I talk to them, it's like they have something negative to say, either to me, about me, or about maybe life in general, and it's like, I've kind of slowly started to avoid those people, Robbie. The ones that are really hard for me, and I guess being in my line of work, I have a whole lot of folks I've got a lot to say about the church. Well, you know, from my perspective, the church is the body of Christ, and he takes that really, I mean, it's his body. And so when I start hearing all this stuff about the church is this, and the church is that, and there's warning signs going off in my head going, man, man, man, I mean, we need to steer this conversation, because yes, we all have opportunities, but literally, I mean, this is the body of Christ, and there is now no condemnation, especially if there's any place there's supposed to be none. I mean, where are we at? Yeah.
Right. If we're talking about the church, you know, this is a place where, you know, a judgment frees no one. Sure, you know, and I heard, I think it was Chuck Swindoll had said this years ago, and he said that, you know, the church, he said, we have enough people throwing stones at us.
He says, we don't need to be throwing stones at each other. And so, you know, just to take that to another step, I mean, there are plenty of denominations, there are plenty of people in different churches or different styles of worship, there's the charismatics, there's the fundamentalists, there's this, that, you know, whatever. And so, you know, just because we have a little bit different of beliefs or different interpretation, or we see things a little bit differently, we don't need to be going after each other. And I believe for what's coming in this country, and what's coming against the church, and you could just see it. I mean, you know, you just turn on the television, and everything on there is anti-Christian.
I mean, everything that I see is anti-Christian, and there are stuff that I see on TV now that 20 years ago never would have been on TV. There's a, and I know you're not going to be shocked, I'm going to talk about the 119 Psalm again. So in the, in the Psalmic section, which actually versus starts at verse 113. And the Psalmic is a letter that actually usually means support.
Like if you're going to give somebody hug, it looks like a circle. But here is very interesting. First, it says, I hate the double minded, but I love your law. And I heard a rabbi teach on this verse.
Really, really beautiful. And it really is helpful to me that the same rabbi was asked to speak on this panel about does Judaism, you know, promote hate. And he was concerned that he was going to be on this panel like, and I can remember one time and I may have even told you this, I was doing a remote and this lady came up and she was going to give me this, a donation. And then she said, Oh, you're Christian, you guys promote hate. And she ripped up the check right in front of me.
I didn't even say a word to the lady one way or the other. But yet this, this rabbi was going to be asked to be on this panel to see if he promoted hate. And he asked the first buddy of his in New York, what, you know, what he thought about hate. And this, this rabbi said, Oh, yeah, well, you know, we hate sin, we hate this. And so he went about telling him that.
And he goes, then I went to what I considered to be the smartest man that is alive today, that was actually the associate to the big rabbi, you know, it was like a big, big deal guy. And he looked at him like he was, he said, hate, we don't hate, you know, you can hear it in the edition, we don't hate, there's no way we hate, you know, any and he goes on and he says, we love but hate is the underbelly of love. In other words, the things that we hate are the things that hurt the one that we love.
And you see what I mean? There's a difference between the people that hate and hate that, you know, hates what drives them. But if you're driven by love, right, which is where Paul is going with this verse, that there's no now no condemnation, right?
Because the whole thing is driven by Christ's love for you. And see, for hate is the underbelly of love. In other words, I'm going to hate things that get in the way of people getting closer to Christ, but I'm not going to hate them.
I'm not going to hate any part of that. You see, isn't that a beautiful thing? Son of your father in heaven. When I think about that, I'm reminded of the story of Richard Wurmbrand, where Richard Wurmbrand was absolutely taught, he was tortured for Christ, started that whole organization where we've had that guy on Todd Nettleton, voice of the martyrs. But you know, through his torture, through his torment, Richard Wurmbrand saw was he saw the people who were torturing him, the guards in the prisons, and he saw them coming to Christ.
And it wasn't because of some great intellectual thing. What they saw was they saw his response to how he to how he responded when they were torturing him. And one of the examples was was that Richard Wurmbrand was was actually praying in the guard after the guard had tortured Richard Wurmbrand.
He said, What are you doing? He said, and Richard Wurmbrand said, I'm praying for you. And the guy right then and there became a Christian. To me, that's where it's at. I think when I read the rest of that chapter, I see that there should be something different about us and that there is something different about us. And it says in Romans chapter eight, it says that you are his, it says if his spirit lives in you. And so for me is that if somebody is torturing you, and then you turn around and and say, Hey, man, I'm praying for you, or I love you, or how can I help you? I mean, to me, that's what an unbelieving world just finds unbelievable. And I'm telling you, man, not only Richard Wurmbrand, but also Louis Zamperini, when the people who were torturing him in World War Two, and he went back to them and said, I forgive you, hundreds and hundreds of the Japanese who were formerly torturing him or formerly were mistreating the American said, Hey, I want some of this Jesus stuff. And they and they gave their lives right on the spot to Jesus Christ.
And that's what I want to see, Robbie. Right. And so the challenge to us always, is to stay away from the inequity. In other words, I want to measure myself against anybody else, whether that be the church inside the church outside the church, but to go Okay, for me in this situation right now, how can I love appropriately? To the point that what I say is going to have bring hope what we talked about in there, or it's going to bring some impact to the people that are around me, because I realize that, man, I need Jesus every bit as much, you know, as anybody I'm going to talk to today, believe me, it's almost like walking around based on what Romans chapter eight says is you're going to live in the Spirit. Okay, well, if you're going to live in the Spirit, then you've got Christ in you, you've got the Holy Spirit in you. I love what it actually says 13 Psalm where it says, How long will I seek counsel in my own soul, having sorrows in my heart daily? In other words, as long as I'm sitting there in my own soul, just talking to me, I'm going to have sorrows in my heart daily. So it's a challenge if you're going to live in the flesh, like, how many times did you hear that? And just a short bit that you read, are you gonna live in the flesh, you're gonna live in the Spirit?
Well, if you're living in the Spirit, the good news is, there's three living with you, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. One of the things that I have to ask myself is this is that who are you going to trust him for so long in this country? It's been really easy to be an American. I mean, we haven't really had the financial problems.
You know, people have trusted in the stock market, trusted in the 401k, trusted in their jobs, trusted in their security. And then, oh, all of a sudden, this little bug comes over. And now everybody's freaking out. But I've noticed that the people who are Christians, who are born again Christians, that there has been a difference in them. As a matter of fact, I think I've told you this before, there was actually an article that they came out with in the USA Today, probably about a year ago, year and a half ago, when it was during COVID. And what they said was that every single demographic, whether it's Muslims or atheists or whoever it was, their happiness quotient has gone down. They said, but even during the pandemic, he said that USA Today said that there was one group of people whose happiness quotient actually went up. They actually got happier during the pandemic.
You know who it was? It was the Christians who were going to church. And I just thought it was interesting that so many different places and so many, even churches themselves were just closing their doors down and saying, hey, we're not going to meet. But there were some who said, we're still going to meet. And to me, when I see that, that's awesome. And the USA Today actually recommended that people start going to church. I mean, I mean, how cool is that, right?
Oh, yeah. And we see that whole idea. Again, it's repeated time and again, in Psalm 119, the idea of Pecudim, or what they call precepts, are actually meetings with God and with others. So if you'll keep your Pecudim, it's actually like, I think the third verse, or the fourth verse, because it says, you know, God has commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently. Well, that precepts idea is idea of meeting with God, which again, in your own soul, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, but also meeting with others, because as it says in Hebrews, right, don't forsake the gathering of yourself together.
Why? Because when we get together, just like you and I are right here, right? How many times and if you've listened to me and Mike any length of time, I'll say something, it's for something wonderful out of Mike, or Michael say something, it's for something wonderful out of me. Well, it wasn't wonderful. What it was is Christ in me, or the Holy Spirit in me, reflecting something that He'd already put there in order for me to reflect back. Yeah, and matter of fact, and I like it, what you're talking about is Hebrews 10 25. And starting in verse 24, actually, it says, and let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. But it says, not forsaking the gathering of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching. And here we go, talking about sin, it says in verse 26, it says, for if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. And so, just so you know, if you're listening, I'm not talking about perfection.
That's not what we're talking about. But I do believe that we should live in a way that is pleasing to the Lord, or that we should try to please the Lord. As a matter of fact, I think we were just talking about this, is that when I got saved, Robbie, and I knew that I wanted to start this Christian life, I didn't want to obey the Lord just because I was afraid that He was going to throw me in hell if I didn't do what's right. I realized that, you know, He loved us when I was unlovable. He loved me when I was unlovable, and somebody that great, I wanted to live a life that was pleasing to Him, so.
And what's cool is actually, we are talking perfection. Because, well, just the very first line in the 119th Psalm, it says, blessed are the undefiled in the way. Okay, so just undefiled, well, that word, if you're looking for a spotless lamb to have as a sacrifice in Hebrew, that word is perfect, okay? You're looking, wait a minute, you're looking for somebody perfect in the way, well, how'd they get that way? They got that way through Jesus's blood.
In other words, they admitted that they weren't perfect. And so by living in the Spirit, right, by actually being in the Spirit, guess what happens? Just like it says, blessed are the undefiled in the way, the blessed are the perfect.
When it says in the way, that means you're walking in the narrow path, right? Who walk in the law of the Lord. They also, you know, says they also seek His testimonies, and I mean, they keep His testimonies, and they seek Him with their whole heart. Those are the first two verses. And that person is from God's perspective, right? Even though, yeah, you've got sin, yeah, you've got struggle, all the stuff we just talked about in Romans 7, but it says, if you're walking in the Spirit, guess what you got? Perfection.
Perfection. Because that is righteous. So you believed God, and it was counted, and it was righteous. You believed that His Son had to die for you.
Get that stuff. For by grace you are saved through faith. It is, it's not of yourself, so that no one may boast. And maybe when we're talking about this, Robbie, maybe what we're really getting at is, who are you going to trust in?
And this is the whole thing. Are you going to trust in yourself? Are you going to trust in Jesus? And I know, Ray Comfort, we've had him on a couple of times, but you know, he does a great job where he says, you know, are you going to get to heaven? And somebody out there will say, yeah, because, and he said, why are you going to get to heaven?
Because I'm a pretty good person. And he says, have you ever told a lie? And they go, yeah, I tell lies all the time. He says, what do we call somebody who tells lies? And they say, a liar. Have you ever, have you ever lusted after somebody in your own heart?
And they go, yeah. He says, well, he says, according to what Jesus said, he said, if you've, if you've lusted after a woman in your own heart, you've committed adultery already in your own heart. He says, what do we call somebody who commits adultery? An adulterer. He says, have you ever stolen anything?
And they go, well, yeah. He goes, so far you've told me you're a liar. You're an adulterer.
And you're a thief. He says, and you think you belong, you're able to get into heaven on your own works. And, and so if you're going to get to heaven on your own works, there has to be absolute perfection. And let me tell you, ain't nobody perfect. Ain't nobody perfect. The Bible says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, but, but Jesus paid it all. All to him we owe. Sin had left a crimson stain.
He washed it white as snow. But if you're going to get to that point, first, you have to get to the point to where you are going to humble yourself and realize that you need to trust in Jesus. There was an old song and it says, tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take him at his word, just to rest upon his promise, just to know, thus say the Lord, Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him, how I've proved him o'er and o'er, Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus.
Oh, for grace to trust him more. And I tell you what, Robbie, when you trust in Jesus and you're no longer trusting in yourself and you trust in Jesus, you know, it's, it's kind of like he says in the, in, in, in his word, when Jesus says to them, says this himself, he says, come to me, all you who are weary and laden, and I will give you rest for my, for my burden is easy and my yoke is light. And I'd rather put my burdens upon Jesus than try to do it myself. Cause I can't make it on my own.
You said a mouthful and you sung a mouthful. When you go back to, to, you know, Romans eight, chapter one, just think about what it, wait a minute. There is no condemnation. So how do you get no condemnation unless you are in fact, without spot, unless you are without sin. And if you, how do you get to the point where there's no condemnation? Well, as, as Paul had pointed out earlier, that you got there, you know, by trusting, you know, you got there because you believed God, and it was credited to you for his righteousness and, and, and it is through him that you got no condemnation.
Right. But then when you say, take my yoke, that's a really, really cool thing because from the Hebrew or from the Jewish standpoint, right? So these guys that were following Jesus, right? From their perspective, he was a rabbi. And when you went under a rabbi, then all of a sudden you got street cred, right? You know, in that culture at that time, you know, who your rabbi is dependent on how people looked at you. Right. And so if Jesus was your rabbi, then, then man, you know, that was, that was a big, huge deal. I mean, because they people had all kinds of respect for him as a teacher. But But think about, you know, where all that is, that when he when he said, take my yoke, that was a word they used for being under a particular rabbi.
Okay. And so when he's saying that, if he, if, if these people went out, and they wanted some other rabbi's yoke, I mean, he was going to put stuff on them, because the Pharisees, or the Sadducees take your pick, they were going to put all kinds of stuff on them that they had to do in order to supposedly become righteous. Or not do as the case may be at least 613 mitzvahs or laws that they that they had to do and not do and all these things that they're going to do. And so when you just get back to what I said, you said a mouthful. That when he's saying, look, and it really comes down to what he said. And from my standpoint, when the Last Supper happened, right, he said, Do this in remembrance of me, right? If we're mindful, what we talked about either you're gonna live in the spirit, or you're gonna live in the flesh? Are you going to be mindful? Are you going to do this in remembrance of me?
Meaning your whole life? I mean, am I going to remember that? Oh, yeah. Jesus paid for this?
Oh, yeah, I don't need to do that. Because Jesus cleansed Oh, yeah. You know, so how long have I seek counsel in my soul having sorrows in my heart daily? You know, like, a friend of mine said, Robbie, that's like what clubber Lang said, you know, I have a prediction for you.
If you want to seek counsel in your own soul. You remember clubber Lang and Rocky three? Pain? Yeah, I have a prediction for you. It's, it's pain. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm actually I'm actually reminded of a story. There was a pastor who was out with a couple of his elders, and they were in Newport Beach, California. And they were walking down the road. And all of a sudden, they saw they walk past a bar. And there was this great big bar fight.
That was right outside of the bar. And so it went into the streets. And so they said they didn't know what exactly what to do. So they went up to there was two or three guys who were beating up on this one guy. And they went up to the guys and they said, Hey, guys, cut it out. And the guys who were beating the one guy up, they said, didn't do anything. Nobody stopped.
Nobody stopped anything. They said all of a sudden, the guys who were beating up on the one guy, they kind of stopped and they looked at them. And they had fear in their eyes. And they said, Oh, no, what's going on? And all of a sudden, they looked back.
And behind them was there's there was this great big guy about 300 pounds, six foot seven, solid muscle. And these the pastor and his elders called this guy Bubba, not to his face, but behind his back, of course later. And they said that as soon as Bubba showed up, all he did was kind of stare at these guys, and he flexed his muscles, and they slowly started to walk away. And so the pastor and these two elders, when they saw the guys walking away, they said, Yeah, and you better know, we better not catch you coming around here again.
But what what this pastor said was he said, How cool would it be? He said, if we had Bubba standing behind us all of the time, who was watching out for us, who was with us and stuff like that? And they said that the truth is, is that there's not a Bubba can't be around us all the time. We're always somewhere else.
They said, but we do have somebody else. Yeah, way more than Bubba, you know, and that's the idea of the fear of the Lord, right? I mean, that's actually, you know, the one of my favorite passages in the Bible, actually, those who know me know, I spent a lot of time here is in Isaiah 11, where you get the seven anointings that Christ, you know, is going to have and actually every single letter in Hebrew has these seven anointings and their wisdom and understanding and counsel and might. But then comes the biggie when you get down to number six, it is fear the Lord, which, okay, so that's, that's my own, but then there's this place of delight, the seventh anointing that Jesus gets in Isaiah 11, a delight in the fear of the Lord. And that's when you know that Bubba is over your shoulder all the time. By the way, Bubba is Jesus.
It's actually more than Jesus, because if you think about it, when you read the high priestly prayers, it's kind of cool. And you might even do this because I think it's really fun. They say, okay, just take, take your thumb and stick it up. Okay. And then take your, your right hand, you take your left thumb and stick it up, take your right hand and put it around it like this. Okay, Mike, you've seen this.
All right. Now it says in the high priestly prayer, Jesus said, I'm not God, the father's not gonna let anybody be snatched out of my hand. Well, earlier it says that, of course, the father wasn't going to let Jesus be snatched out of his hand. So take your other, the rest of your fingers, watch my hand and put them up over your other hand. And so, you know, you got the father holding onto Jesus, who is now holding onto you now as anybody, anybody, we're not only talking about Bubba, we're talking about Jesus. And then on top of Jesus, we have the father.
There is nobody going to snatch and they know there's no snatching going to go on here. I mean, and that's, we talked about affliction in the seventh chapter and no matter what in the world, right? If you're living in the spirit and you truly understand a delight in the fear of the Lord, it's like you not only have the Holy spirit, you not only have Jesus, you have the father and ain't nothing, ain't nothing, not nobody. It's not going to be an accident that, that something is going to happen to you that God is not, no, it's for, right?
My plans that I have. It's like an eternal security. If not for God.
If not for God. Hey, I just want to thank one of our sponsors, Greater Love World Outreach Center over in Burlington, North Carolina at 537 South Ireland Street. They have services Sunday at 10 30 in the morning, and they have a Wednesday night service at seven. Pastor Ron Harris. He's been on the station before. We love to have him on. If you want to feel welcomed, made to feel like you're at home, go visit Greater Love World Outreach Center over in Burlington. This is the Truth Network.
