Conflict with the flesh

1st John chapter 1, I believe what I have will tie into what we've been hearing throughout the morning and what we just finished hearing. Let's look at verse number 8. I want you to notice carefully what we have here. 1st John chapter 1 and verse number 8. Now here's what we read.

If we say that we have no sin, notice the singular. I believe it's talking about a sinful nature. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

Now he changes to the plural. If we confess our sins, deeds on the outward, he is faithful. God is faithful to his word and just.

God is right to follow his own word. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, there's your plural again, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, so if verse 8 is the noun in the singular, verse 9 is the noun in the plural, verse number 10 is the verb in the plural form.

Looking again at the deeds. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. Notice chapter 2 verse 1. My little children, these things write I on to you that ye sin not, and if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is, not was, he is the propitiation, the satisfaction, the appeasement for our sins, not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

I want you to turn now to Galatians. We're just going to work backwards. Galatians chapter 5. I have a few different passages to read, but I really got just got one word really on my mind.

Galatians chapter 5 and verse number 16. Now this is important. Everything is important, how it's worded, what it's put with, phrases that are used.

Now notice Galatians 5 verse 16. This I say then, walk in the Spirit, the Spirit of God. That word walk in the Greek language is the common word for walk, walking around, okay? You'll see the significance of that in a minute.

And ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Just want you to notice that. In the same verse that talks about walking in the Spirit, controlled by the Spirit, you have this, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.

It's there, it's present. Just keep that in mind. And then verse number 17, for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, the Spirit of God, and the Spirit, the Spirit of God, against the flesh.

And these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things ye would. So what that simply means, dear child of God, is in in our lives, when the Spirit is wanting me to do this, there's opposition. When the flesh wants me to do this, there's opposition from the Spirit of God.

There's a battle that goes on within the person, the believer, you and I. We'll explain this just a little more later. Verse number 18, but if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. So with all of this struggle that's going on, it is possible to be led of the Spirit.

I'll emphasize that in a minute. And then you have the works of the flesh are illustrated. And then verse 22, you have the fruit of the Spirit illustrated.

Verse number 25. So this is important. If we live in the Spirit, I'm going to try my best to get you to see this is where we live, this struggle, good and evil.

We can still be led of the Spirit, but this is where we live. This is our life as believers. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

Amazing that the Spirit of God changes the word, walk. What started in verse number 16 as a general form of walking, now he moves to more the the military word of walking in order. This is what will bring order, glorification to God in our lives when we're under the power of the Spirit.

Still at the same time experiencing the pull of the flesh that will never go away. But we heard this morning, salvation has given us the ability to overcome sin in our lives. I agree 100% with my brother.

Someone professing to be saved, no power over sin. You need to be saved. Salvation changes a person.

Salvation gives a person power over sin and the fulfillment of the flesh within. Go to Romans chapter 7 now. Romans chapter 7. Better take a look at Siwatam.

I got up here. 10 to 3. Okay, Romans chapter 7. Romans chapter 7. Now this is a, well, you say that about every passage in the Bible. This is an amazing passage, right? Romans 6, 7, and 8. There's tremendous teaching here, but I want you to get a hold of something that the great Apostle Paul got a hold of.

And this is my desire here today that you'll get a hold of this. And that's why I tried to emphasize from 1st John the we, the great Apostle John, who leaned on the bosom of the Lord Jesus, who walked so close to the Lord Jesus. Of all the disciples that were around the Lord Jesus, we would have to admit that the Apostle John was right on his bosom.

Yet John had sin to confess in his Christian life. He wasn't beyond it. Now we're going to find out Paul, the great Apostle Paul, if we happen to give him the epistle to Hebrews.

That gives us 14 epistles in our New Testament. Surely a man of that stature is going to be perfected beyond sinning. Look what he says in verse number 21.

I find then a law that when I would do good, evil, evil is present with me. It's not apparent in our English Bible, but in the Greek language, I find then a law that when I would do the good, the evil is present with me. See the opposition, the good, the evil.

We're back again to Galatians. There's being led of the Spirit, but yet there's the desires of the flesh. Notice what else the Apostle Paul teaches us in this little section.

Look at verse 17. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin. Definite article again in the Greek language.

But the indwelling of the sin. He says it again in verse number 20. Now if I do that, I would not.

It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. The dwelling of me sin. You only find those two phrases in the Greek language only twice, and they're found right here.

What have we read? I have been saved for 32 years. April passed. I am sad to have to say what will follow.

In my short life of 32 years saved on the road to heaven, I want you to listen to me now. I've witnessed too many believers leave God's assembly. I've witnessed too many preachers draw back and leave the work of the Lord full-time.

I've witnessed too many assemblies that have changed practices and changed names, and I personally would not be comfortable sitting there to remember the Lord. Whether or not the lampstand has been removed, there's possibly one that I would be pretty confident. There's others that are very close.

What is the cause to all that? It's not the world. It's not the devil. It's the flesh within.

It's our greatest enemy. Sometimes we almost talk as if the world is our greatest enemy, or the devil is our greatest enemy. But I find out from the Bible, and I find it from the Apostle Paul, that I have resident right in here, in this body.

Romans chapter 8 links it to the unredeemed body. That's why it's dying. My soul and spirit has been given eternal life, and I am connected with God, and I can enjoy fellowship with God, but that brand-new me exists and lives in this clay temple.

Thank God for a coming day when it will be redeemed. I'm looking forward to that day. I want to, before I get too deep into my message, I want to remind you just of the future.

I want to take your mind to Philippians chapter 3, where we discover this lovely figure, fashioned like unto his glorious body. Oh, that's more emphasizing the physical change that will take place. Then we go over to 1 John, and when he shall appear, we shall be like him.

We'll see him as he is. There's the moral perfections. Dear child of God, what a tremendous day it will be, be it through the rapture or be it through resurrection from the dead if we happen to go through death as believers.

What a tremendous day it will be when soul and spirit, in my case 32 years ago, came into the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus. I have been made perfect before God the Father. As we've been hearing this morning, tremendous thing to think.

Why am I emphasizing this? There's an awful lot of young believers. Why do I still have wrong thoughts? Why is it that sin still has an alarmant? Why is it sometimes like a magnet? And then you give yourself to that, and why is it that as a genuine believer, a habit can be formed that becomes so strong you have difficulty breaking it? Here's what I want you to get a hold of. Even the structure of the Bible is fantastic.

Which epistle mentions the Spirit of God the most? We've been hearing about the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. That'd be Romans, right on brother, good for you. 32 times the Spirit of God is mentioned.

Sorry, sorry, 30 times. So now you're looking at those chapters of Romans. The last mention, I shouldn't say the last mention, but in this little section here before 6, 7, 8, the Spirit of God is mentioned in chapter 5. Then there's no mention in chapter 6, no mention in chapter 7. And then you come into chapter 8 21 times.

I mean, you'd have to be half blind to miss it. 21 times as you're going through those verses. The Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit, the Spirit, the Spirit, the Spirit.

Why the emphasis? How do you end chapter 7? Here is this redeemed man, the Apostle Paul, and he's all of a sudden discovered, when I would do good, the evil is present. The only thing that Paul, in his mind, had to go back to was was law-keeping. That is, I think if you look at chapter 7 there, you're going to discover from verses 7 of Romans 7 to verse 13, I believe that's Paul's conversion story.

He's giving you a summary of his salvation experience. Then when you come into verse number 14 to the end of the chapter, he's actually looking at life shortly after he became a Christian. And all of a sudden, sin became exceedingly sinful.

All of a sudden now there's a sensitivity that I never had before to wrong thoughts and wrong actions. And Paul reverts back to law-keeping to try to bring this destructive thing into control. Look at how he ends the chapter in verse number 24.

Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? You ever see your mother or someone wring out a rag, a wet rag? You just squeeze every ounce of water out of it you can. Paul ended up just like a rag doll trying to fight the flesh within with human determination. I can bring this thing under control.

That's why God gave us the Spirit of God. Because God never intended you and I to conquer the flesh by ourselves. Never.

I could give you quotes that I've written down. Time is of an essence here, but I actually know I should do it. Let me just check my notes here because sometimes you can't remember everything up here.

These are well-respected men. I want you to listen carefully now because I'm going to come back to my brother's Gordon's message in a minute. I want you to listen to a comment from Albert McShane, tremendous teacher of the Word of God from Ireland in heaven now.

Romans 7 is a demonstration of the helplessness of the will and of the new nature in the believer to fulfill the law. Did you get that? Even the new nature. I'll explain that in a minute.

The new person. Romans 7 describes the helplessness of the law to sanctify the believer. Get a hold of that.

I want you to think on these things. We are slow to learn the stern fact that it takes more than determination and willpower to overcome the flesh. The evil is so strong that the new nature, the new you, would never overcome evil apart from the energy of the Holy Spirit.

Now why did I make a comment tying back to brother Gordon's comment? This is why I think it's one of the hardest things today is to take time to meditate. I think this is why the devil has our lives so busy so that when we read we're reading so quick we're not allowing it to sink in and we don't have time to meditate upon it. Now I want you to get this, okay? The closer you and I get to God, the more obvious will be the sin within.

Do you get it in Isaiah chapter 6? You'd almost think, Isaiah, you're a prophet man. What are you talking about being unclean? Because that's what happened when he got into the presence of God. That uncreated light, that holiness that we sometimes think we got a grasp of and we have a little understanding of just how magnificent, holy God is.

But as we start to read his word, this is the light of God and as it starts to shine into the recesses and we start to think upon it, there's a natural struggling within of the flesh. Dear child of God, the flesh within doesn't like to be exposed. I think it's in more of our lives.

I'm speaking about myself. It's in more of our lives than we want to admit. Let's let's back up for a minute.

Let's try to pull together some of the things that we were taught this morning our brother Brandon. Enjoy the morning very much, very much. Here I am.

There's these different terms in the Bible that you can use. I'm going to use myself as an example, but you just insert where you have been saved. So I was born, obviously, 1966 and then I got saved in 1990.

So there I was, 24 years on the road to hell. There it is. I like to graph these things out so I can, I'm sort of a visual learner.

If you tied my hands I probably couldn't speak, but I'd be like that. But anyway, so here it is. When you go into the Bible, you know how that is described? In Adam.

Go, just go search out the term. There's another term that you'll find that's very similar to that. In Adam.

In the flesh. Under the control of the flesh. We were dead, dead in our sins.

There we were. Now, from the moment of conversion till right now, in Christ. What a lovely term.

Then we allow our minds to go over to Ephesians chapter 1. We have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. See, get a hold of this. I'm trying to pick up a lot of these threads.

God has given us positional truth. Truths that are complete. They're absolute.

They are unchangeable. And God wants us to take that high lofty truth and bring it down to our practical everyday living. God wants this truth, how he sees us.

How we stand totally accepted in the Lord Jesus. And he wants that truth to affect our lives. Do you know what we do? We get so occupied with how we're feeling and our bad performance and our faults and our failures that we start to judge this by this.

Well, maybe I'm not saved. I thought that the minute I got saved, I would just be absolutely holy. I would never have a wrong thought again.

I'm gonna tell him myself. I don't say this with any amount of pride, but the shame that we've been hearing about. Before God saved me, I had a very filthy mouth.

I know you find that hard to believe. I find it hard to believe. And I remember the first time I swore after being saved.

Boys, I was angry. And it just came out so quick. Like lightning fast.

And right away there was a voice. Oh, maybe you're not saved after all, Scott. Oh, see? And that just... You ever see a dog chase his tail? I just started going in a circle.

And the more I stayed in that circle, the more depressed I got. Oh, yeah. And there was something in there that was just hammering me.

You wouldn't have done that if you were really saved. Then I had to get back to the Word of God. What does the Bible teach? You see, I think in a Christian's life, I think it's a tremendous thing when we as believers, shortly after we're saved, it's a tremendous thing when you get a hold of something called eternal security.

No longer dealing with doubts. I think there's a lot of Christians that deal with doubts more than we recognize. And you try to bury them in the back of your mind.

Do you know where the doubts come from? They come from the flesh within. You see, you have to understand, dear child of God, that we are in a battle. A war zone.

I've got something in here that will not only destroy me, but it will destroy you and the assembly that I'm in. It's my greatest enemy. I go to bed with it.

I wake up with it. Ever find yourself waking up in the middle of night after a defiling, immoral dream? Not one of you put your hand up, eh? I'll put up my hand. You say, you a preacher? Keep in mind, the closer I get to God, the more this thing fights and it resists.

Do you think the Spirit of God is enjoying this? Yes. Do you think the flesh is enjoying this? No. Harmony between a husband and wife? Flesh hates it.

Harmony in the local assembly? Flesh hates it. Me enjoying my God, taking time out of the day just to get in touch with God and to learn his truth. The flesh within hates it.

It doesn't matter how long you are along in the road. Here's something that we are having a hard time getting a hold of. The longer I'm saved, the flesh never grows weaker.

Never. Dear child of God, this Bible teaches you will have it till the day you die. It will never leave.

I remember in my Christian life, I remember getting a hold of eternal security. I thought it was a tremendous thing and it brought a tremendous amount of relief to my soul. No longer did I have to keep going over, well, this is how I got saved.

I remember Murray McCandless being a tremendous help to me. He said, Scott, when you experience a doubt, forget about your story. Go to the Word of God first.

That's why I encourage young people to memorize key salvation verses. Go to the Word of God first and if you want to look at your story after that, go ahead. Get the Word of God into your mind.

This is how God sees me. God has taken me out of the Adam family. God has placed me by a divine operation into the Son, in Christ, and as a result, I've been blessed with every spiritual blessing possible.

Every. Do you understand, dear child of God, 32 years ago. I want you to contrast in your thinking.

32 years ago, the moment I got saved to right now, I'm no more saved today than I was 32 years ago, the moment I put my faith in Christ. I'm no more sanctified. I'm no more justified.

I'm no more forgiven. I'm not more redeemed today than I was 32 years ago. The minute I put my faith, this is what the Bible teaches.

There is nothing on the face of this earth that can change what God has done by the Spirit of God. Nothing. And we need to keep hammering these basic doctrinal truths because we live in a world, think of where we are today, no absolute truth.

I just gave you absolute truth, the Word of God. Something has to replace absolute truth when you do away with it. What is it? Your feelings.

You know that. That's what our young people are being taught today. Your perception of something is your truth.

According to the Bible, nothing could be further from the truth. I am thankful for the Word of God. I'm so thankful for it.

I'm thankful for the teaching that this Bible brings to us. You shall know the Son and the Son shall make you free. Dear child of God, you want to be free from doubts today? Just go to the Word of God.

When a doubt happens, when a wrong deed happens, when a wrong word happens, whatever it might be, don't sit there and analyze it and try to figure out why did it happen. The Lord Jesus gave us the perfect example of how to defeat the devil. He just quoted the Word of God.

The Lord Jesus, a sinless perfect man, could have took the devil and with his perfect intelligence he could have tied the devil into 50 knots, just arguing with him, debating him. But he didn't do that. He just quoted from the Word of God.

He just quoted the Word of God. He just quoted the Word of God. Oh, what a bomb for the disturbed heart.

The Word of God. And here is the Apostle Paul and he's finding, coming back to my own life. Then I remember after that, I remember the first time I stood up and prayed in the meeting.

I sat down and it was like everything fell apart around me. The thoughts that went through my mind. I remember the first time I got up and told my testimony.

It was the most miserable week at work I ever had in my life. Everybody seemed to be telling dirty jokes and I was there listening. Everybody was looking at something wrong and I accidentally saw it and it just seemed like one thing after what was happening.

Scott McCloud was starting to become aware of something. When I would do good, the evil, the evil is present. This Bible is given to us so that we are not surprised by the flesh and its activities.

God wants us to be wise to these things. God wants us to be in a position where when we step out to do something for Him, we should automatically expect there's going to be opposition. It'll be surprising who it comes from.

I was thinking just when I'm thinking of this message, why in the world would God ever record it? Do you not marvel at what is recorded in the Bible? I am. Think of a man like Noah. What a man of faith.

How does he leave Scripture? Naked on the ground. How did that happen? The flesh within. Something that he didn't correct with the Word of God.

You could come back to all those examples I gave. I was thinking in the in the New Testament, how is it possible that in the midst of God's assembly where Christ is, you have a man diographies. Loveth the head the preeminence.

Uncontrolled flesh. It's what it is. Think of the competition that exists.

I want to speak to my brethren, my elders today. Amazing. I couldn't believe this.

I was staying with an elder. We were having some ministry and we were chit-chatting and talking, you know, and you get quite open with people. And he says, you know, Scott, he says, I had a brother in the assembly come to me and here's what he said.

Now we all know that I'm the one with the gift in the gospel. Why is brother so-and-so up twice as much than me? I said, excuse me? That literally happened. Why does that happen? Uncontrolled flesh within.

The flesh loves to produce competition. Loves to produce envy, jealousy. Here's what you'll learn from the Bible.

Here's what I remember. Another dear preacher from Northern Ireland, Robert McPheat. I have a lot of them on my site.

I would encourage you to listen to him. He's very quaint, very, very unique. You know what he said once? He said, I always remember children of the flesh are born quick.

Do you know what I could tell you from this Bible? Normally what we first want to do when something happens, it's normally the flesh. Someone says something, they misunderstand you. You want to shoot back right away.

It's wonderful when you can have self-control. You lean on the Spirit of God. You have to understand, we live in a world, you know what they'll tell you? A victorious Christian life is getting rid of sin in your life.

No, it's not. A victorious Christian life is learning to say no by leaning on the Spirit of God. Because you'll never get rid of sin in your life.

The thought now, I'm thinking of the inward desire. That's why I read in Galatians chapter 5, in the midst of walking in the Spirit, being led of the Spirit, living in the Spirit, what do you find? You'll not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. Well, someone says, but I want that feeling to go.

I want that to go away. Oh, you'll still feel it. You'll still feel the draw to what is wrong.

You see, God didn't save us and turn us into robots. We've got a will. And here I am.

Spirit wants me to do this. There's opposition. Let's just give you some examples.

Maybe I have a little thought in my mind to go visit so-and-so. To try to encourage them. And all of a sudden, before you even have time to think, something says, oh well, it's kind of late in the day, you better not go.

Where'd that come from? Oh yeah, you better not do that because you remember a week ago, he didn't shake your hand, you better not go. Where'd that come from? That's the flesh. You ever have the opposite? When you feel like getting even with somebody? Look at y'all sitting there so holies if you never had thoughts like that.

We're all a bunch of sinners. We all are weak and plagued by these things. I'm a happily married man.

Does that mean that this eye and this heart doesn't wander? It does. You have to stop it. You say, Lord, that's not right.

You have to understand from the Bible, dear child of God, that there is a progress, a progression that moves into sin. There's the book of James. You can't blame it on God and say, well, God has tempted me.

No, no, no, no. He says first there's that lust. There it is.

Sin hasn't been committed yet. Every man is tempted when he's drawn away from his own lust and enticed. It's getting stronger.

You can still turn back. Then, when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin. And I love Wuss's translation, the idea of bait.

And there's that little fish, and he's in the protective cove, and all of a sudden right by him goes a little worm, but he doesn't see the hook. He starts going, well, you can turn back, you can turn back. Can't now.

So I ask myself, am I prepared to spend time in this book to find out what I am capable of doing? It's a hard sight. We don't like it. You ever heard people do this when they hear about so-and-so, they got away from the Lord? Oh, I would never do that.

You're not reading your Bible. You're not. Recently, hearing of individuals used to be among us.

I'm not even going to tell you where it landed. Just absolutely devastating. Devastating.

Brother Murray mentioned this to me this morning. He said, referring to the children of Israel, he was reading it, how that their carcasses fell in the wilderness. You know, brothers and sisters, that's very real.

I can get so taken up with form. I look pretty good to you. I'm acting pretty.

The flesh within loves to educate itself and culture itself and refine it, and it tries to pretty it up, but underneath it's stinking, rotten, sin is what it is. And that's why when you come to 1st John, what do you read there? If we confess our sin, and even John is including himself in that. If we confess our sin, he's faithful.

Here's what the flesh loves. Don't enter into that and enjoy it. Oh, you confessed your sin once, you should do it again.

You should beat yourself a little bit longer. Maybe if you do it a thousand times, almost show repentance. Well, God never heard you the last 999 times.

He heard you the first time. We can enjoy that. I can have that communion restored instantaneously, unlike the Old Testament where they had to be out of the camp for seven days or a whole day or whatever it might be.

Dear child of God, it's wonderful what we have in Christ. That's why I tried to emphasize in chapter 2 of 1st John, He, He is our propitiation. Here's something else.

I'll leave you with this and then I'll sit down. Actually, let's turn there. Ephesians chapter 1. I want you to see this with your own eyes.

If this wasn't in the Bible, I just wouldn't believe it, but I'm thankful that it is. Because I'm in Christ, God is not looking at me. He's looking at His Son.

That's why I'm accepted. Just look at this for a minute. Ephesians chapter 1. This is a lovely, lovely, of course I quote it you already, verse number 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.

Of course, as we go down a little further, verse 6, this is one of those blessings. To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accept it in the Beloved. Did you get that? God has done something with my relationship with Christ and He's made me accept it in the Beloved.

You know, in our English Bible, beloved, that sounds like a noun, sounds like a title. But it's not. It's actually a verb.

Beloved. It's an action word. The Beloved One.

The One that is actively being loved by the God of heaven. So, I don't stand here before you accepting before God because 2,000 years ago Christ died for my sins. That is true as well.

It's where Jesus Christ is and who He is. Not only the work that He, what has given power to His work, it's who He is. And right at this very moment, the Father looks at His Son, which is at His side.

Resurrected, glorified. Scott McCloud is in Him. I stand accepted.

You find me at the point in history when the Father will stop loving the Eternal Son and that's when I cease to be accepted. Now, you know that's an eternal truth. The love of the Father existed before there was an earth.

Before there was a universe. I'm with my brethren this morning. These are not little fish we're talking about.

These are the big things. This is, see what I'm trying to do? We're taking positional truth and we're bringing it down into our circumstances, into our failings, into the misery that sin brings into our lives, into everything. And we can live in harmony with our God.

And He doesn't have one eye on, oh remember what you did. I'll have to tell you this before I sit down. I find this is encouraging.

If all you had was the Old Testament, and it's gonna be hard for you to do this, but just limit yourself to the Old Testament. Did Abraham offer up his son, Isaac? If all you had was the Old Testament now. We say, no, no, he didn't.

Because he almost offered them up. What do you find when you read Hebrews and James? The Bible says he offered up his son. Oh, you say now, just a minute now.

Some of these bright bulbs out there will say, oh, there's contradiction in the Bible. Listen, God rewarded Abraham on the intent of his heart, not on the actions. The intent.

And Abraham intended to offer up that boy. And God rewarded him as if he did it. You know what happens to us sometimes? We have great intentions.

And due to things that are beyond our control, we can't do them. What does the flesh say? Get occupied with your failure. You didn't do it.

You know what the Bible says? God has rewarded you on your intention. So, dear child of God, these things are tremendous. God wants us to be a joyful, happy people enjoying his word.

Thank you.