0:00

That's the struggle of sanctification.

0:02

Though the power of the

0:04

flesh is broken, and the

0:06

power of the flesh is

0:08

now subordinate to the spirit

0:10

to a very real measure

0:13

in regeneration, the flesh, ladies

0:15

and gentlemen, is not totally

0:17

annihilated at conversion. The war

0:19

goes on. ["The

0:22

Star-Spangled Banner"] As

0:26

you just heard, R.C. Sproul state, we

0:29

are in a battle. We are in

0:31

a war with our flesh. But

0:33

is that how you view your

0:35

sanctification, your pursuit of righteousness? Today,

0:38

Dr. Sproul will remind us not to

0:40

let our God down. This

0:43

is the Saturday edition of Renewing

0:45

Your Mind. I'm your host, Nathan

0:47

W. Bingham. Each

0:49

weekend, we are working our way

0:51

through R.C. Sproul's practical series on

0:54

Christian growth, simply titled

0:56

Pleasing God. If you'd

0:58

like to own this series and the

1:00

study guide, or perhaps work through this

1:02

study with your small group, you can

1:04

request the series on DVD at renewingyourmind.org

1:08

with your donation of any amount. To

1:11

help prepare us for this war, for

1:13

our battle with the flesh, here's Dr.

1:15

Sproul. In

1:19

Paul's letter to the church at Rome,

1:21

in the 13th chapter, he

1:24

makes this comment, the night

1:28

is far spent and

1:30

the day is at hand. Let

1:33

us therefore cast off the works

1:35

of darkness and put on the armor

1:37

of light. Let

1:40

us walk honestly as in

1:42

the day, not in

1:45

rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering

1:47

and wantonness, not in

1:49

strife and envying, but

1:51

put on the Lord Jesus Christ and

1:54

make no provision for the flesh to

1:57

fulfill the lust thereof. Now I'm...

2:00

that many of you who have just heard

2:02

me read this text are

2:05

aware of a very

2:07

unusual historical incident that

2:10

is associated with this passage. Centuries

2:13

ago, there was a young man who

2:15

was very brilliant and

2:17

very wild, whose

2:20

mother was a Christian and

2:22

whose mother prayed for him daily,

2:25

hoping that this young man would see

2:27

the air of his ways and so

2:29

on. And on

2:31

one occasion, after allegedly

2:33

having been out all night carousing

2:35

and he now is in a

2:37

stupor, a hangover of sorts, he

2:40

was making his way along the

2:42

side of a garden and

2:45

there were some children playing in

2:47

the garden and they were

2:49

playing a child's game where

2:52

a refrain was used

2:55

in the game that the kids called

2:57

out one to another and

3:00

the refrain was this,

3:02

tolelege, tolelege, tolelege, which

3:05

literally, though not for the purpose

3:07

of the game, but literally could

3:10

be translated to mean pick up

3:12

and read or

3:15

take up and read. And

3:19

this man who was walking by stopped

3:21

in his tracks and

3:23

had this overwhelming sense of

3:25

the intrusion into his life of

3:28

divine providence. For there in

3:30

the garden, he saw a copy of

3:33

the New Testament and

3:35

he had just heard these children

3:37

shouting, pick up and

3:39

read, pick up and read. And

3:42

so he walked over and he

3:44

picked up the scriptures and allowed

3:46

the text to fall open wherever

3:48

it did. And

3:51

when it did, his eyes fell upon these

3:53

words, not

3:56

in rioting and drunkenness.

4:00

not in chambering and wantonness, not

4:03

in strife and envying, but

4:07

put on the Lord Jesus Christ and

4:10

make no provision for the flesh to

4:12

fulfill the lust thereof. And

4:15

when he read those words, it

4:18

was as if each word

4:20

of that text were

4:22

an arrow that pierced

4:25

his soul, and

4:27

his conscience was so agitated by

4:30

it that on the spot

4:33

he was converted to Christianity. His

4:37

name, as I'm sure you recognize by now,

4:40

was Aurelius Augustine,

4:43

later the Bishop of Hippo, and

4:47

considered by virtually every historian

4:49

to be the greatest theologian in

4:52

the first 1,000 years of

4:55

the Christian church. Augustine

4:59

was converted by a passage that

5:01

spoke directly to

5:05

the conflict in life between

5:08

the flesh and the spirit. I

5:12

remember just a few years ago that Rod

5:15

Serling, who was the creator

5:17

of the Twilight Zone, was

5:20

assigned the task of writing

5:22

a critical review of

5:24

St. Augustine's famous work, The

5:27

Confessions. And in

5:29

his review, he said, in scathing

5:32

remarks of criticism, that

5:35

in his judgment, this book was

5:37

one of the most overrated books

5:40

in the history of Western literature.

5:43

He said it simply does not

5:45

deserve the status and the

5:47

fame that it has enjoyed over the

5:49

centuries. And in this

5:51

criticism, the point that

5:54

made him so severe was

5:57

he was convinced that the book was

5:59

written. written by somebody who had a

6:02

neurotic preoccupation with

6:04

guilt. And

6:08

he called attention to one passage

6:11

in the Confessions that

6:13

would illustrate his judgment

6:15

that Augustine had

6:17

this adolescent neurotic preoccupation

6:19

with guilt. And

6:21

it was the story where Augustine recalled

6:24

as an old man, the

6:27

things that he had done in his

6:29

life, about

6:32

which he was most ashamed. And

6:36

he recalled an incident that took

6:39

place when he was a teenager,

6:43

where he became involved with some

6:45

other young guys in

6:48

an adolescent prank where

6:50

these fellows went into somebody's

6:52

private orchard and

6:55

denuded a pear tree. They

6:57

helped themselves to the pears that belonged

7:00

to somebody else, stole all these pears,

7:02

and then left. And

7:06

Augustine now, 50 years later, is

7:09

mourning over this

7:11

childhood prank. And

7:14

Rod certainly says, give me a

7:16

break, Augustine. I mean, what's the

7:18

matter with you? I mean, people

7:20

are either guilty of adultery and

7:22

of murder and of grand larceny

7:24

and these serious things. And here's

7:27

this guy all exercised over stealing

7:29

a few pears when he was

7:31

a kid. But

7:34

Augustine explained what it

7:36

was that made him

7:38

feel so remorseful. It

7:41

wasn't the bare act

7:43

of stealing this fruit. But

7:48

he said, as I considered my life, and

7:51

I consider the things that I have

7:53

done that were evil, I

7:56

could see that there were certain sins

7:59

I fell into. that

8:01

though they were not excusable,

8:04

they were certainly understandable. Yes,

8:06

Augustine confessed to all kinds

8:08

of sexual sins as a

8:11

young man, fathering illegitimate children

8:13

and so on. And

8:15

he had remorse for that.

8:17

He said, but that I

8:19

can understand. There's a strong

8:21

biological drive to become involved

8:24

sexually. And that

8:26

temptation can befall a person when they

8:28

are at a weak moment and anyone

8:30

can succumb to it. He said, that

8:33

I can understand. Doesn't excuse it, but

8:35

I can understand it. Said,

8:39

and I can understand a man who is

8:41

starving stealing a loaf of bread. I don't

8:43

think a man who is starving has a

8:45

right to steal a loaf of bread, Augustine

8:47

said, but I can understand the force

8:51

of the temptation to do it. He

8:55

said, but I stole pears when I didn't like pears. That

9:04

is, there was nothing that would stimulate

9:06

my passions to

9:09

steal those pears

9:11

except one thing. And that was the

9:13

sheer joy in doing something that

9:18

I knew was wrong. What

9:20

Augustine was lamenting was

9:24

the exercise of

9:27

his fallen nature, of

9:30

his flesh, for

9:32

the sheer joy of

9:34

doing it. Paul

9:42

speaks of a state of humanity that

9:44

he calls the flesh. And

9:47

we've already noticed that Luther

9:49

said that the great triad of enemies

9:51

for the Christian growth contain

9:55

the world of the world.

10:00

the flesh and

10:02

the devil. And when

10:04

we're talking about the flesh, I

10:07

want us to understand, without

10:10

getting into the technicalities of it, that

10:13

when the Bible talks about the struggle

10:15

that we go through with the flesh,

10:18

it is not simply

10:20

talking about the body. That

10:24

the struggle between the flesh

10:26

and the spirit cannot be

10:28

equated with a struggle

10:30

between the body and the soul,

10:33

or the body and the mind.

10:36

But rather, what the New Testament is

10:38

talking about when it talks about this

10:40

fear struggle that goes on in the

10:42

Christian life between the flesh and the

10:44

spirit is the struggle

10:47

between the power of sin

10:49

in our natural fallen humanity

10:52

against the influence of God the

10:55

Holy Spirit in our lives. So

10:57

that the whole struggle and process

10:59

of sanctification involves what Paul calls

11:02

warfare. There's a

11:04

war going on, and

11:06

it's a war between the flesh of

11:08

man and the spirit

11:10

of God. Now

11:14

I get so irritated when I hear preachers

11:16

stand up and say, you know, come to

11:18

Jesus and all your problems will be over.

11:22

Because that's just simply a lie. My

11:25

life didn't get complicated until I became

11:28

a Christian. Before

11:31

I was a Christian, though I

11:33

was not happy, I had a

11:35

relative degree of peace. I

11:38

knew that I was doing things that I ought

11:40

not to be doing. I

11:42

mean, I had not totally annihilated

11:44

my conscience, but I was

11:47

on the way to it. By

11:49

repeating certain actions, you

11:51

can so sear the conscience and

11:55

put callousness upon the soul that

11:57

where you once perhaps felt a

11:59

little twin. of guilt, now you

12:01

can do these things through repetition that

12:03

don't bother you anymore, and you experience

12:06

what the Bible calls hard-heartedness.

12:12

When I came to Christ, I

12:17

found a new conscience. So

12:21

now things that I didn't worry

12:24

about before became matters of

12:27

ethical concern. And

12:30

life was complicated. And wouldn't it have been

12:32

nice if I was to say, well, what I did when I

12:34

was converted was I traded in the flesh, bought

12:37

into the spirit, and lived happily

12:39

ever after. That's

12:42

the struggle of sanctification. So

12:45

the power of the flesh is

12:47

broken, and the power of the flesh

12:50

is now subordinate to the

12:53

spirit to a very real

12:55

measure in regeneration. The

12:57

flesh, ladies and gentlemen, is

12:59

not totally annihilated at conversion.

13:03

The war goes on. Now

13:07

listen to what the apostle says in

13:09

chapter 8 of Romans. He

13:13

says in verse 4 that the righteousness of

13:15

the law might be fulfilled in us

13:19

who walk not after the flesh, but

13:21

after the spirit. For

13:24

they that are after the flesh do mind the

13:26

things of the flesh, but they

13:28

that are after the spirit, the things of

13:30

the spirit, to be carnally minded is death,

13:33

and to be spiritually minded is life and

13:35

peace. Because, listen

13:37

to this, the carnal mind is

13:40

enmity against God. For

13:42

it is not subject to the law

13:44

of God, neither indeed can it be.

13:48

So then they that are in the

13:50

flesh cannot please

13:53

God. Now what

13:55

is the topic of this series of lectures?

13:59

Pleasing God. God. And

14:02

here the Apostle says, those who are

14:04

in the flesh cannot

14:08

please God. That

14:10

God is not pleased, He's

14:13

never pleased, by a

14:15

lifestyle that is

14:17

characterized by the flesh. Now

14:22

when he says that, does that mean that

14:24

what God hates is physical

14:27

things? So

14:29

often that's the way this verse has

14:31

been interpreted and other verses like it.

14:34

And so Christians think that to be

14:36

spiritual means to deny

14:39

the body. And

14:41

that anything that has anything to

14:43

do with physicality must necessarily be

14:45

wrong. That's why we've seen incidences

14:48

arise in church history where Christians

14:50

have got involved in all kinds

14:52

of rigorous forms of asceticism, forms

14:54

of self-denial and self-flagellation where you

14:57

go and you hide in a

14:59

cell like a hermit and you

15:01

beat yourself and you deny yourself

15:03

food and you get skinny as

15:05

a rail and you take all

15:07

kinds of vows for celibacy. And

15:09

so because sex is wrong

15:11

not only outside of marriage but

15:13

inside marriage, food is wrong, anything

15:16

that brings physical pleasure is

15:19

considered wrong. Ladies and gentlemen, that

15:21

was invented by Manichaeanism, not by

15:23

Christianity. The

15:25

first affirmation of

15:28

the God who makes a physical

15:30

world is what? He looks at

15:32

that physical order and he says,

15:34

that's good. Plato

15:37

came to the conclusion that

15:39

anything physical is

15:42

so far removed from

15:44

pure spirit that by

15:46

its very physicality it

15:48

is imperfect. And

15:51

so that the ideal of the Greek for

15:53

redemption would be to be released from the

15:55

body. The body is seen as the prison

15:57

house of the soul. Not

16:00

so Judeo-Christianity. Christianity doesn't

16:03

believe in resurrection from

16:05

the body, but

16:08

resurrection of the body.

16:12

And so when the Bible talks about

16:14

the warfare between the flesh and the

16:17

spirit, it's not saying that matter is

16:19

evil and spirit is good. No,

16:22

no, no. If you look in

16:24

Galatians where Paul sets forth the

16:27

works of the flesh, what

16:29

does he say? The

16:32

works of the flesh include such

16:34

things as drunkenness, adultery,

16:38

fornication. Now let's just stop there

16:40

for a second. Those

16:44

would indicate what? Physical

16:46

sins. Drunkenness is

16:48

something that happens when we have

16:50

a physical appetite, a physical desire

16:52

for alcohol, and we overindulge ourselves

16:55

in those things, and so we

16:57

get blotto. We can

16:59

obviously see the connection between

17:02

the body and the action

17:04

there. Adultery

17:06

is a physical sin. It's

17:09

succumbing again to biological instincts

17:11

and passions where God has

17:14

said no. But

17:18

if you look at that list, he

17:20

goes on and speaks about envy, hatred,

17:27

and obviously you can't envy and hate

17:30

outside of your bodies, but they

17:32

are not physical actions, are they?

17:35

They have to do with attitudes

17:38

and dispositions of the

17:40

heart. You look

17:42

at vandalism. Why

17:45

do you suppose vandalism takes

17:47

place? Vandalism is

17:49

simply the outward action

17:53

of inward envy,

17:57

the basic attitude of

17:59

the vandal. The final example of this is

18:01

this. If I can't enjoy what

18:04

you possess, I'm

18:06

going to make sure that you

18:08

can't enjoy it either. He

18:11

doesn't simply steal it for himself, but

18:13

rather he destroys it so that no

18:15

one can enjoy it. Do

18:19

you have any idea how destructive,

18:21

for example, to human

18:23

relationships envy is?

18:28

How many ways

18:30

people are violated that

18:32

are motivated by envy? How

18:36

many times you've been slandered, you've

18:40

been attacked unjustly

18:42

because of someone's envy? You

18:45

ever wonder why in God's

18:47

ordering of priorities, God

18:50

puts envy in the top ten

18:54

of the laws? Thou shalt

18:56

not covet. The

18:59

New Testament teaches us that if somebody else

19:01

receives a benefit, something

19:04

good happens to them, we're

19:07

supposed to rejoice in

19:09

their good fortune rather

19:12

than to rejoice in

19:15

their fall. There's

19:17

an expression, a cynical expression,

19:20

in golf. I don't like it. And

19:23

it is this. Every golf

19:25

shot makes somebody happy. Every

19:31

golf shot makes somebody happy. If a guy

19:33

hits it in the water, it doesn't make

19:35

him happy, but it certainly makes his opponent

19:37

happy. But

19:40

what I love to see in a golf tournament is

19:43

where everybody's rooting for everybody else to play their

19:45

very best and

19:47

to have somebody win it rather than

19:49

somebody else lose it. There's

19:52

a difference. You're

19:54

not wishing bad fortune

19:56

on another person. That's what we do

19:58

when we surrender. to come to

20:01

envy. So what I'm trying to get at is this, that

20:03

the flesh refers

20:06

to the old fallen nature.

20:10

The Bible says that to be carnally minded is

20:12

death, to be spiritually minded is

20:14

life and peace. And the carnal

20:17

mind is enmity with God. And he said, but

20:19

you are not in the flesh, but

20:21

you're in the spirit. But here's the problem.

20:23

You may be in the spirit, ladies and

20:25

gentlemen, but you still lie. And

20:30

you still envy. And

20:32

yes, even still commit adultery,

20:36

as still get drunk. In

20:39

other words, we continue to

20:41

perform the

20:43

works of the flesh, even

20:45

though we're in the spirit. Now I

20:47

know there are some who say, you're

20:50

either in the flesh or in the

20:52

spirit, that you can't be a carnal

20:54

Christian. Some people have

20:56

devised theories that there are different kinds

20:58

of Christians, a carnal Christian who

21:01

doesn't have the spirit of God, and

21:05

a spiritual Christian who's no longer carnal.

21:10

Ladies and gentlemen, anyone

21:13

who does not have the spirit of

21:16

Christ is not a carnal

21:18

Christian. He's a

21:20

carnal non-Christian. Okay,

21:23

so in that sense, carnal Christian

21:25

is a contradiction in terms. If

21:27

a person is only flesh, what

21:29

the New Testament calls flesh, with

21:31

not the Holy Spirit dwelling in

21:34

him, then he is outside

21:36

the kingdom of God. He can't

21:38

possibly please God. And

21:42

yet, if a person has the

21:44

Holy Spirit dwelling in him, that

21:46

person may do carnal things. That

21:50

person may still struggle with the flesh. But

21:54

he is a

21:56

spiritual person. Now it

21:58

becomes a matter of the group. of

22:01

how much we submit to

22:03

the Holy Spirit. One of the reasons I

22:05

wanna be careful about that is

22:08

that the best example that we find

22:10

in the New Testament of a

22:12

carnal Christian, one

22:16

who was struggling with the

22:18

flesh, was who? The

22:22

Apostle Paul, he makes this statement,

22:25

I am carnal, sold

22:29

under sin. Paul,

22:32

the Apostle, called himself

22:34

a carnal person. Now,

22:37

someone to get away from that passage

22:39

and say, well, he had to be

22:41

referring to his pre-conversion days. This is

22:43

certainly beneath the dignity of one of

22:45

the status of the Apostle Paul. I

22:47

think that's an act of pure despair.

22:49

If you look at that passage and

22:51

read it carefully and look at the

22:53

literary structure and the grammatical syntax of

22:55

it, I think that there's only one

22:57

conclusion you can come to, and that

22:59

is that Paul was describing his present

23:01

struggle with ongoing

23:04

inclinations to evil.

23:08

Ladies and gentlemen, when we

23:10

are converted, we are translated from

23:12

flesh into spirit, from darkness into

23:15

life, but the struggle

23:17

against the flesh goes on.

23:20

And we deceive ourselves if we think

23:23

we don't have to worry about

23:26

the inclinations of our old fallen

23:28

nature coming along

23:30

and inclining us to evil. But rather,

23:32

the New Testament teaches us to be

23:35

aware of those tendencies of the flesh,

23:38

and as much as we possibly can, put them

23:40

to death so that

23:43

we feed the new man, we feed the spirit,

23:48

and we starve as much as possible the old

23:50

man that he

23:52

is dying daily. But

23:56

he dies hard. He

24:00

doesn't die easy. And

24:02

the struggle goes on throughout

24:04

life. It is the battle of

24:07

the Christian life. Again,

24:09

not between the body and the soul,

24:12

although there may be elements of conflict

24:14

that involve the physical and the non-physical,

24:17

but between the style of the

24:19

flesh and the

24:21

spirit of God. A

24:24

person who pleases God is

24:26

a person who seeks the fruit of

24:28

the Spirit in his

24:30

life. That

24:39

was R.C. Sproul on this Saturday

24:41

edition of Renewing Your Mind. Thanks

24:43

for being with us. Dr.

24:46

Sproul mentioned the fruit of the Spirit at

24:48

the end of today's message. If

24:50

you'd like to learn more about the fruit

24:52

of the Spirit, follow the Renewing Your Mind

24:55

podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. And

24:57

the Sunday sermon two weeks ago was

24:59

on Galatians 5 and the fruit of

25:01

the Spirit. Today's

25:04

message on our battle with the

25:06

flesh is from Dr. Sproul's series,

25:08

Pleasing God. You can gain

25:10

lifetime digital access to this series and

25:12

the study guide. Plus, we'll send you

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25:34

access to trusted teaching. So

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thank you for showing your support at

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renewingyourmind.org. As

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we heard today, the battle is

25:45

real. Next time, R.C.

25:48

Sproul will address our battle with the

25:50

devil. So be sure to join us

25:52

next Saturday here on Renewing Your Mind.