Victory Through the Spirit

We now present Dr. Bob Jones, Sr., internationally known evangelist and founder of Bob Jones University, who during his earthly ministry was one of God's great warriors for the faith. Dr. Jones' message is one in a series entitled, Word of Truth. I want to read some verses from the 8th chapter of the Book of Romans, Romans 8th chapter, and read several verses, beginning at the first verse.

There is therefore now no condemnation of them which are in Christ Jesus, which walk not after flesh but after spirit. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, and that was weak, through the flesh God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.

That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after flesh but after spirit. 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. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Because a carnal mind is at enmity against God, but is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then, they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.

If so, be your spirit of God dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his. That's a deft and clear-cut, unequivocal statement.

The people who are in the flesh, that is, unregenerated people, who are not in the spirit, cannot please God. Now, a Christian can please God, because he has a new nature. But the flesh can never please God.

Now, flesh here is man in the raw, man as he is naturally. Not what he is supernaturally, it's what he is naturally. Now, God has judged the flesh.

I want you to notice this verse back up here, where he said, His own Son, in likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemns sin in the flesh. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ came down from heaven to earth. He was in the form of man.

He took on a human form. But He was without sin. He's the only person who ever lived in the world, walked around among men in a human form without sin.

He had no sin. He knew no sin. He never sinned.

He never had to say, Forgive my sins. Never once did He have to say it. All right.

Now, He was in the form of man and had no sin of His own. But He took on Himself the sins of man. And when He died on the cross, He judged man in the flesh.

There's no good thing in the flesh. Now, a man may be attractive and kind. He may have some good traits.

But the flesh always produces corruption in some form. Now, you'll see a Christian man sometime, born again man, that'll do something wrong. And you wonder why he did it.

Well, the flesh got the better of him. The flesh stepped up and took over, see. Still the Spirit's taking over, the flesh took over.

Now, we ought to have victory. We Christians ought to live victorious lives. And we can, by the grace of God.

If we don't do it, it's not the Spirit of God in us, it's the flesh in us. You're a Christian. You have the old nature and the new nature.

Now, what are you going to do with the old nature? Well, some people say you can have it eradicated. I don't think that's in the Bible. The flesh is in this chapter here in Romans, the eighth chapter, which is a chapter of victory.

Some people say, Well, crucify it. That is a reckoning of death, see. Now, as far as my spiritual life is concerned, the flesh is dead, see.

When I became a Christian, I became a new creation. A new creature, we read in the Bible. It's a new creation.

I became a new creation. When I became a Christian, I had something I never had before. I may have had certain traits.

I may have loved my mother. I may have been kind or unkind. I may have done something because I was educated along a certain line.

But there wasn't any good thing about me. There wasn't anything I could do to please God. So one day I came to Jesus Christ, a poor lost sinner.

Now, I was helpless and undone. I didn't say, Now, I want you to save me. I've done so and so.

You know, all the religions of the world tell you to do something and live, see. The religion of the Bible says live and do. In other words, your righteousness is as filthy as a rag.

If you could give away everything you had, give your body to be buried, sacrifice all you have, and give your life to a cause, that wouldn't save you. You're not saved by what you do. You're saved by what He did for you, see.

Jesus Christ died for you. He bore your sins as a body on a cross. He paid your debt.

He was wounded for your transgressions. He was bruised for your iniquities. The chastisement of your peace was upon Him, and with His stripes you can be healed.

That's the only way you can be healed. That's the only way you can be saved. All right? Now, when I accept Christ, I have been parted to be something I never had before.

Something I never had up that time. I received Jesus, and what did He do? He gave me something. What was it? He gave me life, the gift of God's eternal life.

And when He received Him, then gave me authority to become children of God, even then to live on His name, which were born, not of blood, nor the will of flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. Now, I still had the old nature. I had the flesh with its appetites, its propensities, and its inclinations.

I could lose my temper. I could sin. I could do wrong.

And we ought not to do it, though. We ought not to do it. I've never justified it.

I'm not going to justify it. I can explain it. I can explain why sometimes I've stumbled.

But it's the one thing to explain. There's another thing to justify. There's another thing to defend it.

Whenever you hear people always defending what they do, or justifying what they do, and try to get outmundered on human justification of something wrong, you can't justify wrong, do you? We read in the Bible that God's grace is sufficient. His grace is sufficient for us Christians. It's sufficient for you and me.

It's sufficient for all the trials of life, and the burdens that we carry along the road. That's no justification for getting weary and doing good. That's no justification for impatience.

That's no justification for irritability. It's no trouble to explain why people do what they shouldn't do, and why Christians do what they shouldn't do. You can explain it all right.

But it's one thing to explain it. It's another thing to justify it. Now, you in the flesh cannot please God.

You still listen to me. You can't please God. It's impossible.

You just do all you can, you can't please Him. You can't appease God. God has judged you in the flesh, and man in the flesh is a lost man.

In Adam, the race died. And all men in the flesh are judged. Now, you are not right till God makes you right by His grace.

And then when He makes you right, He brings into you something you never had before. It's not just making you over when you become a Christian. You have something imparted to you that God gives you, which is eternal life and salvation and forgiveness.

We have that if we are saved. All right, now that's in us. But according to the Bible, that treasure is an unearthed vessel.

You have to guard that treasure. Now, if you and I are led by the Spirit, which we may not always be, we can have victory. You don't have to be a defeated Christian.

Let's don't ever justify it. Let's don't ever condone it. I don't have to be defeated.

I can have victory through the Lord Jesus Christ. We can have. If we walk after His Spirit, not after flesh, see.

Sometimes we are tired and sometimes we are worn out. Sometimes we are on a strain. Sometimes we don't feel very well.

And we are human and all that, but we ought to have victory. Now, let's make up our minds to one thing. As Christian people, what do you say? We are not going to justify what we do.

We are not going to condone it. Just admit to it. We confess our sins, that's addressed to Christians.

He is faithful just to give us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If you were born again, that epistle of John written to Christian people, if we who are Christian, we born again, if we sin, we don't have to. No excuse for it.

We shouldn't justify it. We read in the epistle of John, these things right and I choose sin not. Don't sin.

Don't sin. Wait a minute. Don't do it.

But if you do it, don't justify it. Don't sin. But if you do sin, then what do you do? You confess your sins.

You say, now I'm a child of God. I did this. I shouldn't have done it.

I'm sorry. Forgive me. And trust Him for victory, not to do it again.

And the Bible makes one thing plain. He that is born of God does not commit sin. He doesn't practice it.

You know, you may stumble over a stone on the Christian road. But you know something? You won't just keep going back there stumbling over and over and over and over. You won't do that.

Now if you are a real Christian, he that is born of God does not keep stumbling over stone. Now I suppose that some of us who have so many heavy burdens and live so strangely in this world, sometimes we sort of get sorry for ourselves and think, well, you know, I just got all I can do with all I can carry. All that, but you can have victory.

Lord Jesus Christ will give it to you. The Apostle Paul never had it easy. He was misunderstood.

Christians are going to be misunderstood. The Bible makes it plain. The world can't understand the Christian.

A Christian knows about the world, but the world doesn't know about Christians. Our citizenship's in heaven. We're pilgrims and strangers in a strange land, passing through.

I have a body, hands, feet, eyes, ears, tongue, mind, a human being with all the frailties that men have. But if I'm a Christian, I have something that the sinner doesn't have. I have something imparted to me, something that God gave me when I trust Him as my Savior and I pass out of death into life.

We should live by the grace of God a victorious life. We don't have to be defeated. We don't have to keep blundering and stumbling and falling.

And if we do it, then let's not justify it, let's not condone it, let's not explain it. Let's just say, Oh God, forgive me. And let's stand on our feet, our Christian feet, in the new nature that Christ gives us.

We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit if we are Christians. Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God.

The Holy Spirit. The third person, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost. That's the Trinity.

Now the Holy Spirit dwells in our bodies. Christ is up in heaven with the right hand in the seating post. God the Father forgives sin.

And we say, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Alright, now he's up there, our Father. Jesus Christ, who was manifested in flesh and died on the cross, is up there with the right hand of the Father.

He intercedes for us. He's our lawyer representing us to the Father. To the court of the sky, he pleads for us.

May your prince in his hands, a print on his feet, a scar on his side, a print of the thorns on his brow, died to save sinners. Yes, yes, I trust him. Alright, then what? I have in my body the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit that brought Jesus Christ from the dead. You know, they thought it was a wonderful thing, in the Old Testament, that God, who had eternal habit, dwelt in the temple. He did in the Old Testament.

But God doesn't dwell in buildings. May you have hands now. The dwelling place of God, the Holy Spirit is in the bodies of men on this earth.

You and I can have victory. I wonder if we're living that way. Let's ask God to give us victory and give us grace to stand, to be true, to be faithful in all things.

Remember now, they cannot please God who are in the flesh. But those in the Spirit can please God. We'll do the things that please God.

We'll live the kind of life that we should live to please God. You can please Him if you're a Christian. I can please Him if I'm a Christian.

If we don't do it, we've done wrong. We shall live so, day by day. We'll please God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for Jesus Christ who died to save us, who is atoning blood, and our salvation in His name. Help us to be faithful to Him and true to Him in all things. We pray that You would give us strength to meet the foe and to come out victoriously.

Help us to trust Jesus Christ, not to walk after the flesh, but to walk after the Spirit, to live victorious lives. We pray for the strength that we need and the grace that we need and the power that we need and we'll be all if God would have us be. We'll commit our lives to Thee.

Forgive anything in our lives that's wrong, blot out any of our sins, and remember them against us no more forever. We thank Thee like the Father pitied His children, the Lord pitied them in fury. And if we know our hearts, we fear Thee, and we want to love Thee and serve Thee.

Make us what we ought to be and keep us by Thy power in all the things that have us do, for Jesus' sake. Amen. You've been listening to the Word of Truth with Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. A man who went to his heavenly home after more than 70 years of influencing thousands with his compassion for souls and the Word of God.

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