Published: February 25, 2024 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Romans - Part 39 | Scripture: Romans 8:1-4
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[Applause] 8 read the first four verses of Romans I'd like to ask Tim failer if he pray for the ministry of the word this morning Romans chapter 8 beginning in
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verse 1 there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of
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sin and of death for what the law could not do weak as it was through the flesh God did sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an
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offering for sin he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who
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do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit let us
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pray Heavenly Father we thank you for the witness of creation and you are ruler of Nature and we see you man in everything that we do every day thank you even more for the
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revelation of your word your faithfulness as you work through history fulfilling your promises keeping people alive through
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faithfulness to your word thank you for your work in Christ the establishment of your kingdom
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father we ask that as we stud your you will deepen our understanding of the nature of sin and law and life and death
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and flesh and spirit and that we might somehow begin to grasp what it means to be in Christ and the implications we ask that you transform us that you renew our
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minds in your word and through your word and you conform us to what you have for us and have offered us your we pray
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Jesus name amen amen when people visit our congregation uh and they visit for
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several weeks or or even sometimes several months and and then they no longer visit they no longer come and and not the people who just visit one Sunday and then aren't back again um those
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people just didn't find their size on the racks and so they moved on to another store but um um for people who seem to be kind of getting in and becoming a part and then all of a sudden
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they're gone we do try the elders do try to to reach out and maybe do a little bit of an exit interview and find out whether there was an offense made and um
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and whether you know something something went wrong that that we should at least apologize for and I remember one a couple of years ago um that I did follow
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up and ask and the the answer was that I was I was a hard on dispensationalism um now that that can be a serious
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charge you know if you if you are casting aspersions against Brothers in the Lord that are unfounded and unjustified then then that itself is is a sin to be
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confessed and to be uh abjured and I want to make it clear that in the years and over the years that I have talked about dispensation ISM as I have talked about Roman Catholicism and
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Lutheranism and presbyterianism and even Baptists I am not saying that there cannot be a Christian dispensationalist just as I've often
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said that there are certainly Christian Roman Catholics there may be one or two popes that are actually in that list not many but it's the ism that we're dealing with
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here Roman Catholicism dispensation ISM okay what we're dealing with here is what Paul deals with in Galatians when he says if any man or Angel should bring
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to you a different gospel another gospel than the one that we have preached let him be anathema let him be a curse and Paul says it twice and we know that when
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the scripture repeats something it means it so the question is is dispensationalism a different gospel well it is certainly good news for the Gentiles but I would submit it
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is not the expectation of Israel in fact the fundamental premise of dispensationalism is that the expectation and hope of Israel has been held in obeyence these past 2,000 years
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and will continue to be until the Millennium and so the gospel that we preach the gospel that we believe is not the good news for Israel but for the
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Gentiles it is a New Covenant the dispensationalists teach the New Covenant but it's not the abrahamic Covenant it's not the Fulfillment of the abrahamic Covenant because again that
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can only be fulfilled as dispensationalism teaches literally through the physical descendants of Abraham Isaac and Jacob so we have a new covenant but it's not the New Covenant
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that Israel was looking for it is in fact the new religion Grace for the Gentiles and a timeout for the Jews and I would submit to you that
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dispensationalism and the dispensational gospel is not Paul's gospel just as the Roman Catholic Gospel is another
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is another gospel and if it is another gospel then no matter who it is who brings it let him be a cursed so so maybe in reflecting on what
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that gentleman said to me I hadn't been hard enough and what I'm dealing with here is the per vasive influence of
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dispensational teaching in American evangelicalism it dominates the literature and the music the hypnology of our belief it
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has insinuated its way into almost every denomination in our country though it is rarely even heard of in other conents so
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it's a powerful influence but no one ever stops to ask where did it come from it's actually a conservative movement born out of
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liberalism it originates not with scoffield in the late 19th century but rather in the 18th century with the Plymouth Brethren over in
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England and it was a response to the liberal unbelief of the scripture but in itself it was also rationalism mixed with remarkably a
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tinge of anti-em ISM and also tying itself to Luther's view of Paul as a frustrated Jew who couldn't quite get it through the
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judaistic rituals so these things all come together and what comes out of this strange mixture is a view that God is doing something different in our age
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called The Church age that is hermetically sealed from what he promised to do for Israel and therefore the promises that we read in the Old Testament do not pertain to the
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church because we are not physically Israel you might say we identify as Israel put it in the vernacular and all of that needs to wait until the
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Millennium until the church is taken up through the Rapture and God again restores the temple and reinitiates all of the sacrifices that he had cut off in
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ad70 that's the essence of dispensationalism and I would submit to you that that is a new religion but it's not from Paul that even though the Enlightenment
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and the Liberals of that day had concluded that Paul was creating a new religion even pitting Paul against Jesus in terms of their
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teachings dispensationalism is in fact a new religion but it didn't come from Paul in fact dispensational I think is a remarkable development considering how
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vigorously Paul himself anchors his teaching in the Old Testament even in this book Romans chapter 1 that starts out Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus
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called as an apost a bonder servant excuse me of Christ Jesus called as an apostle set apart for the gospel of God which he promised beforehand through His
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prophets in the Holy scriptures 1 Corinthians 15 a passage that we we think of in terms of the defense of the resurrection and as a summary of all that God is going to do
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at the consummation of the ages Paul begins that begins that Treatise in verse three by saying for I deliver to you as of first importance that which I also received
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that Christ died for our sins according to the to the scriptures but even more po even more pointed in Galatians chapter 3 when he
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writes and the the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith preach the gospel beforehand to
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beforehand to Abraham saying all the nations shall be blessed in blessed in you dispensationalism is untenable according to New Testament
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teachings but its impact as I've noted many times before is it has caused the American evang angelical Church to sever
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itself from the heritage of Israel in the Old the Old Testament and so we approach the New Testament now with a gospel that is not
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the full and final fulfillment of the promise of God to Abraham because we're taught that that's yet to come in the Millennium that's South in the future yet we we got
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something different going on here God's plan be okay so we're taught that what we're reading is not really any sense of fulfillment except of course Jesus was
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the Messiah you know we get all those prophecies given to us how Jesus was the Christ because we have to have that but he wasn't Israel's Messiah because he's only good news to the
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Gentiles and to cut Paul loose from his Old Testament Moorings is to subject both interpretation and Doctrine to our own imagination and this is where new
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religions come up this is where denominations come up this is where heresies come heresies come up so this is not a new religion that Paul is bringing to us we only think it
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is because that's what we've been taught by the Geniuses from the enlightenment but also because we know so little of the Old the Old Testament and we really cannot hear The
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Echoes of the Old Testament in the writings of the new if we would spend more time in the Old Testament it would reverberate as we read the new and we would read Paul we would read Peter we
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would read Hebrews and we would just hear The Echoes of those Old Testament scriptures that promised the Fulfillment or promised the deliverance from
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sin this is a new re Revelation not a new religion but the new revelation is rooted firmly in the old so all of that is introductory to
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the verse we're going to be looking at this morning chapter 8 Romans verse 2 for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the
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law of sin and of death dispensationalism has led many American evangelicals to think that God
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has been trying out different ways to get his people saved he tried out different things in each of the dispensations and now he's trying out
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Grace okay let's say we just you know forget about the law for a while because you obviously can't handle that and let's just go with my grace in fact
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behind that let's just focus on my love and see how that works well frankly looking at history it hasn't worked any better than the law did but that is not
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biblical evangelism that is not even biblical theology Paul here in this verse is summarizing in one verse the fulfilled hope of Israel in the New Covenant in
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Jesus Christ and actually echoing through this verse are two passages from Ezekiel Ezekiel chter 36 and E Ezekiel
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chapter 37 in Ezekiel 36 we read what is essentially ezekiel's synopsis of the Gospel he writes moreover the Lord
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speaking moreover I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you and I will remove the Heart of Stone from your flesh and give you a heart of Flesh and I will put my spirit within
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you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will be careful to observe my
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ordinances we don't understand Paul or we make of Paul what he is not we create from a from Paul's writings a religion that does not actually exist when we fail to understand that he
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was as he says he was a Pharisee of Pharisees he was a man devoted to the law of God he was a man immersed in the Old Testament scripture to the point
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that he didn't simply have to quote chapter and verse the Old Testament scriptures pervade Paul's writings they
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are not all always explicitly mentioned and I believe the background of what we've been reading in Romans 7 and8 is actually in Ezekiel chapter
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37 Paul's question at the end of his his Treatise on sin in the flesh 7: 24 Wretched Man that I am who will set me
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free from the body of this death I would submit that that is parallel to the Lord's question to Ezekiel when he shows him the vision of dry bones and he says to Ezekiel can
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these bones these bones live it is as if Paul is saying to himself and to all in that same predicament outside of Christ can these
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bones live the expectation of faithful Israel certainly of the Pharisees Saul of Tarsus was summarized in Ezekiel chter 37 there were two things we've talked
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about this in Thursday and I talked about it here from the pulpit there were two things that the Jews of the second temple were looking for as signification that the me
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Messianic age had come and remember through the prophecy of Daniel and the four kingdoms the four beasts the time
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of those four kingdoms had reached their consummation in Rome and the Roman Empire so the expectation for the Messiah was incredibly high in that time
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to the point that there were a number of false Messiahs who took advantage of this but how could they tell that these men were false Messiahs well because these two markers of the Messianic age
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did not come through them the first was the Resurrection the second was the gift of the Holy Spirit the resurrection we read
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in Ezekiel 37:12 behold I will open up your Graves and cause you to come up out of your Graves and then in verse 14 and
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I will put my spirit within you and you will come to life you see the resurrection and the Holy Spirit
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Holy Spirit are inexorably linked together they are inseparable as doctrines of the Messianic age as the hope of Israel so
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that if these things did not come through the teaching of any particular would be Messiah then that man was a fraud and it appeared to Saul of Tarsus
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that that man Jesus of Galilee was a fraud because he was dead and the Holy Spirit had not come so that when Paul encountered the
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Risen Jesus on the road to Damascus and then shortly after through the ministry of ananas was given the indwelling of the Holy Spirit he knew beyond a
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doubt that the Messianic age had come and so all of the prophecies that he had read throughout his life were now fulfilled in Jesus Christ and so he is
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now faced with how does this work the resurrection and the Holy Spirit has come but Israel is still in bondage to Rome and also to
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sin the resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit has come but the Gentile nations are not flocking to Jerusalem to worship Yahweh and so Paul is in Romans
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especially dealing with this conundrum of how do I Now understand the one true religion in the light of its fulfillment in Jesus Christ he's not thinking okay
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that was wrong let's come up with a new religion let's go you know spend 14 years in the desert and I'll just come up with a new religion and write some letters and it'll really catch it'll go
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viral no you can't even get that out of his his his his writings so he sees from the road to Damascus he sees that these two
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markers have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ Israel's Messiah but not fulfilled in the way that he or Israel
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had anticipated now this created a tremendous amount tremendous amount of thought experiments in Paul's mind no doubt he wrestled with scripture
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vigorously more so than he ever had after he encountered Jesus and we should as well the resurrection of Jesus he sees as we read in verse four of chapter
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6 therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father so we
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too might walk in newness of life in other in other words it was not sufficient for Paul that the resurrection occurred in one
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man but had no impact on anyone else and he came to understand that by grace through grace through faith we join in Union with Jesus
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through our baptism into that death and Resurrection now he is not teaching anything contrary to whates Jesus taught
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remember what Jesus said to the woman at the well the Samaritan woman he said a day is coming when the graves will open and the dead will come
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forth but he has already said a day is coming and now is when the people of God will hear the voice of the Son of God and will come
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alive that resurrection that is Promised in Ezekiel in Ezekiel 36 the resur Resurrection that's promised in Ezekiel 37 is not just the physical resurrection
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that is yet to come it's the resurrection of a new heart a resurrection of a new birth as Jesus said to Nicodemus you must be born
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again a resurrection that involves a death of the man in Adam to be born again as a child of God in Jesus Christ
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so the Resurrection is taught in Romans as having happened and yet we know it is yet to yet to happen what about the other one the
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outpouring and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit Well that's what we're dealing with now in chapter 8 he's brought us finally to the point where he has reached the consummation of the Fulfillment of the promises of Ezekiel
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and that is the outpouring and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and that is the age in which all believers live which will be followed by the new Heaven and the new Earth not a return to the
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law and he says in chapter 8: 11 but if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also
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give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who indwells you this is how we continue to live the spirit is sustaining our life
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in this Mortal body in the hope of sanctification and the true knowledge of Resurrection that is what God is doing
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through the through the gospel Ezekiel 37 the vision of the dry bones is not awaiting the Millennium it has been fulfilled it has
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begun in Jesus Christ seeing Ezekiel in Paul I think helps us understand the believer's new relationship to God's
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law we've had that's what we've been dealing with we are dead to the law Romans chapter 7 Romans chapter 6 we are not under law but under grace and for 2,000 years the church has struggled to
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know what to do with that are we antinomians now do we simply love God and love one another and everything goes okay do we have any relationship to the
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law anymore at all or on the other hand has the law ceased to be a ritual of our Salvation which it frankly never was but now is a vehicle of our
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sanctification which frankly it can never be and so we have not dealt with the law very well and I think it's because we have not seen in Paul or heard the
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Echoes of Ezekiel and of the promise of Ezekiel 36 and 37 the key is what the Old Testament promised would accompany
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the gift of the Holy Spirit and I'll give you a little bit of a spoiler it's not speaking in tongues the tongues the uniform result of the gift of the holy
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spirit is spirit is twofold it is to love the Lord your God and to obey his law that is the
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invariable result and this was actually God's plan for dealing with sin in the flesh from the beginning of the law era if we want to use that the law
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dispensation for we read in Deuteronomy 29 verse4 Moses saying yet to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to know nor eyes to see nor ears to hear
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but then in the very next chapter in Chapter 30 we read in verse 6 moreover the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants
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to love the Lord your God God with all your heart with all your soul in order that you may live this the gospel in
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Deuteronomy the gospel before they even entered the entered the land there's no dispensationalism here Faith always looked to God to do it not
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to the law and certainly not to the flesh God would do it he would circumcise our heart he would cause us to love him and to obey whenever the
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gift of the spirit is Promised the result is love and obedience to God again Ezekiel 36 and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk
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in my statutes and you will be careful to observe my ordinances this is what Paul is saying here in Chapter 8:
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2 or specifically ver verse three even more so for what the law could not do weak as it was through the flesh God did now in this verse he is emphasizing what
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God did in condemning sin in the flesh but he's laying the groundwork for expanding on verse two and talking about the law of the spirit of life in Christ
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Jesus that is the power that will enable us to walk according to God's statutes not not according to the flesh through
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which the law comes and condemns us but through the spirit of Life by which the law has been written on our
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on our hearts what is it that the Jews were looking for they were looking for a new covenant and what is it that the New Covenant promised well Jeremiah 31 joins us at
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this point verse 33 I will put my law within them and on their heart I will write it and I will be their God and
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they shall be my people that's the gospel the gospel is not trying to fulfill the works of the
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law through the flesh the gospel is believing that the God who promised that he would do it has actually done it and
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then living in the gospel walking AC according to the spirit is continually believing that he who began a good work
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in us will bring it to Perfection we understand the gospel as a new heart but we don't understand that that new heart did not come to us as a
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blank slate it wasn't a second chance and that's actually taught by both reformed and Catholics that baptism washes away
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Original Sin and gives you a fresh start to obey God and to walk in his ways no it came it came pre-programmed with his law written on
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it that is the New Covenant that Israel that Paul was hoping for that is the New Covenant that Paul affirms has happened for all who are in Christ and so he can
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say here in chapter 8:1 and if Christ is in you though the body is dead because of sin yet the spirit is alive because of
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righteousness Paul is answering the question that was given to Ezekiel so many generations before yes these bones
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can live let us pray father we thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit and knowing from your scriptures both old and new that he is
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The Giver of true life eternal life everlasting life and Abundant Life help us to us to understand that in giving us the new
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heart and putting your spirit within us you have written your law upon that heart and that now you work within us to cause you to Will and to do according to
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your pleasure and yet help us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling even at the same time help us to understand how we strive and yet you strive within
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us help us to understand that it is not by the flesh that we will bring about the glory of God in our lives but by the spirit and therefore help us to know how
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to walk in step with your Holy Spirit we ask in Jesus name and for his glory amen please rise for the benediction
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from Romans from Romans in chapter in chapter 16 somewhat lengthy but please hear the word of God now to him who is able to
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establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past
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but now is manifested and by the scriptures of the prophets according to the Commandment of the Eternal God has been made known to all the nations leading to The Obedience of Faith to the
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only wise God through Jesus Christ be glory forever