No Dominion No Condemnation

This message is one of the Times Square Pulpit series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing to World Challenge P.O. Box 260, Lindale, Texas 75771 or calling 214-963-8626.

None of these messages are copyrighted and you are welcome to make copies for free distribution to your friends. Romans chapter 6, Romans chapter 6. I want to speak to you tonight about no dominion, no condemnation. No dominion, no condemnation.

And in Romans chapter 6 and verse 14 it says, For sin shall not be master over you. That's a new American standard. The King James says, uses the word dominion.

For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. And then in the eighth chapter, first four verses, There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ has set you free from the law of 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 offering for sin, He condemns sin in the flesh in order that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit. No dominion, no condemnation.

A few weeks ago, about a month or so ago, I had a conversation with a good friend of mine, a minister, he's a missionary evangelist, one of my closest friends, and he was about to leave the country for several months in evangelism and ministry, and so we were talking together. And we weren't going to be seeing each other for a long time or perhaps talking to each other, so we were just sharing together some things. And it was one of those conversations where you say goodbye once or twice.

And we were on our third goodbye, and I was trying to say goodbye because I was paying for the phone call and my bill was going up. And he said something to me just before I hung up. He said, Don, he said, preach Romans.

And I was sort of, I stopped. I couldn't say goodbye or anything. It kind of just grabbed me.

He said, preach Romans. And I said, oh, well, thank you. And we said goodbye.

And when I put the phone down, the Lord just, it was just one of those things where I knew that the Lord was speaking to me and something leaped in my heart. And I said, he said, preach Romans. I said, okay, I'm going to start reading Romans.

And a few days after that, I went on vacation. And all during our vacation and since then, I've been relishing and reading in the book of Romans and have been greatly blessed by it. And so I'm preaching from Romans tonight and I may preach this one message.

I may preach a dozen or so. I don't know where we'll go from here, but whether I preach any other messages than this one, I've been blessed as I have been in the book of Romans. And in my study, in my research, I found this out, that many past revivals had the message of the book of Romans at the very heart of that revival.

Pastor David Sunday night was talking about how God preserves his people, how he wants to keep his people. And the doctrinal basis for that is it really in the book of Romans, as well as many other rich truths. But as I said, many past revivals focused on the book of Romans.

For example, Martin Luther sparked the reformation. He changed the face of Europe, bringing salvation to thousands. And you know how, what changed Luther's life? He was delivering a series of lectures on the book of Romans.

He didn't even understand salvation. And as he was teaching and lecturing on Romans, suddenly he grasped a hold of the precious truth. And this is what he said.

He came to the conclusion, our sole defense, not only against all the force and craft of men, but also against the gates of hell, is this, that by faith only in Christ and without works, we are pronounced righteous and saved. Luther wrote about this in his journey, or in his journal. He wrote about his discovery.

He said, Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. And at long last, that Catholic monk found the peace that he so long had sought when he saw the truth of God's word. He was doing another error.

When John Wesley, who had gone to America, he had not been very successful in his homeland, in England, and he went to America to preach and evangelize among the Indians. And it was a total flop. It was a total flop.

He was devastated. And also, he was not received by the colonists. And so, on his voyage back home, which was also terrible, it was very life-threatening.

He was in a terrible journey across the seas. And it was during that Atlantic Ocean journey that Wesley discovered that he had no assurance that God loved him or personal salvation. And in that frame of mind, when he got back to his homeland, he went to a lecture and somebody was reading from Martin Luther's preface or introduction to his book of Romans that he had written after he had found the Lord.

And when Wesley heard it, he said, my heart was strangely warmed. And this is what he wrote. He said, I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation.

And an assurance was given to me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. And out of that experience, Wesley went on to be the central figure in what is called the Great Awakening. John Calvin stated, he said, when anyone gains the knowledge of this epistle, he has an interest, an entrance open to him and to all the hidden treasures of the scripture.

I discovered something else interesting about the same time as I was into Romans. The Lord put a burden on my heart for the Muslims. And I have been reading and I've been studying Islam and how we can minister to the millions and millions of people who are of the Islam faith.

And in my study of that, I've discovered it took me again back to the book of Romans because the book of Romans answers many of the questions of the Islam faith and is an apologetics as it were, or it comes against their teaching. And I believe as the Lord would lead me, we're going to have a missionary convention coming up in some weeks. And as the Lord would lead me, I want to minister prior to the Tuesday before that weekend when we have that missions conference, I want to minister to you about the Islam faith and how the scriptures has an answer to it.

And again, it's out of the book of Romans. Now with this as a background, I'd like to proceed now towards this eighth chapter of the book of Romans, which is perhaps one of the greatest chapters containing some of the greatest truths in all of the Bible. It's been called the loftiest peak in the mountain range of revelation.

Chapter eight opens with these words. There is therefore now. That's what mine says.

I don't know what King James says. It means the same thing. There is therefore now.

And the therefore refers back to the previous seven chapters in which Paul lays down the most conclusive argument for man's utter sinfulness and the fact that we are under the wrath of God, that the sinner deserves the wrath of God. For example, in chapter one, Paul sets forth a very clear argument, the clearest in all of scripture that all men without exception are sinners. He includes the goody goodies and the baddy baddies.

He says the heathen who have never heard the gospel are without excuse. He says that the religious Jews, in spite of their chosen position and knowledge of the law are in the same category as the barbarians or the pagans. Romans 2, nine, he says, there will be tribulation and distress for every soul, for every soul.

And he's referring to the church goer as well as the non church goer that does not know the Lord. He said there will be tribulation and distress for every soul, for every soul of man who does evil of the Jew first and also of the Greek, for there is no partiality with God. And Paul goes on in Romans 3, 10, he says, there is none righteous, not even one, but probably the most scathing thing that Paul says to the Jewish ear, and he wrote to the Jews as well as to the Romans, but probably the most scathing thing that Paul says to the Jewish ear is that he put the devout Jew in the same category as the pagan Roman.

In chapter two, verses five and six, he says, but because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up for yourselves in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgments of God who will render to every man according to his deeds. And so Paul sets out this argument. All men are sinners, Gentile, pagan, as well as Jew, though they may have the law.

But Paul does not only talk about their sins or the sins of the pagan or the sins of the religious person. He speaks out of his own struggle with sin or about sin. A struggle which is that of many of us and many of you here tonight.

For example, Paul says in chapter seven, he said, for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. For the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. He said, I have a desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.

For what I do is not the good I wanna do, nor the evil I do not wanna do, this I keep on doing. Nor if I do what I do not wanna do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is the sin living in me that does it. And what Paul describes is the saved person who know they're saved, but they also know that there is this battle raging on inside them.

They wanna walk in holiness, but they're beset by unholy desires. They're beset by lust. They're beset by a temper or jealousy or there are many things that come under the category of the flesh and they know it and they hate it.

They hate what's inside of them and they say, oh, how am I gonna get out of this dilemma? And Paul says, so I find this law at work. When I wanna do good, evil is right there with me. For example, here is a man, here is somebody, let's say, who believes, a man or woman who truly believes thou shall not commit adultery, but still they're having trouble with adulterous or lustful thoughts or there may be a person who firmly believes thou shall not covet, but they discover that they have deep feelings of resentment inside them.

When somebody in the church, somebody else in the church gets chosen for a position that they had their heart set on or sometimes the wife has jealousy because the husband doesn't get chosen and you see, we can delight in the law according to the inward man, Paul says, yet at the same time find we are still struggling with the flesh and with the law, what Paul calls the law of sin. Now, how do we deal with it? Well, there are four ways that we can deal with sin. There are four approaches that Christians take in trying to overcome sin in the flesh.

There are three wrong ones. I'll tell you one right one. For example, there is what I call the fatalist approach and Paul uses, refers to this, the fatalist approach.

This fellow says, what can I do? What can I do? Sin dwells in me. It's not possible for me. It's not possible for any man to live completely free of sin.

I'm just gonna have to accept it. I'm just gonna have to live with it. I'm just gonna have to make the most of it.

In fact, you know that there are doctrines that are built on this very idea and the philosophy of the fatalist and Paul addressed himself to this in Romans after Paul makes this clear case for the fact that all men are under this law of sin. But at the same time, he also says there is another law. It's where sin abounds, grace doth much more abound.

And he said, there is God's grace available to forgive them of sin. And then immediately, Paul anticipated the argument of those who would say, well, then why not sin all you want so that more grace may abound? He said, what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase? May it never be so. How shall we who died to sin still live in it? I remember a fellow told me one time he was a drug addict and he was on a subway and he saw a poster, American Bible Society poster or whatever.

It said, Christ died for our sins. He said, boy, I'm sure glad of that. That's good to know.

Now I can sin all I want. There are people that live like that. This is what the German theologian, Bonhoeffer called cheap grace.

And it refers to the sad notion displayed in the varying degrees of theology, which in effect says I've been forgiven and I will continue to go on to be forgiven for whatever I do so I can do whatever I wish. I talked to a fellow one time and he kept saying, he kept talking about his continued struggle with sin. And he kept saying, God understands.

God understands. God just understands me. God knows, he knows my weakness.

Well, let me tell you, you know what his weakness was? His weakness was not only the power of the sin, but his weakness was as much in the power created in his thinking and in his philosophy. As a man thinketh in his heart so is he. And he had the fatalist approach and said, I just can't make it.

And there are some of you that sit here tonight and the devil has lied to you and he's told you that you cannot be a free, completely free man or woman from sin. You bought into a lie of the devil. And there are churches that have aided you in the process and pastors.

And then secondly, there is the moralist approach. This person in thinking has an approach to Christianity that says that we've got to teach people the principles of faith and of victory and of success and that the teachings of Christ contain moral principles. And if they are applied, if you apply them, you can overcome sin in the flesh.

And in fact, there's one well-known Bible teacher, more than one. And you know what they say? That this Bible is full of all kinds of principles. All you have to do is get a hold of them and apply them and you can't help but win.

You can't help but be successful. And in fact, even sinners, they say that even a sinner can take these principles and apply them and they will be successful. And the emphasis you see is thinking the right thoughts, saying the right words, doing the right deeds.

In other words, the moralists believe that if you saturate your mind enough with good Christian moral teaching, that all of your struggles with sin will be over. And they see the Bible as a mere set of moral principles that if you apply them, they'll work. In other words, they use the Scriptures, they don't live the Scriptures.

In fact, there are some people that go around to seminars and they go to them, and I've seen these people, they go over and over and over again. And they listen to basically Bible moralistic preaching. They take elaborate notes.

They feel if they memorize enough Scriptures, they get enough Bible knowledge. If they plug into the right formula, they'll have victory. And they do for a while.

And then pretty soon, they're back into the same thing again. The flesh rises up. And so they say, I didn't get it all.

I didn't learn it all. And so they're back again, trying to learn some more, trying to get the formula down. I had a young pastor in my office.

I've spent several times with him. He's been literally devastated by the faith movement, hyper-faith movement. God's brought him out of it, thank the Lord.

But he told me how he used to sit around with some of the young faith pastors, and they would talk about some of their leaders who were prospering more than they have. And he told me about this one incident, about this one teacher who had bought a little antique table that cost him $10,000. And they were all lamenting, not over the fact that he had it, but that they didn't have it.

And they said, and the conclusion was that we don't have it down yet. We don't quite have the formula down yet. We're still working on it.

And if we'll just confess it a little bit better, one of these days we're gonna come into it. You see, the moralist problem is that they fail to recognize it's impossible for anyone to fulfill righteousness until there is a true heart repentance, and they come under the law of the spirit of life in Christ, which I'm gonna talk about in a few moments. Now, another approach to Christianity is that of the legalist.

The legalist believes, as Paul and as I believe, that those who are according to the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. They also believe that those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But their way of battling the constant infiltration of the flesh is to place their emphasis on following certain rules and disciplines and regulations.

Now, all true Christians ought to have high moral standards and a lived out lifestyle of holiness that it includes certain do's and don'ts. However, whenever our emphasis shifts from Christ and our enjoyment of life in him to putting instead all the emphasis on the rules that we follow or trying by self-effort to be righteous and holy, we then become a legalist. And you can know a legalist by the fact that they're proud of their high standards and they're quick to point out to anyone what they do or don't do and are just as quick to pounce on others who do not do what they do and they feel that they're doing pleasing to the Lord.

We must get one letter a week here at this church from some legalist who wants to impose some rule or what they believe ought to the whole church ought to be participating. It might be about music. It might be about this.

It might be about that. But you see, true holiness is exemplified in humility. And that's why the Lord was speaking to us tonight and said, we've got to go on in humility as the Lord does mighty things in our life.

Now, if sin in the flesh cannot be overcome by the fatalist or defeatist approach, if it can't be done just by the mere knowledge of the word, what is the answer? And Paul talks about it here in Romans 8, which is the very heart of his teaching, which is the very heart of the gospel. And basically what Paul teaches is this, that saints do sin. They are not perfect.

Yes, we have the sin nature in us, warring against us, seeking to bring us into bondage. But in spite of this, the promise and provision for every believer is that sin shall not have dominion over you. The Puritans put it this way.

They said, God does not take away our ability to sin, but he does give us the power not to sin. Hallelujah. Now, how is that possible? Well, Paul tells us, first of all, you got to know where in you stand.

You got to know you're standing in Christ. If sin is not to have dominion over us, we have to know that there is a place, there is a position in Christ whereby we can stand righteous and before a holy God. There is such a place, hallelujah.

Romans 8, one says, there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. One commentator said of this verse, the whole verse is an explanation and a shout. And it's a shout.

And oh, when I read this, it shouts out at me. And oh, if we could get ahold of the truth Paul presents about Christ and the possibilities and the promise and provisions that are in him, you too will have reason to shout hallelujah. Now you see this verse comes after the previous chapter which Paul closes it out with a deep desire to be delivered from the wretched tyranny of indwelling sin.

He says in Romans 7, 24, wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death? And the therefore in this verse refers to the dilemma Paul so vividly describes. And it's the need to be delivered from the principle or law of sin and death that operates within us. A law that can make us miserable captives of a nature that's bent on sin or backsliding and makes it impossible to please God.

But Paul said it may be true that there is that law. Ah, but there's another law. And he says now, and Paul introduces the greatest theme in the Bible.

Now there is no condemnation. And the word condemnation refers to punishment following a sentence. He said all sinners are under the death sentence but now it is possible to stand wholly just and forgiven before God.

Chapter eight of Roman begins in the first verse. It says for those who are in Christ Jesus and look at verse 39, it ends up and it says, which are in Christ Jesus our Lord. It begins in Christ and it ends in Christ.

It opens with no condemnation and it ends in no separation. Verse 39, nor heights nor depth nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Hallelujah.

There is no possible condemnation in Christ and in the new nature. The word no here is emphatic. The Lord would have to be condemned before those who are in him could be condemned.

But you see the absence of condemnation is not because of who we are but it's because of in whom we are. John 5 24 says, truly, truly I say to you, he who hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgment but has passed from death into life. Hallelujah.

I got to tell you about what happened to me recently. I learned an interesting lesson about condemnation. About a month ago, my wife and I were in Pennsylvania for a little bit of rest and we were driving back on Interstate 80 just in New Jersey and I was driving along and I was driving at 62 miles an hour and because I was told that the policemen will give you they'll give you they'll give you 7 miles so I drove at 62 miles an hour and I'm driving along and I see a police car on the left of the interstate and as soon as I see him instinctively I went down to 55 miles an hour and I went past him and he didn't move and I continued down the road and then I looked in my rear view mirror and he pulls out and as soon as he pulls out and he comes down the road I said to my wife, oh no of all times now bear in mind I was not speeding I didn't think I was speeding I had no reason to be under condemnation for speeding and yet I said to my wife, oh no of all times and he followed me for a long while and finally, and I was expecting the light to go on, red light to go on him to come behind me and put the red light on and pull me over, he didn't he pulled right beside me and I'm driving I'm driving along and I don't even look at him I don't even look at him because you see I'm under condemnation and I'll tell you why in just a moment my wife tells me later all he was doing was to say slow down, he was not even going to pull me off he was just telling me slow down but when I kept driving and he sensed my condemnation, he said I better stop this fellow and so he pulls me over he says may I see your driver's license and your registration and therein was my dilemma I said sir, I have my registration but I do not have my driver's license I discovered yesterday that I didn't have it with me and so he pulls me out of the car and he starts to ask me some questions and in the process I start going through my wallet like this you know and he says to me why are you shaking now I didn't think I was shaking but I was trying to impress on him that I was looking for it, I knew it wasn't there just instinctively I did that and he said why are you nervous and I said well I don't believe I'm nervous he said why are you shaking well I was shaking because a lot of people know wherein they stand, they know their position in Christ, they know that they've been justified by faith, they know all of this but they still struggle because they didn't see something else and that's the power hallelujah, the power whereby we stand Christ is called here the spirit of life in verse 2 and you know the holy spirit is given many titles in scripture but there is none more exciting than the spirit of life Paul here describes in detail what it means to be in the flesh and according to the flesh but now he sets out to describe the divine alternatives which are to be found in the spirit and to live and to walk according to the spirit in the seventh chapter of Romans is a rather discouraging picture of what goes on and can go on in someone's heart and mind and soul and Paul uses the pronoun I, me and mine a lot in chapter 7 in fact I've got them circled in red 27 times in chapter 7 he says I he's talking about this struggle for example he said I am a flesh he said I do not understand he's talking about the I in the old sin nature he said I know that nothing good dwells in me he said I practice the very evil that I do not wish my wife showed me a prayer request one day and she said look at this honey and it had 24 I's in it of side 1 you may now turn the tape over to side 2 pick up their cross and follow him John 6 64 he said to the people of the wild and it went down and down anywhere from this poor sister anywhere from wanting a husband to wanting an apartment to wanting the number of square feet in an apartment to the color of the drapes as it were on all I I he was full of I and to one degree or another we all have an I problem and with Paul I can say as well for in my inner being I delight in God's law but I see another law at work potentially at work in my body waging war against the sin of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work inside my members and Paul comes to the conclusion he said in that state he said wretched man that I am then he asked the all important question who will rescue me and here's the answer in chapter 8 he said there's another law that we come under and we obey it it's called the law of the spirit of life in Christ and it sets us free from the law of sin and death in chapter 7 the Holy Spirit is not mentioned once but in chapter 8 the I drops out and the spirit of God is predominant and when the personal pronoun I disappears and in its place comes another person the Holy Spirit the victor who has arrived and oh what a difference he makes hallelujah and 17 times the Holy Spirit is named in chapter 8 it is a fact that makes it one of the greatest chapters in the bible and I've read it and times I've laid it down I said to my wife I said oh this blew me away the power that God has for his people his children hallelujah the only basis or possibility by which sin shall not have dominion over us is when the spirit of life in Christ Jesus dwells within us Paul calls it the law of the spirit the law of the spirit in other words he said this other is a law but he said this also is a law and this law overrides it supersedes and it can cancel out the other law of sins dominion it has set you free from the law of sin and death and then Paul goes on and he he lays out a number of things that can happen to us when we yield to the spirit of life and I'll just give you one of them for example in verse 6 twice he says for the spirit for the mindset on the flesh is death but the mindset on the spirit is life and peace and you see when you come into this you have a new mindset and it's not a mindset of a fatalist it's not a mindset of a moralist it's not a mindset of a legalist it's a mindset of the one who says by the spirit of his life in me I can be holy and not only stand holy but I can walk holy and fulfill all the requirements of the law hallelujah in fact mindset means what it means is intent on following intent on following the holy spirit produces a certain mindset it produces an intent a desire hallelujah to want to serve the lord I gotta tell you about a fella I read about a fella who was charged in court for a little minor law, he's a Christian but he committed a little minor law and he pled before the judge he said your honor he said I'm a Christian he said I'm a new man he said but I have an old nature too and he said it was not my new man that did that it was my old man that did that and the judge scratched his head and he said well he said I was going to give you I was going to give you 30 days but he said I'll tell you what I'm going to do I'm going to give the old man 30 days and then I'm going to give the new man 30 days because he was an accomplice to the crime you see that fella had the wrong mindset you don't have to operate under the dictates of the old man anymore hallelujah and you know it's taken months and months for this truth to get a hold of some of you that have been coming here for a long time and some of you are new in the church now and it may take you some time to be able to get this because we're coming against so much that's ingrained in us that we can't we're not talking about sinless perfection we're not talking about sinless perfection but we are talking about victory we are talking about walking a holy life and you know every once in a while I'll pass somebody here in the hallway that I knew at one time had that mindset that I just can't live clean I just can't make it and now I see them walking in victory I see the spirit of the law the spirit of life in Christ I see the Holy Spirit doing a work in your life and God's beginning to clean up your act and do something in you and oh I'm so pleased I'm so grateful for what God's doing and some of you others the Lord wants to bring you into a new mindset some of you have a wrong mindset the devil's lied to you or you've allowed yourself to be deceived or you've sat under a teaching that never made it possible for you to see that if God said we're not to walk according to the flesh then it's possible if God said it it's possible hallelujah the promise of victory is so strong Paul puts it this way but if the spirit of him who raised Christ Jesus from the dead dwells in you he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead also will give life to your mortal bodies through the spirit that dwells in that dwells in you hallelujah if Jesus is the great physician among other things he's got to be an eye doctor too I'm talking about flesh I'm talking about being able by the spirit of God to free you from the law of sin and death so that you can fulfill the requirements that's what he says in order that the requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit hallelujah hallelujah God give us that victory in our today