06/13/22 NO LONGER WRETCHED, BUT DELIVERED

06/13/22 NO LONGER WRETCHED, BUT DELIVERED

The truly WRETCHED are those who finally realize the influence of the Sinful Nature and seek deliverance from Adam's likeness, or as it is sometimes called in the New Testament, The Old Man, The Carnal Mind, The Law of Sin and Death, Double Mindedness, The Evil Heart of Unbelief, The Root of Bitterness, The Flesh (nature, not skin), Sin (as a state of being, not the action of rebellion).

After describing the inner turmoil and occasional defeat that Christians sometimes experience because of the sinful nature which we inherited from Adam, Paul boldly declares that deliverance comes to the believer who refers to his own inner battle with carnality as being WRETCHED. Realizing that the wickedness, the corruption, the pollution of the Carnal Mind is like being lashed to a rotting, putrefying, maggot infested, disease oozing corpse, from which there is no escape, until someone separates us. While attached to this dead body, the living person is hampered from eating, drinking, washing, dressing, and performing other necessary bodily functions. This is the import of the word, WRETCHED in Romans 7. It is a WRETCHEDNESS beyond words.

It is not a condition that the believer must contend with for a lifetime. It is not a situation, from which there is no deliverance. Though the Carnal believer cannot set himself free from this inward bondage and corruption, God is ready, willing and able to loose him and let him go free from this inherited and clinging corruption, just as Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead and then commanded that the grave clothes be removed. God not only wants to give life to the sinner, but He wants to purify the believer, and loose him from his old self. God provides cleansing from the sins we have committed and purification from the sin we have inherited.

Sinning religion teaches that God does not actually save us from all sin, that God does not purify our hearts, that God does not deliver us from, "the body of this death." Sinning religion tells us that Christians must carry this body of death until physical death sets us free. WRONG. Death does not save us from sin or death. Believers do not have to continue being Double Minded, Carnally Minded. The death, resurrection, blood of Christ and the fire of the Holy Spirit and the washing of water by the word cleanses, saves, delivers from all sin.

WRETCHED is the believer who realizes that the Old Man, the Law of Sin and Death is seeking to ruin, destroy his life. WRETCHED is the believer who is deceived into believing that there is no deliverance from such WRETCHEDNESS. WRETCHED is the believer who does not trust Christ for deliverance from all sin. WRETCHED is the believer who fights a lifetime against the inner corruption, from which God wants to deliver them. WRETCHED is the believer who rides the roller coaster of sinning, repenting, sinning, repenting, when there is actually deliverance from such a condition.

Paul cried out for those who suffer the continued inner rebellion of the Carnal Christian, when he said, WRETCHED MAN THAT I AM and asked, WHO SHALL DELIVER ME FROM THE BODY OF THIS DEATH. There is an answer. There is deliverance. There is hope. It is not in suffering or constant struggle or dying daily or hopelessness. The answer is in Jesus. The answer is in the death, the resurrection, the ascension, the intercession of Jesus, The answer is in Jesus filling us with His Holy Spirit. The answer is in the heart purity provided by the fullness of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life.

Paul boldly declared that deliverance comes from God through Jesus Christ. He then recapped the problem at the end of verse 25. Remember, Paul wrote Romans as a letter, not a book. There is no break from our 7:25 to 8:1. HOWEVER, Paul quickly revealed the deliverance available in Romans 8. Unlike the proponents of sinning religion, Paul shuts the door on the Carnal Mind, the inner warfare, the roller coaster of victory and failure. Read the very next words of Paul (actually the words of God, through Paul). We never lose our human condition (nor should we) but God does deliver us and purify us from a the inner rebellion. We are still human and we still have free will to turn human desire (as given to us by God) into sinful desire and action, but we do not have to vacillate in our walk or in our intentions. God purifies us even as Christ is pure. We can come to the end of our WRETCHED life and enter into the Spirit filled life, the life of walking in the Spirit, the life of clean hands and a pure heart, the life of joy unspeakable and full of glory, the life of peace brought about by the rule of God in our inner man, the life of perfect love, the life of deliverance from our wilderness wanderings, the life of WRETCHEDNESS.

Romans 8:1-17
(1) There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
(2) For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
(3) For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
(4) That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
(5) For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
(6) For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
(7) Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
[8] So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
(9) But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
(10) And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
(11) But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
(12) Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.
(13) For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
(14) For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
(15) For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
(16) The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
(17) And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

Remember, this is the CONTINUED MESSAGE OF ROMAN 7. Romans 7 is not the end, but the introduction to the beginning of the Spirit filled, the Spirit dominated life. Yes, we will still be tempted from outside of ourselves, but the Fifth Column Attacks will be over. Yes, we can still choose to sin, as Adam chose to sin, though he was created without a sinful nature. But the biggest YES is that, YES, God delivers from all sin and makes us more than conquerors and leads us in His triumph and makes it possible to love Him with the WHOLE HEART and to be PURE IN HEART.

NO LONGER WRETCHED, BUT DELIVERED.