Bible Teaching

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

Methods of Mortifying Pt.1

It's always good to be in His presence. Amen? Let's turn to the book of Romans and take some time that we can allow the spirit of God to speak to us in the day, the hour that we're in, in the process of pressing toward finishing this course. The apostle, of course, said that there was that crown that he was desiring to achieve and he said, "Don't let any man steal your crown." It's a precious thing to be able to stand in those last days and hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant." The benefits of it are beyond description and the consequences of not being prepared are unthinkable, really. When we look at the eternal separation from a righteous, holy, loving father into a torment and a reaping of all that we had sown into multiplied, beyond comprehension, of fear and pain and hatred and darkness. Don't let any man steal your crown. There's nothing that man can present to us that's going to have any type of appeal when we realize the loveliness and the holiness of our God. For years people would preach hell, fire and brimstone and try and scare people out of Hell. I don't think that really works, because I don't know that there's the ability to comprehend Hell. I think that what really works is understanding the worth of our Father and how good it is when we're in His presence and to pursue that even more.

Romans 8 speaks toward that. Let's turn over to Romans, chapter 8. As we talk about the course that we're on, we're in the process, we all know, of seeing worked in our lives the process of sanctification. We spent, months ago, a long time teaching on the basics of regeneration and reconciliation. We've understood the process of redemption. We talked about the fallacies of sanctification. How some of the holiness groups really believe that it's a second work in the life of an individual that's once for all and that once you're sanctified, you never sin again. The only thing is, we've never run into anybody that really had that become their track record. What they have to do then, the people that hold to that kind of a doctrine, is they take their doctrine and they apply different definitions to terms. Sin is no longer sin, it's an "indiscretion." "I slipped."

Sin is sin! Sin is missing the mark. All unrighteousness is sin. We realize that sin is something that's present with us always in our lives. Sanctification, then, is the process of walking free from sin's power. Sin is ever present. Sin is in our members. Romans 6 says, the body of sin is destroyed that henceforth we no longer serve sin. But we all know that it was not destroyed or annihilated. We've shared that that phrase in the Greek in Romans 6 when it says that the body of sin was destroyed, it was not annihilated. It was made ineffective or actually what that word means, being ineffective means it is no longer dominant. When sin's power was destroyed, its position of dominance was removed. It's present, but not dominant. Sin is ever present with us. It's in our members, but it's no longer the dominating force and it's not anything that now is attractive to us. In fact, sin repulses us.

You say, "Well, you know, Pastor, I have to admit, if I was really going to be truthful tonight, that I like sin periodically." Anybody here want to be that truthful tonight and say, "Yeah, that's me?" I'm that way; I sin because I chose to, because I like it. For the moment it's going to bring me some kind of gratification. "I just really was satisfied telling that guy off. That's what I needed for the moment. I thoroughly enjoyed that." Then just a few seconds later your conscience says, "That's not who you are anymore" and you see how ugly it is. The things that you used to love and that you could go away and be satisfied for the whole day in giving that person that fragment of your mind, you can't even enjoy it for 30 seconds now. The next thing you know, you're miserable. The next thing you know, you're having to find that person and apologize and restore to them whatever it was that you stole from them in that confrontation.

You go back and you realize that as the apostle says, "It's not me, it's sin that's in our members." Now if we're not careful, we can misapply that biblical principle and think, "Since it's not me, I'm not responsible." The Bible teaches responsibility for our sin, doesn't it? We can say with the Scriptures, "It's no longer I, but sin." But the Scripture makes it very clear that we're responsible for restitution; we're responsible for repentance. Though it's no longer I, my total being, it is I, my members. I am responsible now to mortify the deeds of the flesh.

We want to talk about methods of mortification. Just the practical thing, how can we get this flesh under and mortified? We talk about being mortified. "I was just mortified!" So often that term was used when we talked about, "I could have died! I just felt like falling through the crack." To be mortified means to be put to death. It's more than being embarrassed. It's more than being just disappointed or restrained. Mortification has to do with a putting under to the point of ineffectualness or inoperative. It's the same consequence of Romans 6, the body of sin is destroyed that henceforth we no longer serve sin.

We read the conflicts. You read chapter 6 in Romans and things are looking good aren't they? We're reading through chapter 6, praise God! We're talking about the justification that's taking place in our lives and we're pumped, man, and the power of sin has been destroyed so that henceforth we no longer serve sin and we're seeing all of the great promises of justification statements that are being made about what our legal righteousness is in God's sight. Romans 6 is about our legal righteousness in God's sight. Romans 6 is how God sees us through the blood of Jesus Christ and the finished work on the cross that says we've been made the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ.

We rejoice in that and all that it's provided for us and yet it brings to us the same dilemma that it brought to the apostle in chapter 7. We see that we've died to sin and, verse 7 of chapter 6, "For he that is dead is freed from sin." Verse 8 of chapter 6, "Now If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him." We're rejoicing in that, we're given the admonition therefore in verse 12, "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body..."

Hmm. As we start rolling into this part of chapter 6, we start coming into a little conflict, a little bit of dilemma. Verse 13, "...yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead..." Verse 14, "For sin shall not have dominion over you..." That's where I always run into trouble, verse 14; in making sure that I understand what the Spirit of God meant when He said, "dominion." It doesn't mean that sin will not have periodic victories, that sin will not sometimes be able to seduce you and influence you through intimidation or accusations of what it may cost you to continue in this process of sanctification. Sin takes occasion because of the weakness of our flesh, and when we're not prepared many times, it slays us.

But the dominion factor, beloved, that sin will not dominate your life, not only has to do with the sanctification process but the awareness of the justification process. Sin will not ultimately win out if we continue to pursue and have our minds renewed and realize that there's a new law, Romans 8, of spiritual living in Christ Jesus that has made us free from the law of sin and death. 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 our flesh. So we're not now living by the law. We're not just judging ourselves by our performance and how we hold up to the law, because the law shows us that we're sinners. The law is good and holy and just and true and I'm incapable in the natural of fulfilling all of that, but Jesus fulfilled it and it's been imputed to my account.

So now, God calls me righteous and in chapter 6, that's what I say about myself in faith. I say, "Sin is not going be the ultimate force. Sin no longer has to dominate my life. I'm progressively growing out of who I used to be and becoming now who Jesus is and when I see Him, I'm going to be like Him, praise God!" We continue to look up and hope for the returning of the Lord and realize we're going to be like Him when we see Him. In the process we're being conformed, transformed into His image, the metamorphosis is taking place and we're now becoming the new creation of Jesus Christ on a daily basis.

Now that happens through periodic failures, and over the years because of people's inability to reconcile the truths of Romans 6, 7 and 8, we've ended up with a lot of false doctrine. Those who have professed this work of sanctification that say, they no longer sin. First John speaks toward that and says that we have no right to make those comments, because we're liars if we say that.

We realize then that in our righteousness and in our sanctification process, sin is still present. "How do I deal with it?" How do I deal with the sin that's in my members that still wants to vaunt itself and be puffed up and selfish and envy and bitterness and strife and all of these ugly things that you and I have to contend with? How many of you have realized that things that you thought were dead and that as you were sanctified and you've become more mature Christians, that the moment you became lax, that thing came back to life? It had been years since you even remembered that it was there, and then all of the sudden, because of the failure to apply these different principles and methods that we're going to talk about tonight, sin took advantage of you again. It's because sin never goes away. You're only one decision from giving it place to operate in your life again. Now, I don't mean it'll come on and instantly overwhelm you, but I'm talking about one decision from giving it place to operate again. Just giving it the ability to regenerate, and that's what we have to guard against.

Romans 8, then, as we're looking at this, Romans 8 comes to us and says this, beginning at verse 6, "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, neither indeed can be." We're going to go back and reemphasize those verses as some of our methods as we go through the study. But the point that we want to look at tonight is in verse 8, "So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh..." You say, "Yeah I am. I was in the flesh tonight just before I came to church. Opened up the electric bill, got in the flesh." Did anybody else get a big electric bill this last month? Or was it just me? By the way, I didn't get in the flesh over the electric bill, it was something else. No.

We realize that when the statement says, "Ye are not in the flesh." It doesn't mean that you don't ever act out in the flesh. It's not talking about a practical, experiential momentary total liberty from the flesh ever evidencing itself in our lives. It's saying that the flesh, sin, is not the dominant force. It can never be if the spirit of Christ dwells in you, because where Jesus dwells, He's Lord. Where He's been invited to rule, He reigns in justice and in power and our hope's in His ability and not in our own. We make this statement with the apostle and we say, "I agree with that, that I'm no longer in the flesh, Praise God! Because the spirit of Christ lives in me. "Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his."

What He's telling us here is, then, that it's not something that we're going to try to achieve through our own ability. We're not talking here about 12 step programs, we're not talking about just learning to be more disciplined through our ability to control our mind and our thought processes. In fact, you're going to see as we look at a couple of the biblical principles here in a moment, one of the biggest hindrances to sanctification and mortification is the fact that many of us don't deal with sin in our lives. We suppress it, we deny it, we live hypocritically with it buried. We think that the displacing of its evidence is the uprooting of its power and its presence, and it's not.

As we go through the study, you're going to see and recognize of who we are and how weak we are and how needy we are of the Spirit's working in our lives. When you come to that place of being undone and say, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ..." (Romans 7:24-25). It doesn't have anything to do again with our keeping score. It has to do with whether or not we're recognizing the spirit living in us. Are you looking to the Holy Spirit or are you looking to do a better job? Are you trying to live righteously in the flesh? Or are you letting the Holy Spirit work in you, realizing that in the flesh you are a miserable failure?

And this is what Paul's telling us over here. "And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; [verse 10] but the Spirit is life [alive] because of righteousness. 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 [make alive] your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh..." We owe nothing to the flesh. We don't have to listen to its cry any longer, its shouts of dominance. "This is who you are; you're never going to change." We don't have to be intimidated any longer by our history, our pedigree. We're a new creation in Jesus Christ. Old things have passed away. The apostle goes on and he makes this statement. No longer debtors, "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. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God."

We want to talk and spend a little bit of time on this passage of Scripture. What are we making reference to here? What are some of the methods of mortification? The first one we want to talk about is probably the most misunderstood, and yet it's real import to really understand and that's abstinence. Abstain from fleshly lusts. Turn over to 1 Peter, chapter 2 for just a second. When we talk about abstinence we all know what abstinence is, we just don't practice it always. Historically, the ones that practiced it really, practiced it improperly because they felt that the abstinence or the act in and of itself was going to be sufficient. The literal application of teachings that Jesus gave: If your eye offends you, what do you do? Pluck it out. If your hand offends you, what do you do? Cut it off (Mark 9:43 and 47).

Origen, the great historical father was so, so perplexed over this battle that you and I are talking about tonight that he just didn't know what to do. His desire to be free from the sin that was in his members and looking at the Scriptures and reading and understanding--or not understanding--reading and not understanding that passage that Jesus had spoken. Reading through Romans and Peter and understanding what the Word of God says, literally applied that in his life and was castrated in his monastic setting. A place where he did nothing but study and pray, depriving himself of everything that the world offered. The principles that we've seen so often among those that in the natural try to pursue righteousness. In some of the eastern religions, we see the penance and the different things. You've seen pictures of it, where they would have the fishhooks in their flesh and the lead weights and just ripping their skin apart. Those that would beat themselves and those that would crawl up steps on their knees and bleeding, and all of the torment and cutting of themselves like pagan religions. There's no righteousness there, but self-righteousness.

When I abstain to feel good about myself I'm going deeper into sin. Abstaining has to be the consequence of pursuing something in its stead. It's the same as fasting; we don't just not eat. When we fast, it's more than just not eating. It's praying, it's reading the Scriptures, it's serving somebody in the body, it's doing something to pursue God. The chosen fast that Isaiah speaks of in Isaiah 58 is a fast that takes and gives to someone else. When we abstain from buying some new clothes because we feel that our flesh is out of control, how about not only not buying something for you, how about taking something you have--I don' t mean going out and charging something. I'm talking about taking something you already have, and giving it to somebody else. Not only fast and abstain, but take something that has power over you and give it and minister so that it no longer dominates your members. Now you're mortifying your members upon the earth. It's done because we want to now pursue. But, if the purpose again is to feel good about ourselves to somehow establish a righteousness in God's eyes that we feel is not there sufficiently through the blood of Jesus Christ, we're just bringing ourselves back in the bondage of works.

So when I talk about abstinence don't get off into that works mentality. I'm not talking about something that we do in our own strength. I'm talking about something we do--it's our own will, don't mistake what I'm saying. I'm not saying that somehow God's spirit just comes over you and now you have no will and there's no drawing toward selfness and the appetites of the world and of the members of our body, that never goes away. I'm talking about because of the presence of God in the Holy Spirit, we can now see clearly and say, "I see what's going on in my life. I see what has to be dealt with and I'm going to make conscious decisions to apply biblical principles of denying self." "Biblical principles," not beating ourselves with chains, crawling to the altar on our knees.

We're going to see that what we're talking about is not a mutilation of the flesh, but a redirecting of the flesh to where we yield our members as instruments to what? Righteousness. That's how you kill the flesh; make him do something good. Kills him. You know, like, "Kiss your sister and tell her you're sorry." You tell me that doesn't kill you, man. You take the flesh and you make it move into doing what's right. Then we habitually apply obedience in those areas and the dominion of flesh now dies. Its habitual position of power now begins to be removed in that area of your life.

Look over at the Peter passage, 1 Peter, chapter 2, verse 11. "Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; Having your [ living ] honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors...[all of these different things, that by doing so]...ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God."

Then he talks about a servant's attitude and what we're looking at here in the context of this. We're seeing, "If I'm ever going to cause flesh to no longer reign, I'm going to have to humble myself and take on a servant's attitude." The reason that flesh rules in our lives is because of that spirit of self-indulgence, selfishness. We can call it: pride. We can attach many of these ugly definitions, but what we see here in this passage in Peter and what we were just sharing about is this. The way to break its power is for you to willfully bring it under. The interesting thing is, we don't bring it under, listen to me, we don't bring the flesh under as a form of penance because we just sinned. We bring it under as a lifestyle of walking in the spirit so that we take its power away. The abstaining then, again is not penance. The abstaining is the process of making right choices of walking in the spirit, of, as Philippians says, thinking on the right things at every moment in our lives.

Now how's that done? We're going to see as we go on in the study. The practical way that it's done is to fill your mind, then, with the Scriptures, with the Word of God. We abstain from fleshly lusts, but we also have to build a foundation of a habitual feasting upon the manna of heaven, the bread of life. That begins to be one of the practical methods and I'll talk about it later, I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself.

As we take the Peter passage--go back to Corinthians for just a second in chapter 6. First Corinthians, chapter 6 and we're talking about abstinence. Abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. Now, we know the biblical principles don't we? About making no provision for the flesh. That's the second practical point that we want to make and we're going to combine one and two this evening. We'll take up the rest of them probably on Sunday.

Number one, abstain from fleshly lusts. Number two, make no provision for the flesh. The reason that most of us are overcome in our lives is because we give place. The Scripture says that we're not ignorant of his devices and yet at the same time because our sinful members wants to participate in the things that it used to participate in. Have you come to that yet? You're not going to be free until you understand that. Do you understand your members are no better than they ever were? I think we all know that experientially, but something in us as believers pursuing holiness and righteousness just--it's difficult to say, "You know, it's all still there!" It's so ugly that we'd rather just say it's not. Just somehow just suppress this thing, deny it. "He that covereth his sins shall not prosper..." (Proverbs 28:13). You can't cover this thing up. You especially can't lie to yourself, because if your light is darkness how great is that darkness?

What we're looking at here is that understanding that--you know, over the last couple of years as we've been studying on the aspects of grace and we've done our teachings on redemption and justification and many of these different areas and have been dealing with the subject of biblical sanctification over these couple of years. Through that time, I've spent a lot of time meditating and searching my own heart and wanting to know myself. In the process you go back and you look at a lot of things that you've done in the 30 plus years of walking in the kingdom and at the moment you were convinced that the motive was right and your heart was pure. Now you look back on it with ten more years of illumination and some more understanding of the Word of God and you look back and you go, "You know, it was still there, man. I thought I was doing that absolutely for the glory of God and now I see how much of self-will was still in there, how much of that competitive spirit was still there."

As I look back in the years, years ago, and I see how much I was driven by competitiveness to be the best. "The best for God, amen!" I really believed that. I was not living a life of hypocrisy. I really believed that I was wanting to be the best I could for God and I look back now and I think, "That was there, but there was still a lot of self in it." The motivation wasn't just to know Him more, to be pure as He is pure and holy and He is holy. It was because the harder you worked and the more you knew and understood and applied the law of sowing and reaping and the consequences of it, and it was at that time that God spoke to me as I shared with you. When He said, "I'm not pleased with what you're doing and I want you to return to the old path." As I began to examine my heart and I realized, "You know, there's still too much flesh here." I see it for what it was back then, and I see what a lot of the motivation was and it just makes you sick. You stand here now ten years later and say, "Praise God, I'm free from that." What do you think ten years from now, should the Lord tarry, we'll look back on today and see? It never goes away.

The process of becoming more like Him is one that, in all of our lives, is not linear, it spirals. In the process, we begin to learn patience. Anybody here besides myself have a tendency to be more patient with other people than you are with yourself? How many of you are more patient with yourself? Are you? Some of us are. You all really have problems; we'll talk about that later. But a lot of us have a tendency to be more patient with other people than we are with ourselves and that's pride, usually. It could be a false humility, which is a derivative of pride. But we look at our lives, and what you need to understand is this beloved: until the day of glorification, the sanctification process is a daily process of yielding our members as instruments to righteousness. If you give your flesh a day off, it'll want a week off.

So, this aspect of abstaining is one of bringing about a discipline to where we habitually--and that's why we've tried to set up prayer every night of the week, and that's why we've tried to set up meetings that we schedule that make it hard on our flesh to go out and participate with the world. How many of you find that your flesh periodically doesn't like the schedule that we've set? Anybody's? Everybody's? Good! That was the point! If the flesh is saying, "This isn't bad." Then where are we? The spirit lusting against the flesh and the flesh against the spirit and these two--the moment you sit back and say, "You know, this is just about right, I can handle this balance." You're out of balance. The flesh is dominating your life. The flesh should always be opposing that voice of the spirit that's wanting to pray, that's wanting to serve others, that's wanting to commune with the family.

Corinthians says this. Look at 1 Corinthians, chapter 6, verse 18, "Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." Verse 17, "But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. [with Him, therefore] Flee fornication..."

If the spirit of Christ dwells in us, then we're now going to flee youthful lusts., We're going to flee fornication. I'm talking about abstinence. The fleeing process is revealed to us here. You're no longer your own. How do I flee fornication in my life? I realize that I'm no longer my own. I don't have the right to make any of these decisions. I can't take my body, which is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and join it to a harlot. It's not my call, I'm no longer my own. So, abstinence is not just refraining from an activity; abstinence is the denying of lordship of our own lives. Abstinence says primarily, I abstain from self-control and choose to be lead by the Spirit which makes me, according to Romans, chapter 8, a son of God.

Now practically, here's what we're trying to say. It's not just refraining at this moment that: I'm not going to partake of that, or I'm not going to observe that, or I'm not going to say that. It's a process that starts here tonight of saying, "You know what? I have to totally reconstruct my thought process of decision making." One of the best things to do, and we've talked about this before is, don't wait until you're in the circumstance or under the pressure of a situation to make any decisions. Make it first. Make the choice now to humble yourself. Make the choice now to deny the flesh.

Don't wait until you go out in the parking lot, you know, and you're driving home and a truck's broken down on the side of the road and these two men are in such need. So, you decide you're going to stop and help them. Ben and Jerry. Just drive on by. Let fatso help them, man, he's coming. I'm no longer a fat man or a skinny man dominated by Ben and Jerry's. I've made that decision and the fact that now there appears to be a circumstance where maybe, "You know, if I stop, it's the good thing to do. It's the good Christian thing to do. I can really be a blessing to these people. Maybe they'll give me a pint! Oh, did I say that out loud? I was just kind of thinking that. I didn't mean for that to come out of my mouth."

We realize then, abstinence is a choice now, to make the decision now. To abstain from the right of making the decision under pressure to where I'm being led by the spirit now into all truth. It comes over into that passage that we were making reference to.

Turn over to Ephesians, chapter 4 for just a second. Ephesians 4, verse 22 says, "That ye put off concerning the former conversation [living] the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind." We'll talk about some of these principles in depth as we go on hopefully. "And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."

Do you see a pattern there as those verses flow? A mandate, and then he tells us how to do it. Isn't it interesting that the way you do it is you don't pray, "God just give me the grace Lord to keep my mouth shut? Lord, give me the grace to keep my mouth shut. Lord, it just seems like I'm always saying the wrong thing and I'm critical and I'm making statements that are not edifying. Just help me to keep my mouth shut." Do you notice the Scripture doesn't say, "Pray to keep your mouth shut?"

Verse 29, look at it, "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth." "Okay, I hear that, but how? I've got a big mouth. My mouth is not hooked up to my brain. It has a mind of it's own." The Scripture says that the perfect man controls his tongue, the mature man as we read James. How do we control it? [Pastor motions as though wrestling with his tongue.] "You little...don't say that!" That's not controlling your tongue. Okay? It says, I consciously, look at the verse, "I consciously find good to say that edifies and ministers grace to the hearer. I chose now to make my speech pattern good. I chose to speak and edify. I'm not going to wait until I show up at the meeting and then let my mouth run off. I'm going to target people to bless."

You're not going to get it right at the first. You walk up and say, "Boy, you look nice, for a change." It's not just going to start flowing perfectly. But it beats, "What's wrong with you? Closet blew up again?" We begin to consciously say, "You know what? I have no right to act this way with Jesus being the Lord of my life as someone who's yielding their members as instruments to righteousness. I need to target people to apply the fruit of the spirit to their lives." This is what the apostle is telling us here.

Look what it says up in verse 28, "Let him that stole steal no more..." "Lord, I've just got this thing, I've just got quick hands, that's all. I was born with this quick wit." The stealing that's being spoken of here is the stealing of lying to people and trying to be helpless and using other people and just being a lazy dog that Thessalonians speaks of that says, "If you don't work you shouldn't eat." Manipulating people, always taking advantage of people. That's stealing. If you begin to look at these particular aspects, look what it says, "Let him that stole steal no more." Let me say one thing else about this. It's interesting. You don't pray, "Lord, Lord, keep me from stealing!" Here's how sanctification works in mortification. If you were a thief, don't do it any more. How many of you think that's over simplified? Do you? But that's what the Scripture teaches. If you read the principles, it constantly teaches that we have choice.

Now, where we get in trouble is, we think we have the ability to do it in our own strength. That's where we fail, that's not what it's saying. It's not saying, "Just don't do it anymore, because basically you're a good person and you don't want to hurt people." What you look at and say, "I'm a dog, man. I'm a thief at heart and the reason I am is because of my pride and I think I'm better than everybody else and I deserve what other people have. He worked for it, but I deserve it too without working, so I'll steal his, because I'm as good as he is." It's an elevation of self and all of these things that are behind that covetous spirit. There's no good in you. So it's not just that you can say, "Well, I'm not going to steal anymore." That's not what the principle is here, or the method.

Look what it says, "Let him that stole, steal no more." What that says is, recognize who you are, you're a thief, you're a liar. Now, how do I keep from stealing? Verse 28, "...but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth." Are you starting to see a trend? "I don't' have the time and I don't have the disposition to steal anymore, because now I'm involved in edifying other people. My life's about working to give to other people. Sowing into other people's lives. I want to be a help. I study the Word now, not to vaunt myself and be the Holy Spirit in people's lives, I've got something to say, I can minister grace in the time of need. I can endure the trials that I'm in now, because I now realize that it's not about me. I can now comfort with the same comfort wherewith I've been comforted."

The mortifying of our members, the abstinence, is the willful changing of our direction to prefer others better than ourselves. It's not going to come naturally. It's not going to be something where you say, every fiber of your being says, "Good idea." The sin's still in there. You're going to hear those little voices, "Yeah, but what about you? Don't you deserve a break today? When am I going to get mine? What's in it for me? Nobody else is doing that? Hey, I think that's a great idea for the community. I'm not being first though. As soon as I see about half the people doing it, I'll jump in, man, but I'm not going out there first." What we're looking at, of course, is the Holy Spirit talking to us about how to walk in the spirit so we don't fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

"...put off [verse 22] concerning the former conversation [living with] the old man...and be renewed in the spirit of your mind." You see, you're not going to be able to make this decision without that time of prayer and communion to where you die in your own personal Gethsemane and pray, "Not my will, but thine be done. Lord, this is death to self. This is the cross, daily. But if the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He will make alive your mortal body." That's not just talking about what's going to happen in the resurrection, that's a given. In the context of Romans, chapter 8, he's talking about the fact that this mortal body that still has sin in its members can now begin to be an instrument of life and not just death all the time because of the resurrection power of Jesus living in us.

Let me finish with this for tonight. As we're looking down through here and looking at some of these principles, you can always understand--look at the parallel passage. Keep your finger there and go over to Colossians 3 and you see the same basic principle. Spend some time tomorrow in Colossians 3 and meditate through this whole chapter.

"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above..." the first verse says. "Set your affection on things above...For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ..." as it goes on. The mandate in verse 5 to mortify, same as Romans 8 says. "Mortify therefore your members...fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry. For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience." If we don't do something about this, beloved, to be carnally minded is what? Death. It's going to end up death. Now, it's not that it's going to instantly come upon you, but if we don't recognize the need to mortify these members and to bring these things under, it's going to ultimately seduce you into death, the wrath, the judgment of God.

Now he says in verse 7, you used to live this way but you're no longer allowed. "But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth." That's not just talking about swearing, that's talking about any kind of vile conversation, not just talking about coarse jokes or foolish jesting. There's nothing more corrupt that murdering your brother with your tongue and talking bad about someone and these different aspects that we have to guard against. "Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, [verse 10] which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. [verse 12] Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies..." See? Put off by putting on. Put off by putting on.

The Scripture does not say, "Do not fulfill the lusts of the flesh and you will walk in the Spirit." It says, "...Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16). It doesn't just say, "Put off and once you deny all these things and you get control of these things in your life, fornication and anger and malice and all of these different things, that then you will be able to walk in the Spirit." It says, put these off by [verse 12] putting "...on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you...And above all these things put on charity, [love] which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts...Let the word of Christ dwell in you... [verse 16] And whatsoever ye do, [verse 17, in word or deed] do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men." So, we see the process continuing.

Practically now, if we're going to mortify the deeds, if there's going to be abstinence, don't start with just the purpose to abstain, but start with abstaining so I can have the ability, the time, the energy to contribute to the kingdom of God, to edifying, to the bond of perfectness of love.

Father, make it real, we ask, in Jesus' name. We contend with this flesh on a daily basis, and sometimes we're discouraged by the fact that it's never going to stop. We look at the Word of God and we see the doctrine of the apostle. Help us somehow, Father, to get a practical application of these principles. We've talked about them, we've studied and we see that it's a process of obedience. All of us would have a starting place in our lives and say, "I'm going to deal with this thing right now;" but what's the Holy Spirit got His finger on in your life? Maybe the Holy Spirit's hit list doesn't agree with yours. Maybe He wants to go by something that is obvious or even habitual and pass it to go to the root. Something you haven't seen yet. Something that the Holy Spirit is just now revealing to you and saying, "This is the real issue." As the Holy Spirit begins to speak toward those areas of self-indulgence, the lack of the servant's heart, the mingled seed of doing what's right but always having some personal gain in it. There's always something in it for me. If only just to be able to put up another self-righteous mark to say, "Yep, I'm still just a little better than everybody else."

We ask You, Holy Spirit, to illuminate hearts and minds. Jesus, that all that You've spoken would be brought to our remembrance by the Spirit of God and we would not forget what manner of man we really are. Mortify your members that are upon the earth by walking in the spirit. For to be spiritually minded is life and peace, and for that we thank You, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Let's stand before the Lord tonight. As Janet plays for us and the Holy Spirit continues to speak to our hearts, the Scripture makes it very clear that this Word is a lamp to our feet; it's a mirror that we gaze into that we continue into, Deuteronomy tells us, day and night, meditating upon this Word, day and night. "What am I meditating on?" What manner of man I am. The Word is alive and powerful and it's a discerner of the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. "Who am I? I just haven't been able to get victory in this one area in my life. I've done everything I know how to do." Have you thought about just forgetting about that besetting sin? Don't pray about it any more, don't rebuke it any more, and just start worshipping the Lord and seeking His presence and find out who you can minister to and deny your own comfortable schedule and your own comfort zone of existence that you might lift up hands that are hanging down. Seek to the edifying of the body because every sin that has its hold on you ultimately will be traced to pride and self-will, self-indulgence, an over evaluation of self-worth. Humble yourself and God will lift you up. Yield your members as instruments to righteousness.

Ten years more illumination and more mature, and I look back and I think, "Lord, forgive me." He is faithful and just, and should Jesus tarry in five more years I'm going to have to look back and say, "Oh Lord, forgive me!" Because the more you become like Him the more you'll hate what you thought you were, because without Him we can do nothing. But our acceptance is in the beloved and we are partakers of the divine nature and made righteous with His righteousness and for that, Father, we thank You in Jesus' name. Amen.

Let's sing it together. Lord, assume that position. "He is Lord, He is Lord. He has risen from the dead and He is Lord!" Oh Jesus! We thank You for that lordship in our lives. We ask, Father, that we might honor You in word and in deed. Set our course now, as our mind is intent upon the walk in the Spirit. We seek those things that are above, Jesus, where You're seated at Father's right hand. We ask that You will be glorified in the good works. Father we pray tonight for Steve, Gary, Marsha and the kids. We ask that Your peace would reign in their hearts and that your lordship would be sufficient at this time and we rejoice in the Judge of the earth that does right. Father, we stop and we look and we realize again that all of our lives are just vapors, none of us are guaranteed tomorrow. So we ask You, Lord, to be all and all in us today as we seek Your heart and Your mind and not our own. Let men, Father, see the works and glorify You, and we'll give You the praise, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Before you go, turn to somebody next to you and say, "Mortify that flesh!"

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