And good evening ladies and gentlemen. It is not Ask the Theologian, sorry about that graphic up there, but we are here tonight for Thursday night Bible study and we're going to be looking at the book of Romans and look forward to being here with you the next five or 6 hours as we look through several verses in the Book of Romans. Okay, we probably won't go that long but, but it is a delight always to have you. There's an outline available for you at a couple of ways you can look and watch that. You can go to Worship I, Worship I find this video and if you're watching live, it'll be right at the top of the screen and right under the video you will have I should turn off the phone before these things start here. Right under the video you will have the outline. You can also go to our Rwm connect site and at that you will be able to download either the large print which I'm using or the regular size print which is a little bit small today because I was trying to fit it onto two pages so that you wouldn't have to print into three. So I had to widen the margins and shrink the text a little bit to make that happen. But we got it. And so you've got the four page large print or the two page tiny print, whichever you prefer. And you can also go to Biblify. In fact you can watch this on Biblify. You get there through worship I or Biblify. Worshipy.com. And if you're a follower of me, over in the menu there's an option for followers. If you're a follower of me, you can just look at my notes which are the same thing I'm printing for you here today. So that's enough announcements. Before we get started, I'd love to say hello at the end of our broadcast tonight. And so if you are with us, whether you're from, let's see, whether you're from Texas or Colorado or Mississippi or California or a bunch of other places, say hello, it's always nice to hear from you, those of you who are watching live and appreciate that. Okay, let's switch right over here and get into Romans tonight. Romans rightly divided as we have been now in this for what? This is our 15th session together and we are looking here tonight. We'll bring up the scripture, I think. Let's start out with this. How's that? That is Romans graphically presented and this is page 33 and we were on this same one last week. Romans graphically presented as an extra supplemental resource, optional resource that you can get@dispensationalpublishing.com, I taught Romans graphically presented at our 2022 Branson Labor Day weekend conference, also available online. And it comes to this section right here from six one to 725, which is a word about Jews living in the overlap time. And the overlap time has to do with this poster right here in which there is the time of the kingdom and the offer of the kingdom, and then there is the time of the body of Christ, the age of grace, the dispensation of the grace of God in which you and I live. And then there's a transition here in which there were both of those, both a kingdom message and a grace message. And so Paul, in this section, beginning in chapter six, verse one, he is talking to those Jews living in that overlap time. And we looked last week at we started this section of being baptized into Christ, verse three through 14. Of course, today we pick up in verse six. And so last week we looked in this section at three, four and five of the section, and you can go back to session 14 for those notes where he lays a little bit of a theological foundation. Now we're going to go back and talk about some of that here just a moment, because I took a very different view than many take. And so we'll talk about that and see if I still take that view a week later even. And then tonight we'll look at six going all the way through 14. Six through ten speaks about the crucified man, and ten through eleven through 14 speaks of personal responsibility. You can get that gives you an overview of what we're talking about there. But let's come into the Scripture tonight. And here on Bibli Fi, we've got the King James here, which we'll spend most of our time on. We might look at a little bit of the inner linear or some of the Young's Literal translation right over here, beginning in Romans, chapter six, verse six almost. But let's back up a few verses and go beginning in Romans, chapter six. Let's back up to verse three and get a tiny bit of review over last week where he said, no, ye not that so many of us as we're baptized into Christ were baptized into his death. Now, the unique interpretation that I have taken on this and whenever a fella comes up being a bullheaded preacher from Daus, New Mexico, or wherever he is, and has a unique interpretation, you should question the assumptions. You should say, hey, is that right? I need to dig into this. This is not a common understanding what's going on here. My unique interpretation or assumption on this is that when Paul here talks about so many of us as were baptized excuse me, there so many of us as were baptized well, what if I don't want that? Okay, I'll start down here. So many of us as were baptized into Jesus were baptized into his death. I took that as those under that kingdom side of the chart who were baptized literally. I took it as a water baptism. I did not take it as the Spirit baptism or one baptism in which we're baptized into his body. I took this as the baptism, the water baptism of those of us who were baptized into Jesus Christ. Now, let's talk about us just a little bit. I'm not sure I talked about it all that much here last week. But us, and we the first person plural is, as we've studied from the beginning, probably session one, definitely by session two, we brought this out. I put that as Paul and his apostolic colleagues. Now, those apostolic colleagues, of course, were under the kingdom Gospel, peter, James, John, all those under the kingdom Gospel. But Paul was too at the beginning, Ananias, the devout Jew, good reputation of all the Jews, it says of Ananias, he came, he baptized Paul, and Paul came into the churches of Judea, became a part of what was happening there. He became a part of that which he persecuted. And that which he persecuted was a kingdom issue, a kingdom gospel. So Paul became part of that. So he's using the US here in terms of, hey, you remember those of us who heard the Pentecostal message, heard the kingdom message and we became part of it. Well, we were baptized into Christ Jesus, and when we took that water baptism into Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death. Now, I took that to say in the first century, if you took that baptism, you took a death sentence onto yourself. And so I'm taking it in its most literal fashion, not spiritualizing it at all. And you know that I'm rather allergic to spiritualized interpretations. If you can take a literal one, I think here you can take a literal one. And so my view is if you can do it literally, do it literally. And here you can take this as a literal baptism. Now, let's continue. He says, therefore, we are buried with Him by baptism into death. That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. We won't go all the way through that because we talked about it last week. And then in verse five, if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, now this planted together in the likeness of he said our baptism was an image of the death and burial of Jesus Christ, and we were planted together in the likeness of his death. If this is just spiritual, then why is he using such literal language buried with Christ in baptism? This is what happens in water buried with Christ in baptism, planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. Now, I needed to give that because that really continues on with what we've got in verse six right here. And that's where we pick up with this new material tonight. So Paul has been and continues to be talking in the first person. I am taking that first person even in verse six, to be speaking of Paul and his apostolic band, if you will, or the apostolic cohort colleagues that he hung out with. So knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. So in coming to that water baptism, let's say it wasn't Paul on the Day of Pentecost, but let's go earlier and maybe some of these Roman Jews were baptized on the Day of Pentecost, and so they were baptized there. That old man was crucified. They started a new life right then, which was a life with a sentence of death, that the body of sin might be destroyed, henceforth we should not serve sin. Now, what he was trying to tell them, let's get right back here, is this message to believing Jews in overlap times. And the message in verses one and two especially, that we didn't look at tonight was hey, you died to sin and died to self when you were baptized. That's the ball game you got in on. Now that you're under grace, don't throw that away. I want you to keep in it, I want you to continue on. And this is what he begins to say to them. So knowing this, our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin. Now, I think this verse is simply stated and difficult to interpret or challenge to interpret. I mean, it is simply stated, he that is dead is freed from sin. But what does that mean? He that is dead is freed from sin? I think it's not saying, hey, once you're dead, you don't have a problem with sin anymore, which probably is true. I don't see very many dead people doing drug deals at the corner. They're maybe about to be dead, but they're not tempted by that sin anymore. I specifically say you because I've never been to a casino, but you go to the casino and I doubt there are very many dead people there. I understand there are some nigh close unto death, but they're not dead. So dead people, you go to a rock and roll concert and other than the Grateful Dead, there are no dead people there, right? Dead people aren't tempted by sex, drugs and rock and roll. So you could take this to say, hey, you know, if you're dead, you're freed from sin. And then spiritualize that to say, and if you're spiritually dead or spiritually dead to sin, then you don't sin anymore, you're freed from sin. Hallelujah. Now that we're a believer, we don't sin anymore. Now that we're a believer, we're not even tempted anymore. Now, when you begin to put it like that, you say, I don't know what planet he's from, but I'm saved. And in that sense, sin has no grip on me. But boy, does it come knocking at the door and me freed from sin. Not really that way. Now, if he meant that if you are dead to sin, you no longer sin, or if you are dead spiritually to sin, then you can overcome sin. If that's what he meant, he would not have used the word that he used right here for dead, excuse me, for freed. He that is dead is freed from sin. What word did he use right here? Verse, verse seven. It's this word right here, greek, 1344. The strongest numbering system, Decayo. Decayo. It comes from DK. It's the word for righteousness. Here it's in the verb form. And in the verb form, if we had this verb in English, it would be righteous. But we don't have that verb. So we typically, because we don't have the word righteousified, which is the Greek form, then we've made a word justified. That's the word he used. So what he literally says is he that is dead is justified from sin. Now I know you might be saying it, no, it's not justified, it's freed. You set free from sin. And Paul could have said that in the way that you and I are thinking of it. But what he used is the word justified. And again, you see it here and you might say, well, why didn't the King James translators put justified? They did just get you a King James that has the marginal notes and the translator's notes and they will have a translator note right there that says Greek justified. That is to say, they want you to know that, hey, we struggled with this one. We couldn't come to a consensus on this one. So we've got freed. That was the majority vote. We've got a lot of others who said, but this is the word justified. We didn't put the word justified. Excuse me. We didn't take the word decal the verb form here and we didn't make that freed anywhere else. We made it justified. Now, if he had meant you're set free, then for that this is verse seven. Let's just jump down in the same passage number of verses here. Let's see, probably should have just typed it in. Let's go down to verse 22. But now being made free from sin, ho. So you can say free from sin as in you can conquer this thing. You can say that, Paul. Yeah, I can say it. I said it in verse 22. And here in verse 22, the freed from sin is a different word. See if I can get that up there. There we go. But now being made free, almost got it there. There's the word right there, eluthereo. Eluthereo. If you want to try to pronounce it, eluthireo is not even related to decay, justified. So let's get back up here to chapter six, verse seven. And he that is dead is justified from sin. What does that mean? Strong's if you looked up strong's. Concordance takes the word. It says to render righteous. That's to justify, to render righteous. So let's try that. He that is dead is rendered righteous from sin. Wait a minute, what does that mean? He that is dead is rendered righteous from sin. Maybe it is talking about the Jewish dead or the faithful Jews especially, because that's kind of in his context there the believing faithful Jew who had already died like James the Apostle, and they had stood with Christ, they had died with Christ, and now he's saying, okay, they are made righteous from sin. They have been justified from sin. Maybe he's talking about that. Maybe in a sense he's talking and this one really I wouldn't take this ball and run with it. We would need to do some work on it. But maybe he's saying that the consequences of sin have to be paid for. For the Jewish people, the consequences have to be paid for either through the law or through your own death. But once it's paid for, it's taken care of. That would be only for someone who is under the law. Maybe he's talking about that. I guess my bottom line summary is twofold one I don't know what all it means. It's a simple verse that I don't know what all it means. The second thing I would say is I would caution you with simplistic answers on this. I think I didn't try this, but I think if you went to the commentaries, they would just spiritualize this a little bit and say, hey, if you have crucified self, then you're dead to sin. Moving on. I think that's a simplistic answer. I think there's probably more here than meets the eye and there's probably even a great theological truth here. And it probably doesn't go along with the standard evangelical answer. I'm just not sure what it is. But I'm at least going to put my antenna up and say, be careful for simplistic answers. Simplistic answers can come from simpletons. I think there might be more here, especially with the word justified that is being used there. So he continues in verse eight and says, now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. Okay, this becomes a challenge, especially if you take the standard view. And this standard view, by the way, is everybody but me. It would be the reformed, it would be the evangelicals, it would be the fundamentalist, it would be the right dividers, because everybody but me is taking this the Catholics maybe I'm closer to a Catholic on this one because everybody but the Catholics in Randy take this to be a spiritual baptism, not a water baptism. I take it to be a water baptism. I don't do it for the same reason the Catholics do, but I take it to be a water baptism. And I take it to again, as we have already said, to say, hey, we sentenced ourselves to death when we got in those waters, when we were baptized in the name of Jesus, all of a sudden we were put on the most wanted list. Don't believe that. Just see what Saul of Tarsus was doing traveling all the way to Damascus because there were people who got baptized in his name. So we got a death sentence being dead already. We just as well live a holy life, he says. I think that's kind of the point that's going on here now with my interpretation, which granted, is hard to swallow because we're so used to taking this as a spiritual baptism. We lean towards taking this as a spiritual baptism, but look what happens here when you take it as a spiritual baptism. If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. I took dead with Christ again in kind of a literal way that they are coming to get us, like we're not going to be breathing anymore, they're going to put us on a cross or they're going to throw stones at us or they're going to chop our head off. We're dead. And if we be dead, we believe that we shall also live with Him. This is that kingdom Gospel message die to Christ and live or die with Christ. I should say die with Christ and live with Christ. Now, what has happened? And this comes in our the thinking I haven't said it in that series, but it comes with the thinking of the rightly divided gospel. What if you put this into our gospel verse, verse eight, let's talk about it here. What if you put it into our gospel and the issue is, when we make this a spiritual baptism, we do put this with our gospel and then you've got works required in the gospel and say, well, how in the world do we have works? If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. And so what does it come to? It comes down to we better change our gospel presentation as right dividers. We better quit saying you receive a free gift that God has offered to you by grace through faith. And we better say you die to Christ. If you want to live with Christ, you better die with Christ. Now, who in their right mind wouldn't say, oh, that sounds an awful lot like works? I know that this Sunday if I stood in the pulpit and I preached, hey, congregation, do you want to live with Christ? How many want to live with Christ? Yes. Amen. Amen. Living for Jesus, a life that is true, striving to please Him and all that I do. And I said, if you want to live with Christ, you got to die with Him. Now, what about all of those sins and temptations that you've got? Have you given it all to Jesus, laid it all on the altar, it becomes a works kind of thing. Now, granted, all the evangelicals would say, oh, it's after or the Reformed later on, you live for Christ, but then you still got works in the equation. Whichever side of the equal sign you put them on, they're still there and it works. You and I teach a grace gospel. I don't think verse eight fits with this grace gospel, but I think it fits with what Paul has been telling the Roman Jews. So if we be dead, by the way, dead right here. If we be dead, the verb be dead is in the active tense. It's not in the passive tense, it's in the active tense. As a matter of fact, it is. Look at be dead in verse eight. Let's jump down to verse ten in that he died. Speaking of Christ, he died and be dead. Do you know that? Let's see if we can look at it. It may not look the same. Yeah, it's not going to look the same because you've got the person involved in it. There is the word right there and there is the word. Okay, so it's got a little different ending. The only reason it's got a different ending is because of the we and the he. But they are both in the indicative. Indicative? Indicative is just a statement of the fact the active means the subject did it and the heirest means it's done at a point in time. I suspect that someday Lord Terry's and I die, coroner will come over and he wrote he'll write 729 in the evening, he expired, breathed his last, gave up the ghost, he was done. You die right then. You weren't dead. You are dead. You died. Okay, that's the heiress point in time. So it doesn't necessarily mean past. So you could even translate this. If we die with Christ, we believe that we will live with Him. Now, that again fits that kingdom message that he's been giving. But would we take the gospel out of that? Is a saved person saved by their dying with Christ, or are they saved by the gifts that they have received by grace through faith? And is it a work to be dead with Christ? I kind of think so. If you're struggling with I don't think this is a water baptism, then ask the question. I got it right on the well, I don't know where it is. Right in the middle of verse eight, right there. Ask yourself, we must die with Christ in order to live with Him. We must die to Christ in order to live with Him. If you're asking that of verse eight, the answer has to be yes, we believe that we shall also live with Him if we die with Him. That, I think, becomes works. And you couldn't hold free grace theology, let alone right division theology and give an affirmative answer to if we want to live with Him. We have to die with Him, is that what you're saying? But that is what verse eight says and shows us. Now, I did something today as I was studying. Let's see it's right here. I ask the Internet, do we have to die in order to live with Christ? And I found two interesting things. One, the Internet answer, yes, we do have to die with Christ in order to follow Him. Paul explains, in Galatians 220, I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. Okay, is that saying the same thing? Does that say you have to die in order to live with Him? Romans six eight says, you know, if we die, we live with Him. Here's the formula. You die, you live with Him. That's not the same thing as Galatians 220. Romans six eight through 18 in IV was the Internet, it's not saved brought it up, states that Romans six eight states that if we die with Christ, we also will live with Him, and that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again. Death no longer has mastery over Him. Now, that what the Internet tells you is also what they tell you down at the local church. You're going to die with Christ in order to live. And it really does become even if it's not presented as the gospel, it becomes the gospel. And this is why you take so many and say, well, he still goes to the casino. Well, he went out from us because he was not one of us proven that he's not even a believer. He hasn't died. He's not a believer. He's not a believer by grace through faith, because he hasn't slayed sin in his life. That works. Now, not only I just want to show you something that I found. I've noticed this a few times, and I just really read it closely today. Not only does the Internet tell you, yeah, if you want to live with Christ, you got to die, but I noticed that right there, powered by Brave AI. Oh, wow. Artificial intelligence. This is notice it says Summarizer right there. This is not a quote from the two places that it sends me bible gateway and got questions, we got stupid answers. This is not what they say, but it Summarizes. Those artificial intelligence is reading those articles and giving the summary, and then people go out and start to say, Google it. But I did it on brave. They brave. It. And there's the answer. And the problem is a lot of preachers just do that too. This is the summarizer. If you want a summary of what the Christian world teaches, it is, yeah, you got to die in order to live for Him. But I just contend that that works. That is not by grace through faith. Okay, let's go on. You don't have to believe me yet, but let's just keep riding this horse and see if we stay on the reservation before it's over with. So it goes on again in verse verse nine, really. Verses nine and ten. Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more death, hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Now, beginning with verse nine, I changed from green to blue. I still struggle, and I mentioned this last week, I still struggle with whether or not verses three through eight ought to be green at all. Especially now that I look at eight I'm thinking, okay, I think that's black. And if I start doing black, it's going to domino through the whole section there to say that's not even ours. Are there some similarities? I heard Bruce whisper because we got Bruce and Meyer in the live studio audience. I heard him whisper earlier, die to self. Is that what you whispered, die to self? I don't know if you're repeating your former Calvinist pastor or what, but I think we would say if we really got into it, we would say dying with Christ and dying to self, it's kind of a different thing. And we'll see this more even as we get into I think it's verse eleven or yeah, I think it's verse eleven, maybe verse twelve. That self control, that's kind of dying to self, isn't it? I mean, we teach our three year old self control and has nothing to do with the Christian faith. It's just this is a good way to live in order you have to enslay some of those dragons. You have to put that envy monster down, whatever it is. And that is maybe it's good morality, maybe it's making good choices, all that kind of stuff, but it's not really the Christian life. We'll come into that more here in just a moment. But anyway, I went with blue starting in verse nine. I think in nine and ten you could argue either way. There's sort of a bridge verse and I'll show you that here in a moment. But I'm comfortable saying by verse nine I'm ready to go with blue. And blue is you reach down here, blue is over here. That's our side of the equation here. That's grace. And these are things we can apply to those of us in the body of Christ, those of us living in the age of grace. I think there is a transition. Part of what we're going to see in that transition is that Paul is going to change the pronouns in three through eight. His pronoun has been in the US and the we. And then he speaks of Christ in the nine and ten. Obviously that's he but then beginning in verse eleven, he starts talking about you. Now we have again from the beginning laid down that unless we can have some really good reason, we're. Going to take we and us to be Paul and the Apostolic Cohort. We're going to take you to be the Roman Jews and we might put they as the other people, all the Gentiles out there, which would include me and you. So he's going to switch to you. But in a moment we'll see why I'm putting you Roman Jews to be inclusive of us. And we'll see that because that's going to trail through at the beginning, all the way through the book, really. But in verses nine and ten, he gives a theological truth which is true, whether or not you're living under the Kingdom Gospel or you're living under the grace Gospel or you're living under a period of transition. This is just a theological truth that is right here from Christ's death onward. So he says, Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more. Okay, yeah, he's a Lord both of the dead and of the living, as he'll say later in the book. Death hath no dominion over him in that he died. He died unto sin once, but in that he liveth. He liveth unto God, okay, I serve a living savior. He's in the world today. So there is that theological truth and that bridge as he comes then to verse eleven and says likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, what's the difference between here being dead indeed unto sin and earlier when he said we died with Christ? A lot of people, most people probably would take that to be the same thing. But I am persnickety. It's my persnickety mug, if you can't read that. I'm persnickety. And I want to say, well, if Paul had wanted to say dead to sin when he said dead with Christ, he would have said it, but he didn't say that. And so here he changes. Now, the ye let me explain before I get even down to where it proves my point, let me explain why I think we can go ahead and put blue letters. That is, this applies to us, to those who we wouldn't have earlier done it because it would have been you Roman Jews and I'm not a Roman Jew. So the reason it comes down in verse 14 where it says ye are not under the law, but under grace. Okay, that's me. I'm not a Roman Jew, but I'm not under the law, I am under grace. So he has transitioned them at this point. And so we're going to have to, from six, nine and onward, we're going to have to be careful on the yees to say, is this ye under grace or is this ye under law or kingdom regulations? Which one are we talking about? And we'll watch that closely as we go. So back to verse eleven. Now likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin? Now, I think that what he, what he says under here is very different than what he has said. He wants us to reckon yourselves to be dead unto sin. That is different than saying I'm dead, they're out to get me, I'm done with reckon yourself to be dead with sin. Reckon is a logic word, it's a consideration word. It is an accounting word, I suspect that you could say. And it is remarkably different than saying die to sin so that you would be alive unto God. What he says is consider yourself dead to sin. You who are under grace just wake up every morning and say, I'm dead to sin. Not today, I'm not going there. I am dead to sin. I reckon myself as dead to sin. That's what he's encouraging, instructing, exhorting that those under grace would do is not to get up and say, oh, I am going to sin so that grace might abound today. But rather he says, reckon yourself dead unto sin. Said those of us and the apostles, we put ourselves, we put a death sentence on ourselves dead to Christ. When we stood and publicly were baptized into that water in the name of Jesus, they put us on that list of those who we are going to go out and get under orders from the chief priests. We were dead when we did that. Well, why don't you who are not under the law but under grace, why don't you reckon yourself dead unto sin? Now that's a good thing. But reckon yourself dead unto sin and be alive to God through Jesus Christ is so different than the way to life in Christ is to be dead to sin. And so again, I think we have to be very careful with what we do here. And so then he elaborates on this just a little bit as he, as he comes in in verse twelve and he says, let not sin, therefore reign in your mortal body, okay? If you're reckoning yourself dead to sin, then don't let sin reign here. Obviously you're still alive but being alive you're considering yourself dead to that and therefore you don't let that which is sin reign have rule or dominion in your mortal body that you should obey it in the lust thereof. Now sometimes we joke with Halley, our little granddaughter, because a two, almost three year old can be the sweetest thing in the world and also sometimes can get grumpy. And usually when she's grumpy she's either tired or hungry, very different from her grandpa. So we'll joke with her sometimes and say, are you hangry? Are you angry? Which is kind of a mix between hungry and angry and hunger usually makes you angry. Okay? The lusts of the body really do affect us, don't they? When we're hungry we get angry. And so he says, don't let that rain as one under grace. Let not sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey the lust thereof. Now note that there's nothing in this verse, verse twelve, you couldn't even take verse twelve to teach. In order to be saved you have to let not sin reign in your mortal body that you don't get out of there. Now earlier, and was it verse eight I think you can get that out of there but here you can't. Now we're in the blue part. You can't get that out of there. And yet there are a lot of people who come along, a lot of Christians who will come along and say that the way a person carries out this reckoning of sin and they decide not to let their sin reign in their mortal body in order to obey the lust thereof. That if they carry out verse twelve that proves that they are saved. So here's the evidence of their salvation. I am convinced that getting rid of sin in your mortal body and never obeying the lust thereof is no proof at all that you're saved. Might be proof that you got a lot of self control. Might be proof that you were duped by the mormons. Might be proof that you read too many mystics and you're into asceticism and you're going to overcome silence. And overcome noise with silence. And you're going to overcome food with starvation or hunger and overcome all the various things that you are going to do. So there's a lot of moralists and a lot of asceticists. Is that the right word? Asceticism, moralism and asceticism adherence. A lot of them that are not saved, not walking with the Lord, they're just moralists. So it is no proof to me just because you don't let your hair grow long and you mow your grass well and you don't drink caffeine and you're a very fine neighbor, all I know is you're a moralist or you're working your way to nirvana or something. I don't know whether you're saved or not. And even a person come to the church and live a very fine life. Okay? So they live a fine life. That's all I know about them is they live a fine life. Where's your faith? Have you received the gift of the gift of salvation that comes by grace? And so there comes then this idea that works prove salvation. I suspect that 100% of our audience has heard some sermon before works prove salvation. And they would quote verses like this let not sin therefore if you're saved, you know, don't let it rain in your mortal body that you should obey the lust thereof old. But if you do, I doubt you've ever been baptized in Christ or baptized in the Spirit or whatever they want to go with. Here is Southern Baptist pastor JD. Greer. I don't know that you can read this fully. It's on the notes. I thought I'd put it up here for you. So he has an article which I'm sure came off of sermon Two Ways to know that you are saved. Oh, I'd like to know if I'm saved. What are two ways, Pastor Greer, that I could know that I'm saved? He says, rather than thinking of salvation like a certificate, imagine it more like sitting in a chair when you first got saved. Confessing Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you sat down in the chair. Later on, when you begin to doubt, you don't need to recall the memory of sitting down. You need to just look down and see that you are currently sitting. Can I stop right there? What if you're not currently sitting? There's only one place you can go with that, I guess. Doesn't matter what your memory is. Matters what happens right now, whether or not you are earning your salvation. If you're not earning it right now, you're not saved. You look at whether you're currently sitting, he says, goes on to say, your present posture is better proof than a past memory. Can I highlight that right there? There we go. Even says, I can do that. There we go. Your present posture is better proof than a past memory. It's not. You receiving the gift of salvation back there when you were eight years old. It is right now. This kind of garbage is taught in every church across America. Every one of them just about goes on to say, the way you know you are doing it now is not by remembering when you first started doing it, but by reflecting on the present posture of your heart. He actually confesses in the article that he struggled with whether or not he was saved or not. He said he'd been baptized four times, but now he's comfortable with it because he sees where I'm sitting right now. But what if JD. Greer accidentally hits his finger with a hammer someday and cusses I don't even know if I'm saved my present posture. Does it show it? You're just opening yourself up to I didn't receive a gift of eternal life. I received a contingency that as long as I stay sitting in this chair, then I'm going to be saved. And that comes from all of this confusion of the gospel, getting it all mixed up. So it goes on to say, let's see, okay. By reflecting on the present posture of your heart, so the question is not can I remember praying at her prayer, or was my conversion experience really emotional? The important question is, are you currently resting on Jesus as the payment for your sin? I think you build that kind of stuff by misinterpreting verse twelve. Let not sin, therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it, and it's lust thereof. On some day when you get hangry and you obey the lust of your stomach, what's the present posture of your heart? This is where you get the doubt of salvation. Because really in the presentation of the gospel by most evangelicals works is involved here. There somewhere you're going to end up with works involved. And that, I think, becomes a huge problem. Goes on in verse 13 to say, neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members instruments of righteousness to God. Now, this is see if I can make that just a little smaller and try to fit it all on the screen there in verse 13. This is an elaboration of what began in verse, verse eleven, wasn't it, of reckoning yourself as dead to sin. And then he sort of gives some specific examples. As a matter of fact, that's what we said. See if I can get us there. That's what we said right here. Okay, so we had the Crucified Man, verses eleven through 14. Then the personal responsibility, self evaluation, and some specific examples. So we're considering these specific examples here in verse twelve. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness. Now, he's not talking about church members here, he's talking about head and shoulders, knees and toes, or be careful little eyes, what you see. Be careful little ears what you hear. That is talking about your members of your body, the parts of your body. The reason I know that is because I looked up the word members, and it means body parts. We get the word membrane from it, but it's the idea of the external, externals in your body. Neither yield you your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. Okay, this is what he's saying, that a person under grace. That's what they ought to do. I don't have a problem at all if JD. Greer or Randy White or whoever says, hey, you got a gift of grace that God has given you eternal life. Don't go selling yourself out now to some servant of unrighteousness. Don't go following the lust of the flesh after this grace gift that God has given you. That would be inappropriate. Would I ever want to teach someone that they were not saved because they did it? Absolutely not. Because then I would be teaching a work salvation. What I would want them to do is to realize, hey, someone who has received such a wonderful gift, they ought to then come reckon themselves as dead to sin because of the one who gave them the gift, died for their sin. So this is the appropriate response that is given. And so he shares this appropriate response and he says, then to yield yourselves unto God and those that are alive from the dead excuse me, as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. So how can I take my mortal body and how can I use it as an instrument of righteousness? I think this is the word that is given here. And so in order to do that, you know, I think we? Well, later on, Paul's going to say, present yourself, present your body as a living sacrifice unto God. And so you say, okay, how physically in the mortal body can I be a living sacrifice? How can I present my members as righteousness unto God? How can I best be a servant? Remember the old hymn, Take My life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee. And then it has several verses in there, take my hands and let them move at the impulse of I love, take my silver and my gold, not a might with. I withhold goes through several of the members and it's a commitment. Okay, Lord, you take this, you use this, I yield it over to you. The word yield right there. We had a question about this and I can't remember the exact question was this week and asked the theologian, I should remember it. But this word yield right here is parehistamide, and it means to come along and stand next to come along and stand next to. And it has a number of different meanings. Some of them were negative, and that's the way we were looking at it in that particular question. And then this one here is positive. And the parehistami, you know, I may be wrong. That was parabino, wasn't it? Not parehistamy, which is come alongside and embark upon. Come along inside the dock there's, the boat over there. But that was negative because you were just sitting on the dock and the boat sailed away. So he said, hey, you should have got on the boat. Okay, sorry about that. I'm putting my mind together here on all that. Parahistami is like parabino. Let's call the bino, the boat next to the boat para bino. But if you were supposed to be on that boat, that's a bad thing. Perihistamai is next to para, histami is to stand. So your members has instruments of righteous unrighteousness. Let's see. But come along and stand yourselves unto God, literally stand next to God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. It gives a pretty helpful view, I think, of when in the struggle of sin and we all have it right if there's somebody who doesn't have the struggle of sin next time you're in town. So I'll let you be the special guest. So in our struggle for sin or with sin, kind of a helpful thing to just say, okay, I'm going to reckon myself as dead to sin today, and I am going to take the members of my body and I'm going to say, how can they be used in righteousness to God? And as a matter of fact, I'm just going to reckon myself here as standing right next to God all day long. I'm just going to stand right next to God. And, you know, I think that kind of commitment really would help us to overcome the lust of the body, the lust of the flesh that are brought up there. So it gives that in verse twelve of 13. And then we come under into verse 14 and we'll conclude here. For sin shall not have dominion over you. You are not under the law, but under grace. Now here, I think this right here, sin shall not have dominion. That's in the future tense, it's not in the present tense, says, hey, there's coming a day when sin will not have dominion over you. Why? Because you're not under the law, but under grace. Even if you are right with the law, sin is going to be judged according to law. And so sin sort of sticks its tongue out and says, nanny, nanny, boo boo, all the time you're under the law, I can get you. But he says, sin will not have dominion over you. I think this goes back, it ties into Second Corinthians 519, my favorite passage of scripture. God is not counting your trespasses against you, he's reconciled you. If you were under the law, that would not be the case. But you are not under the law, you are under grace. Now again, you are not under the law, you are under grace. Ask run of the mill Dispensationalists about this and unfortunately they often will say, well, especially if you bring soteriology or the doctrine of salvation in it. Nobody's ever been under the law, it's always been a grace. You kind of wonder, if that was the case, why Paul even bothers to mention, hey, guess what? You're not under the law, you're under grace. Of course, everybody knows that. It's always been that way. That's what Moses taught us. No, Moses didn't teach that. Paul comes along with something new and he says, hey, I want you to know you are not under the law, you're under grace. Sin will not have dominion over you and live like it basically is what he says. And that brings to a very positive word and that is Romans rightly divided today on session number what was that number? 15, I think. And glad that you were here with us and I do want to say hello and thank you and welcome to those of you who are here tonight. And let me also say that I'm behind just like I was last year and the year before in the year before and the year before in getting up the Branson information. But it's September 1 through four. Go ahead and mark the calendar, I'll get the registration open soon. I hope it's all relative and get you signed up. We are going to talk about right division issues and answers and look at a lot of theology and see how does right division affect this theology like the work of demons in the world today. Normally we'd take right division and say, oh, it's a salvation thing, it's a church thing, so tereology and ecclesiology and it certainly has huge effects on that, but I think it has effect on pneumatology, the work of the spirit in the world today. And eschatology. We would share our eschatology in large part, although ours would be a little more refined, but in large part with say, dispensationalist pretribulational pre millennialists. But we're going to look at a bunch of different areas of theology and say what does right division, what kind of issues does this bring to the table with us? And then we'll look at some who reject right division and say, why are you rejecting it? And see what their answer, their response, their word is there. So I do want to say a quick hello here, like to Jim in South Carolina who along with several others got the text alert for this one at 1145 Mountain Time today. That one was operator error. I wish we could blame it on technology, but it was operator error. Oh, we got Snowy Volcan, Alberta. The storm is upon us. I bet on the prairies of Alberta up there you can have quite the storms. Neil, good to see you. Crystal Springs, Mississippi. Good evening. Darryl and Debbie. Thank you for being here. And brother Everett. Glad you're here. Our right divider from show low. Arizona Good to see you. Scott hill country of Texas, present and generally unaccountable. Welcome. Roger and Maryland up in Wabashaw, Minnesota. Thank you. Let's see, you all are from Wisconsin. You ever been to Wabashaw? Been to Minnesota, but not Wabisha. You should go to Wabasha sometime and visit Roger and Maryland. I don't know how far it is, but it's probably like here to can't be that far. Here to Nevada. I don't know. Trinidad, Colorado. Jeff, that's not that far. I've been to Trinidad. Jeff's. Been here, of course. Welcome. Good to see you. We've got Donald. Good to see you. Merrill's Inlet, South Carolina. Welcome. We've got Darryl and Lisa in from Bleeding, Kansas. Glad you're in tonight. I heard something. I was reading history and it was about a massacre that took place in Kansas with a lot of people dead. This was like pre civil war as you probably didn't know anybody. But anyway, it was interesting. Lawrence, is it? Lawrence. Lawrence, Kansas. I need to check that out. You should. Jody and Rich, good to see you. From Poco, West Virginia tonight. God bless you. Pueblo, west Colorado. Glad you're here. Ed, Nancy and Forrest. Forrest who someone thinks he will be left behind. I don't know who that could be, but do you all know that in our Ask the Theologian program, ken and Jen in Garland sent me a bell and they said I could use this for the Snarky award. And Nancy got a Snarky ring today when I said all dogs don't go to heaven. And she had some things to say about that. Jack and Teresa and Houston, welcome. Thanks for being here. Chuck, good to see you. Western Oklahoma. Glad you're here. Auburn, kentucky. Welcome to Keith and Carla. Thanks for being here. Edith West Plains, Missouri, god bless and thanks for being here. Bev up in St. Croix County, Wisconsin. Welcome. Got the Benners in Inkerman, Pennsylvania. Been praying for them. And knee surgery, recovery and cancer treatments and family with surgery and all that fun stuff. Linda, good to see you. Lexington, Kentucky. Robert down in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Thank you. Gerard, our good friend in Belgium. Excuse me? In the Netherlands. Thanks for being here. And that's Rudy in Belgium. Gerard in the Netherlands. And there's Alex coming in in London. Good to see you and your family. Appreciate you. We were talking about you today at lunch, as a matter of fact. Jerry Leesburg, Georgia. Thanks for being here. Cliff in Kitchener, Ontario. God bless you. Curt and Brenda, glad to see you tonight. Even if you come in late, it's always nice to have you. Wasall Wisconsin and Shirley Ridgecrest, California. I was reading about the weather. Carolyn Rainey, Fresno, California. Glad you're here. I was there about a year ago. I think maybe this week, last week somewhere next week. And it was rainy then. Also in Fresno praying for Roger down in Cambodia. Hope you're doing well. Steven, good to see you. Winston Salem, North Carolina. Tara, welcome. Glad to see you tonight. Tara and Brett and beautiful little Cheyenne in Montana. Thanks for being here. Herb and Sherry from Lafayette and oh, good. Thankful we're both feeling better. Herb had a fever spike the other day. You know, he's doing cancer treatments and so that's always a little alarming. And then both of them caught the plague, but both feeling better. I'm glad. Been praying for you. God bless each one of you for being here with us tonight. If I miss saying hello to you, I apologize for that. I'll be back on in the morning for Ask the Theologian. 10:00 a.m. Sunday. We're going to look at gospel tracks and see how good do we do at sharing the gospel, getting it right. How much works are we actually sharing in the gospel? We'll just take a sampling of tracks and look at those. I appreciate many of you sending me a lot of tracks. I got more than I can cover on that. I'm thinking about even doing a little segment on astha theologian. Let's check out the track time, whatever we call that segment and just see if we got good ones and bad ones and put that in. But who knows? We'll see how Sunday goes. And then I'm starting a new series with still without a name. I got to hurry up by Sunday. I should have a name for this series, but it's a lead up to Resurrection Sunday, the Death Barrel and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. And we're going to look at some of the things that we might have overlooked or missed and we'll take that up through Resurrection Sunday. And by the way, let me mention that for those of you in most of the United States, this is time change Sunday. And those of you not in the United States, that will affect you too, because we will spring forward an hour. So next Thursday, seven becomes eight, whatever. If you don't switch to daylight savings time, we do. And if you do switch by next Thursday, you'll have figured out that, hey, wait a minute, I got left behind. But that's this Saturday night we change. So Sunday morning services will be on the new time change, the new time change, the undid, the old time change. You know how it all goes. Thanks for being here. Let me lead this in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we're grateful that you were here tonight with us. We're grateful for the word of God, and when it makes us think and contemplate and try to figure out what's going on here. Dear Heavenly Father, we especially enjoy that because it challenges us and causes us to rethink some things that maybe would said over and over that might not be true. And we just pray that what we got tonight is accurate. But if it's not, we're very open to having our thinking changed and set straight. And we pray that you would use other believers who are part of this study tonight, the believers who rightly divide the word of truth and just our own studying to show ourselves approved that would help us to understand the word. And we thank you that you're patient with us and allow us through this journey to come to the great riches of the word of God. We pray this in Jesus name, amen. Well, again, God bless you. Thanks for each one of you for being here. You are a blessing. And I'm going to put up the Ask the Theologian banner instead of the Romans banner, because I can't get the Romans one up. And Nathan had a meeting tonight, so it told me what to do. Here we go. God bless. Thank you.