Mike Bickle emphasizes the theme of 'Victory in the Midst of the Battle' by sharing a profound spiritual encounter that revealed a demonic fog obscuring the understanding of Romans 7:25. He highlights the importance of recognizing the ongoing struggle between the spirit and the flesh, and the necessity of engaging with the truths of the Gospel of grace to achieve victory. Bickle stresses that while believers are made righteous through Christ, they must continually renew their minds and hearts to experience the fullness of that victory. He warns against the demonic confusion surrounding grace that leads to complacency and compromise in the church. Ultimately, he calls for a collective breakthrough in understanding and living out the Gospel of grace.

Father, we thank you in the name of Jesus for your glorious presence that we have access to your throne, even now, Lord. We love the way you love us, and Holy Spirit, we acknowledge your presence here. We ask you to do what you do best and what you enjoy most. You would take the things of Jesus, you would minister them to our heart, and we thank you in Jesus' name, amen. Well, on Tuesday morning, I mentioned this, I had a very dramatic supernatural encounter, and I haven't had many of those in my life, a few of them, maybe four or five of them in 40 years of walking with the Lord. It was a very sober experience, and it was related to this spiritual family, and far beyond the spiritual family, because what the Lord is doing in this regard in our midst is the same sort of thing that's happening all over the earth. It's about three o'clock in the morning, and it went for about two hours, from about three to five, is that suddenly I saw this, I'm in a dream mode, but it's more than a dream, because what I'm saying and doing in the dream, my wife is awake and she's watching me, which is a little bit weird, but I see this demon, this large, mighty demon, just standing a few feet away, and I'm alerted, and it's a dreadful, negative, powerful feeling. I don't like the feeling at all. So I pointed my finger at him, and I said, in the name of Jesus, I rebuke you. I don't know why he's there or what he's doing, but he's not going away. Matter of fact, he's inching forward just ever so slightly, and I'm standing up bolder, but still the dread is increasing, and I said, Jesus, I just started saying that name, knowing that that name has more authority over any other name that can be named, and heaven on earth and hell, I start saying, Jesus, Jesus, like that, pointing at him, and then my wife woke up, and I'm still in this kind of visionary dream state, and she's hearing me say, Jesus, Jesus, now, you know, I don't know, she says, your whole body was trembling, and the Holy Spirit was resting on you, and your whole body was shaking and trembling. You were rebuking a demon or something. She goes, I knew you were having a spiritual encounter, so she just kind of prayed and wondered what was happening, but it lasted for two hours, about, and finally the demon presence left, and I was, the scene shifted, and I'm standing in this pulpit, and I'm looking down at my Bible, and I'm locked in to one passage. Romans 7's opened, and it's Romans 7's 25, and it's highlighted. Now, Romans 7 25 is a bit of an obscure verse. It's not a verse most people I know are familiar with, and I'm looking down, I'm reading it, and in this visionary dream encounter, it's exactly what it says in the Bible, so it was something, you know, that had reality in it, and in it, I was reading, I was reading Romans 7 25, which I'll look at in just a moment, and this reoccurring scene over and over, I keep reading this passage and explaining it to the congregation, and many were, they were earnest, but there was a fog over them, where they could not grasp the truth of Romans 7 25, and there was a confusion and a fog resting over them, and the Lord was showing me in this encounter that, that there's a demonic influence that's creating a subtle, but very effective fog about this truth. Now in Romans 7 25, I'm going to identify three truths, but those three truths would be representative of Romans 3 2 8, the six chapters. The book of Romans has been the book I have studied most of any book of the Bible. I began to give myself to that book maybe almost 40 years ago, when I was about 18, 19 years old, I'm 58 now, and began to research it out and study it through various commentators, because my youth leaders told me, if you don't know the book of Romans, you're never ever going to proceed or grow in the things of God. And just as an encouragement, Romans 3 to 8 is the clearest presentation of the gospel of grace, the message of grace in the Bible. It's systematic, there's times it's a bit detailed and technical, but it's the clearest presentation of the gospel of grace. And so, going back to this demonic encounter, and then standing in the sanctuary, this fog, this kind of subtle fog and confusion, but an effective one, that was keeping people from connecting with the truth, and feeling the power of it. And I was laboring again and again, the scene kept reoccurring, where I was going, this is what we're going to do, this is what we need to know, we need to know this. And as that demonic presence was vanquished by the name of Jesus, was driven away, I was aware that there was a measure of breakthrough, and the result would be that fog would be lifted in our own midst a bit. But we are to contend for the full breakthrough. It's not enough that a few in our midst would be clear on those subjects, and others as well, we want the whole, our whole spiritual family to be rooted and grounded in these six chapters. Romans 3 to 8, again, is the clearest summary of the gospel of grace in the Bible. The Lord wanted me to know that He wants the people to understand this. And that it's very, very important that this fog lifts. Now we had just went on a Daniel fast as a spiritual family last month for 21 days, and what were we crying out for? One thing, for spiritual understanding. And I think this encounter, and this breakthrough, and this warring against this resistance, I think that's related to this spiritual family going on 21 days of fasting, asking for understanding. And I think that part of the Lord's answer is, which I just put it together, is, hey, I'm going to help you understand the gospel of grace in a greater clarity. But I believe there's a demonic resistance to this message all over the earth. And we're just a little microcosm of this battle happening everywhere. This issue of the grace of God is in a great battle in the church today. Now there's a lot of confusion about it. And the confusion is, there's several discernible human reasons there's confusion about it. Number one, a lot of people are just unfamiliar with the book of Romans. They don't know Romans 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. They're not familiar with it. And so they have a bit of confusion just by lack of information. That can be remedied. Others, well, they're the type of person, they just want to avoid any criticism. They want everybody happy with them. And so who's ever talking about the gospel of grace, whichever position they take, they'll just agree with them just to be liked, so they'll be happy. But they're adding to the confusion just by going with whatever anybody says. Well, there's another group. They don't want to obey God. They want confidence that everything is right with Him and God. But they want to live in compromise. And they're looking for Bible verses and reference to the grace of God that can validate and justify them continuing in compromise. So one group, they're unfamiliar with the Bible passages, so they lack knowledge. The other group is, don't want criticism. They lack courage. And the third group, well, they want to live in sin. They just lack commitment to the Lord. But you take those three components, then you throw a demonic, it's seemingly subtle, but a demonic, a heightened demonic influence, and it creates this kind of really entrenched kind of stalemate of confusion and fog about these passages. And the Lord was saying to me in this, this confusion is not neutral. Meaning it's not a confusion like other truths that are secondary in the Bible. There's the main and plain primary truths of the Bible about Jesus, the gospel of grace, and who He is and what He did. And there are secondary truths that are important, but they're not an issue of our sustaining our life in the faith, etc. And the Lord was making clear to me that this confusion is not neutral. It is a demonically inspired, empowered, heightened confusion that has very serious consequence in the lives of multitudes of people. So though I really believe Tuesday was a breakthrough that will result in some of the fog lifting on this body, and I believe it's a corporate thing, though I was having the encounter, it comes out of that 21 days. I think that's part of the fruit of that. And I'm expecting a breakthrough of greater understanding, and I don't mean just biblical understanding, I mean understanding that has feeling in our heart where it's not just Bible information, but it's heart revelation of these truths. We feel the power of them. But I'm not content with a measure of breakthrough. I'm not content with that demonic power drawing back and leaving the scene and the fog lifting of it. I want a full breakthrough that's sustained in the spiritual family. And those that are here for a season in our Bible school and they're going back home or being sent out to other ministries, I want them to go in confidence and clarity, but not only that, but in experience of victory in their heart related to these truths. Well, let's look at the notes here. In paragraph A, look at 1 Timothy chapter 4, verse 1 to 3, Paul gives a very sober end time prophecy. This is a very weighty word, and it's for the generation the Lord returns. It's a prophecy that has particular application in those decades that are leading up to those final years. I believe that what he is describing here will escalate in intensity and in gravity as we get closer and closer to the coming of the Lord. And it's my opinion, it's not a revelation, it's an opinion, we're in the early days of that generation. We might not be, but it's my opinion that we are. And in this verse, we're seeing some of it even now, and there's an escalation of the negative that he prophesied here. Look what he says. He says, now the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times or in the last days, in the end times, some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and giving heed or paying attention, one translation says, to doctrines of demons. They will speak lies in hypocrisy. And he goes on and he adds a few more things to this prophecy. Well, I want to highlight a few points and then go on to Romans chapter 7 verse 25. When Paul says the Spirit expressly says, this is a unusual phrase. Paul, I mean, anytime the Spirit says something, it is top priority. But Paul said, this is top, top priority. He says the Spirit emphasized this word to me in an unusual way. He expressly, he explicitly emphasized this prophecy. So from the words of Paul the Apostle, I'm alerted. He says in the latter times. He's talking about the end times. Now the last days technically began at the day of Pentecost. But the end times are those final decades of the last days being technical about it. But in the end times, in those final years, 10, 20, 30 years, whatever. I'm just making up that number. But that period of time as things escalate, the trends of that generation are picking up and accelerating both positive and negative. Because there's positive trends in the end times and there's negative trends. He says, here's what's going to happen. Some are going to depart from the faith. Now I don't think this is going to be a subtle trickle of a few people walking out the back door kind of barely noticed. I believe that because Paul prophesied this explicitly by the Holy Spirit's emphasis, because Jesus prophesied it, because Peter prophesied it, I mean here we have Jesus and the main apostles prophesying this reality. This is not a small, subtle, unnoticeable trickle. I believe there will be a major falling away from a profession of faith in the Lord. And I think it could be tens of millions, possibly several hundred million, nobody knows. But it's big, it's noticeable, it's dramatic, it's a sign of the times. Now you think, oh, that sounds negative and it is. It's very negative. But there's good news, because at the same time that there's a falling away, there's a great ingathering, there's a great harvest as the gospel is being preached in all the nations of the earth in power. So we're seeing great advancements of the kingdom while we're seeing an increase of darkness. Someone says, is it going to get better or is it going to get worse? And the Bible answer is both. The light will get lighter and the dark will get darker and the contrast will serve the purpose of God. So I believe, I'm just pulling the number out, there's nowhere in the Bible that says it, but I believe it's tens of millions, it might be more than that. It might be literally a hundred or two hundred million, I don't know. But I'm believing for a billion plus in the great harvest. It's interesting that in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, I don't have the verse here, verse 3, Paul highlighted two things that would happen that would signal the return of the Lord. He said the falling away and the appearance of the Antichrist on the world stage. In other words, the falling away is so dramatic, so graphic, so noticeable that it's comparable to the Antichrist appearing on the world stage. Beloved, that's a dramatic falling away if it's put in parallel to that other sign. Those are the two signs that Paul highlighted about the coming of the Lord. Well, what he says here, he says, how does it happen? They give heed, or another translation says they pay attention to deceiving spirits, doctrines of demons. It's not like these people suddenly grew tired of Jesus. Says, you know what, I think I'm just tired of Jesus, so I'm going to deny Him. No, there it will be convincing presentations of what is called the truth, but it will be deception. And multitudes will buy into it and will fall away from the faith. These Bible teachers even, they will speak lies. And these will be people who are Bible teachers or people that are religious teachers. They will speak lies, and I believe that the primary deception and distortion will be about the gospel of grace. Won't be limited to that, but it will be about the deity of Jesus, the one way to salvation, and the reality of what grace is about. Paul said these Bible teachers plus these other religious teachers, they will speak lies. He's not talking about lies about a business deal where they tell a lie. He's talking about lies about what the truth is related to the gospel. He said, but these lies will come from a life of hypocrisy. What that means is, these distortions of truth will be rooted in their cover up of their secret life of sin. They want to justify by presenting the grace of God in a way that makes it okay to live that way. I call it the distorted grace message. I think it's the most dangerous deception that's increasing rapidly in the body of Christ today. Now I mentioned that I've been teaching the Bible 40 years. And I saw trends of this back when I was 18 years old teaching in high school and college Bible studies. I had my weekly Bible studies, and we saw people buying into this back in my college days, my early days. But I'll tell you this, the last 10 years, this has accelerated beyond measure in the last 10 years. The amount of people that are teaching on the grace of God in a way that undermines the truth of the Bible, that empowers people to live in sin with confidence they're right with God. There's several different versions of it. But not only has it escalated in the last 10 years, it's escalated even more intensely the last 5 years. I've got friends in ministries all around America, different parts of the world, and they are testifying to the same thing. They go, there's this sudden increase of this distorted message. Young people are buying it. Old people are buying it. TV preachers are buying it. Little country preachers or country churches, rural towns are buying it. All over around the world, it's bolstering people's confidence to live in sin and have confidence with God without repenting. I'm not talking about stumbling in sin. I'm talking about, because we need to have confidence when we stumble in sin and repent. That's a biblical doctrine we'll look at in just a moment. Paragraph B, let's look at Romans, and we're just introducing it today. And in the next number of months, we're going to be looking at Romans 3 to 8. I spent about 10 or 12 weeks on Romans 3 to 8 last year, last summer actually, about a year ago. And now the Lord's just stirring my heart saying go over it again. There's a fog over them. This truth is too important. Even some that are thinking, well, you know, I'm not that focused on it. That's part of the fog right there. That is an expression of a fog. Well, Romans chapter 7, verse 25. So I'm in this visionary dream encounter rebuking this demonic resistance that's creating this fog. Again, I'm saying Jesus, and my wife is awake, and she's watching me do this. And she goes, it's the power of God's resting on your body. It's very, she goes, I knew something very, very important was happening. So she just prayed. You know, she didn't want to wake me up or get in the way of it, just ask the Lord just to break in and help. But as I'm looking, as the scene shifted from that demon who left, which is a victory, he left. In other words, there will be a breakthrough in our midst in this way, but not the complete and the full and the final breakthrough that we're going to continue to contend for. I look down at Romans 7, verse 25, and I thought, what an unusual verse. But again, as I highlight three different truths here, these truths are representative of that famous chapter 3 to chapter 8, the six chapters of Romans, of which, as I said, is a clearest presentation, systematic presentation of the gospel of grace in the whole Bible. Those six chapters. Well, Paul in Romans 7, most of you know the passage. I'll just kind of, just quote, I mean, reference a little bit of it. This is the passage where he says, you know, I don't want to do this bad stuff, but I keep doing it. This is the Mike Bickle paraphrase. And the good stuff I want to do, I don't seem to follow through on it. He goes, I don't know what's going on. The bad stuff I do and I hate it, and the good stuff I don't seem to do, and that's what I'm trying to do. That's my paraphrase of Romans 7. And then he comes to verse 24, right after about ten verses of that, and he goes, oh, wretched man that I am. He goes, I'm in anguish. I'm in pain. I love the Bible. I love the word of God, which he makes clear in Romans 7. I delight in the law of the Lord. But he goes, I can't seem to follow through. It doesn't seem to happen in my life. Can't get the victory. And though in our spirit we have become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus as a free gift, but in our soul, our mind and emotions, we must still be renewed by the word and by the spirit on a regular basis. So we can have our spirit saved and receive the righteousness of God in the indwelling spirit, but our mind and emotions still being agreement with old thought patterns and with things that are not related to the truth of God's word. And we want our mind and emotion renewed. That's the key. So I don't want just to have a saved spirit and a confused, darkened mind that is entrenched in lust and in anger and in bitterness, etc. I want my soul liberated and walking in liberty, and that's what Paul is describing right here. Let's read it. It goes, verse 25. I thank God, here's the first truth, through the Lord Jesus Christ. That's truth number one. Now that one sentence embodies all the positive things that Paul has just said about what Jesus did for us and how we are to engage with Jesus in order for that victory to transform our character, our mind and emotions. He has just went through Romans 6 and laid all that out. So in context, when Paul says, I thank God through Jesus, that word through Jesus means everything he said in chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 5, chapter 6. He means I want to receive all that was given, and I want to engage with Jesus in the way the word of God says, and I want to walk in everything. So he has victory when he's writing this. When he's writing this description of the struggle, at this point in time, he's a man that's walking in victory in his mind and emotions or in agreement with God, invigorated by the power of the Holy Spirit. He goes, so here's what's happening. Now he describes himself. This is quite a strange, I mean it's an unfamiliar, it's an unusual description. He says, with the mind, I serve the law of God. He says, with my mind, I am absolutely committed to obeying the commands of God. We'll break that down in a minute. But he goes, I'm still aware that as a Bortigin believer with a great victory that he's walking in right now, that if I don't continue to engage in the Lord and I don't continue to draw on those truths and abide in the vine, I realize that even as a Bortigin believer, there's another option. Even as a man walking in victory, he said, I can serve with my flesh the law of sin. Now that's introducing a new principle, the law of sin. And when he talks about this phrase, the law of sin, he's talking about, he's not using the word law like he used a moment ago, God's law. He's using the word law of sin like the law of gravity. It's like a law, it's a principle that is so consistent and so predictable that it constitutes a law. If something happens the same way every single time, it's a law. It's a law of nature. Like the law of gravity, if you drop a ball, you know, a weight from 10 feet, it will fall to the ground. If you drop it from 100 feet, it will fall to the ground. If you drop it when it's freezing or when it's hot, it will still fall to the ground. If you drop it in Africa or Asia, it will still fall to the ground the same way. The point is, that's a law. You didn't realize I was so schooled in science, did you? Well, there you have it. That's my science knowledge. When he's talking about the law of sin here, he's talking about a consistent principle that operates the same time if the environment is such that it can do what it does naturally. That's what he means by the law of sin. Well, anyway, let's start and we'll look at each of these truths for just a moment. I'm not going to cover all that's in the notes. Some of it is just for those that are new with this to give you a little something to read when you go home. But in the weeks ahead, in the months ahead, we're going to be breaking this down. Romans 3 to 8, different themes that will give us not just confidence in the biblical grace message, but equip our heart and our mind, our mind and emotions to be renewed so we feel the victory that Jesus accomplished for us on the cross. I don't want to just go to heaven. I want to enjoy God and walk with Him in power and victory on this side, not just on the other side. Truth number one, which I've already said, but I'll just say it again just a little bit. I thank God that through Jesus our Lord, it's by knowing what Jesus did on the cross and by receiving it, but not just receiving it one time by faith, but receiving it in that ongoing interaction with Jesus, Jesus called it abiding in the vine. It's where we're taking the Word of God and we're applying it in this interactive way of dialoguing with Jesus and the Holy Spirit in the process. We'll talk about that more in the days to head. One of the most glorious truths that we all know so well, but you just can't give a message like this without highlighting it, is 2 Corinthians 5, where Paul says, If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. All things have become new, that we might become the righteousness of God. I mean, this is one of those passages that is so loaded with glorious truth. First, he says, If anyone, I don't care what kind of perversion you were stuck in yesterday. I don't care what kind of sin you committed. What Jesus did for us on the cross and in His resurrection and in His heart, passion, and love for us, it is sufficient to qualify anyone who will say yes to Him to enter into this. Anyone. So yesterday does not ever disqualify you. This is for anyone. He says, He is a new creation. Then he goes on to describe, Old things passed away. All things have new. Now when I first read this years ago, I thought, I was confused. I go, I'm a new creation. All things have become new. Well, how come I still have these lustful desires, these angry emotions, these negative feelings, this temptation to bitterness. Why do I have these if everything is new? Paul, I think I caught you on an exaggeration here. Everything isn't new. And I was misunderstanding it. Because what Paul is talking about here is everything pertaining to our spirit has been made new. Because Paul makes it clear that the human makeup is spirit, soul, and body. It's three parts. Man is a spirit. He has a soul, but he lives in a body. The true you is your spirit, man, and you have a soul, a personality. That's your mind, emotion, and will. So Paul is not saying that our mind and emotions are instantly renewed, but he says some miracle happened in our spirit, and our spirit, man, was made new. And the old stuff passed away. The condemnation, the wrath of God has passed. You'll never be under the wrath of God is what Paul is saying. It's gone forever because Jesus paid for it. Then he says in verse 21, I mean, talking about radical, we have become the righteousness of God. Now, what does that mean? Now, again, we've covered this many times, but it doesn't mean that our soul is righteous, our mind and emotions the moment we're born again, but our spirit, man, receives the very quality of righteousness that God himself possesses. Did you know that a million years from now, in the resurrection, you will not have a superior righteousness than the moment you were born again? Your spirit is so made righteous by the gift of God, the righteousness of Jesus, that the Holy Spirit is comfortable to dwell in you forever. If your spirit was not righteous, God, the Holy Spirit, could not live in you, even now, let alone forever. He couldn't accept you were as righteous as God. Now, the problem with our spirit being righteous, our five senses can't measure our spirit. You can't get a handful of spirit and see how your spirit's doing. Our five senses can't discern it, can't measure it. And so we go, our spirit is righteous? I don't know. You know what? And Paul would say, well, the Word of God reveals it. Believe what the Word says happened in your spirit. Well, we could go on and on. This is a glorious subject. But Paul says, look at this, in Romans 8, verse 1, there's no condemnation. There's no wrath. Condemnation in this past season is talking about the wrath of God. There is no wrath on you. It's gone forever. When you're having a bad season, a bad week, a bad month, you're not suddenly under the wrath of God. And then you repent, and then the wrath of God's off of you. Then you're under the wrath of God later. He says, wrath is done forever related to you. And you can have confidence that in Christ Jesus, with a sincere heart, repenting of your sin, the sin you did a minute ago, declaring war against it, that's called repentance, you have confidence you can run to Him, and there's no need for you to ever run from Him and go hide. You can run to Him with boldness that He sees you through the righteousness of Jesus. There's no condemnation, no wrath. That doesn't mean there's not loving, divine discipline. Discipline is not judgment or condemnation in that sense. God doesn't discipline us because He's finished with us. He disciplines us because He's committed to us, and He loves the relationship. Now there's another big difference between condemnation and conviction. The Holy Spirit still convicts us, which means He convinces us to obey God. He convinces us that what we're doing is sin when it is. Because our natural mind, we rationalize it, the Holy Spirit comes and says, no, I want to convince you that's not good. I want to convince you to obey. I want to convince you to believe. So the Spirit still convinces or convicts, but He does not condemn. He does not say, God's finished with the relationship. He wants nothing more to do with you. That's condemnation, and there is no more for anyone in Christ Jesus. That's glorious. Well, paragraph two and paragraph three, just ever so brief, there's two terms that describe our relationship with the Lord, our legal position and our living condition. Our legal position is how God sees us in Christ. Our living condition is how our mind and emotions are responding to the truth. So our legal position is amazing. We're fully accepted in Christ Jesus. But our living condition, we can be living in defeat the whole time. I know many believers, their legal position is amazing, their living condition is a wreck. And the goal in what Paul is lamenting here in verse 25, he says, Oh, wretched man, I want my living condition, my mind and emotions, to catch up with my legal position. That's what he's saying. Let's go to the top of page two. Let's look at the second truth of Romans 7 verse 25. The second truth, he says, With my mind I serve the law of God. Now, again, that's an unfamiliar phrase. Like, what does that mean? How many times have you heard a message on, With my mind I serve the law of God? Now, when Paul talks about the law of God here, he means the moral law of God. And just a snapshot, not a technical definition, but a snapshot just to kind of get you to understand it. The law of God, the law of Moses, has three different compartments, components to it, if you will. That's not the best term, but there's the moral laws, don't lie, don't kill people, don't steal from people, don't commit adultery, the moral laws of God which define love. Jesus would come along later and say, Love is the summation of all the moral laws. So the moral laws don't kill and steal, et cetera. Jesus said that's really God's definition of love. But there's a second category of the Old Testament law, that's the ceremonial laws, the rituals. They had certain ceremonies and rituals, and the book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus satisfied those, he fulfilled those, so we're not talking about the rituals or the ceremonies. There's a third type of law in the law of Moses. Again, this is an introductory statement, not a technical statement. I would say differently in a technical setting. There's the civil laws, the laws that the judicial system should uphold. They should see God's laws for society and how society operates. So there's the moral, there's the ceremonial, and there's the civil. In this passage, talking about Paul's personal life and his struggle, he's talking about the moral laws. He says, But with my mind I serve the law of God. He means the moral law. He's not talking here about the ceremonial or the civil, just so you don't get confused when you look at the Old Testament. What does this mean? What Paul is saying here, he says, With my mind I serve, meaning I'm engaged. I'm in agreement. I'm not trying to avoid the moral laws of God. I'm not looking for a way to dismiss these laws, a way to escape them, a way to minimize them. I know different people that read the Scripture, and they read the Bible looking for ways to validate living in sin. They're trying to figure out ways where adultery isn't really adultery. They're trying to figure out ways where stealing isn't really stealing. It's not really stealing. What I'm really doing is, well, Robin Hood did it. I'm going to give it to help people anyway. They're seeking ways to minimize, avoid, diminish the law of God. Paul said, this man, describing himself, he goes, When I was in this struggle, he goes, I wanted to fully obey. I was enthusiastic to obey God. I wasn't trying to find loopholes. I was trying to obey with all of my mind. I gave myself to this. Now there is no substitute for the intention to obey. Now the ability to obey is a different subject. The intention to obey, there is no substitute. Jesus said, If you really love me, you will set your heart to obey me. You'll obey me. But we can set our heart to obey and still come up short, and our love is still real. But the setting of the heart to obey is critical. Because I know a lot of folks, even in the message of grace, their heart is not set to obey. They're trying to find Bible verses to validate why they don't have to obey. In these areas of their life. And they call it the grace of God. And it's a demonic deception. It's not a neutral, innocent, well, boys will be boys. It's destructive to your life, to the church, in society itself, that approach to the grace of God. It's a demonic deception. And there's a fog over the church about this. And in our little microcosm, our little way here, we're praying and fasting and contending. And the Lord's saying, Here, I'm going to allow you to experience a breakthrough in terms of the lives of people. Now press in for the full breakthrough. And, again, it's not just us and ours. It's something God wants to see, this sort of thing. And it's happening all over the world, but He wants to see it come to fullness before His Son returns. Let's look at the third truth. Now this third truth is a different one. It's talking about the duality. There's two ways Paul is saying you can carry your heart, even as a believer living in victory. He goes, You can live in victory, but if you shift the way you carry your heart, you can fall into defeat because that law of gravity, that law of sin is still operating in you. Even though you're walking in victory now, if you don't engage with God and His Word in the way the Scripture says, you will actually find that law of sin will resurface and have a dominance over your mind and emotions. And no matter how much victory you've had, that law is still operating in you. We'll look at that in just another moment. But Paul describes his experience. This is the passage I referred to earlier. He says, The good that I want to do, I don't do. The evil that I hate doing, I keep doing. Verse 21, he goes, I find a law. He goes, Here's my conclusion. There's a principle operating in my mind and emotions. There's a principle that is consistent every time. If I yield to it, if I give myself to it, that principle is consistent and reliable. It will pull me into sin every single time. And he says, This law operates in my mind. It operates in my emotions. There's desires in my body according to this principle. He says verse 22. But he goes, I want you to know. I love to obey God. I delight in the word of God. I want to obey the word. When it says, I delight in the law of God, again, that's the moral commandments. But that is the law of God is another term for just the word of God, the purposes of God. It's not just Moses' law. It's the purpose of God as written in the word. That's the bigger picture that this phrase would point to. So Moses says in verse 20. I mean, Paul says in verse 20, I delight in this. I want to obey God. But verse 23, he said, But there's that other principle. It's warring in me. He says, And that battle doesn't ever just go away. He goes, I can get victory over it, but it never, there's never a victory to where we don't have to continue to interact with the Lord because yesterday's victory will not be there tomorrow in terms of our mind and our emotions and the breakthrough in our heart. He goes, There's a war. There's a war in my members, and it's coming against what I've set my mind to do to obey God. He goes, With the law of my mind, I want to obey God, but I find this resistance in me. Peter would talk about this in 1 Peter 2, verse 11. I don't have it in the notes. Peter talks about that. He says, Abstain from lust. He said, Because that lust wages war in your soul. It wages war in your mind and emotions. This is a mature apostle telling us to, he's saying, Hey, I know about that war. That principle is still functional in the life of a believer even in the later days. Okay, let's look at paragraph F. We'll just take a minute on this verse, and we'll end with Romans chapter 8, verse 1 and 2. Now, in Romans 7, 25, the verse we've been looking on, that's, if your Bible's open, you'll see the very next verse is Romans 8, 1. So, Paul, forget the chapter division. The chapter division kind of is a distraction here. Just forget that. And so, Paul is in the same sentence. I mean, he's in the same paragraph. He's in the same train of thought here. He said, Now, there's no condemnation. Now, why would he say that there's no condemnation right here? He goes, As a believer that walks in victory. He goes, If I don't carry my heart in the right way, that law of sin will come up and get me again. But, hey, if you do that, he goes, I want you to know there is no judgment. There is no wrath coming on you. God's not writing you out of the will. God's not finished with you. He goes, Jesus already paid the price. Now, Paul's not saying that so that people can find a loophole to keep sinning. I've heard people take that verse and they go, Hey, if there's no condemnation, why don't we keep sinning? Paul would say, No, I'm not giving you the application of this passage so you keep sinning. I want you to know when you fail, you don't have to run from God. You can run to God because He's not pouring wrath and He's not kicking you out of His kingdom. He wants you. You're dear to Him because of what Jesus did. So this verse is actually an encouragement because of the relapse that happens in people's lives, whether it's a momentary relapse or a day or a week or a month or longer, where they are giving themselves to the law of sin and they're serving their flesh. But look at what he says here in verse 2. This is the most remarkable principle. Verse 2 here. He says, The law of the Spirit of life in Christ has set me free from the law of sin. Now, when he says the word law in verse 2, in both occasions, the law of the Spirit and the law of sin, he's using the word law like the word the principle, like the law of gravity. It's a consistent principle. And what Paul's saying is this. He says the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit's not a principle. He's a person. But the point is the power that He releases in us, if we draw on it and engage with Him and interact with Him as Romans 5 and 6 talks about, Paul says that power will be consistent touching your mind and emotions. You can count on it. It's actually a superior power to the law of sin, that principle, that's working in your members. Now, the best analogy I ever heard, I read this when I was 18 years old and I've never found a better analogy. Many preachers use it and I encourage you to. It's the law of aerodynamics. Compared as a superior power to the law of gravity. And what do I mean by that? So the pilot, he turns the engines on the airplane. If he turns the engines on, that airplane can, quote, defy the law of gravity. The airplane will have more power than the power of the law of gravity. Now, the law of gravity never stops. If that pilot gets up there in the sky and turns the engines off the law of gravity, he'll see that it's never, ever stopped. But the power of the engine is a superior power than the law of gravity is. And that's what Paul's saying. He says, it's not that the law, the power of the spirit, in the absence of the power of sin, but the law of the spirit, the power of the spirit, as superior to the presence of the law of sin operating in you. He said, as long as you will keep the engines on, and I'm going to break that down real specific in the weeks to come. I'll give you a sentence or two in a minute on it. But we're going to really break that down. As long as the pilot keeps the engine on, that plane will have power over the law of gravity. When the pilot turns the engine off, that plane is doomed. Paul is saying, even as a man, oh, wretched man, I had the battle, but I broke through. I thank God through Jesus. I'm walking in victory. He goes, but I'm a man that's sincere. I serve the law of God with my mind. I'm trying to obey the word of God, not trying to avoid it or find loopholes. But he goes, but beware. Beware. If I carry my heart in a different direction, even the mighty Paul the apostle, there's the law of gravity ever present there. And if I turn the engines off, it will get me again. He said, so I'm not immune to that other law, but I operate connecting with a power that's superior to it, but only as much as I connect with it. And again, Jesus called it abiding in the vine, but we're going to break this down in real specific one, two, threes. How do you do this? I've had one of the great tragedies of, my observation over the years is to see a man of God. I've seen a number of them over the years where a man of God will walk with God in victory in his 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, whatever. I've seen this quite a few times over the years. They get in their 60s, 70s, 80s, whatever, and they're remembering their past victories, and they're rejoicing in the way they lived years ago, but they're not interacting with the Lord in the same way they did then, and that law of sin, that law of gravity takes over immediately. Somebody might say, you'd think by then that they would acclimate. You would think by then they would be fully acclimated, you know, to walking with God and those kinds of things, but that's not exactly what's going on. Paul is saying here, he says, even a man of victory, if I don't do it God's way, that law of sin will take over, but it doesn't have to because there's a superior law operating in us, and that's what Romans 7, 25 is highlighting, and we'll look at that in, again, in the weeks to come in greater detail, but I just wanted to lock you in on this, get you attentive to Romans 3 to 8, kind of get us all focused in this, believing for a breakthrough of this in our spiritual family in a greater way. Amen and amen. Let's go ahead and stand.