Lessons

The lesson on March 29, 2009 covers Romans 7:15-18 and continues the Romans Study audio series with this eighth lesson. There is a warfare waging and we are right in the middle of it. The scripture reading today was a tongue twister but it shows the struggle that Paul was going through in this warfare. God has given us the solution to the battle and we find it in the bible. All we have to do is yield ourselves to the word of God and appropriate in our lives and we win the battle! Romans is a great doctrinal book, so much so that the first year law school students at Harvard used to read it because of the of the logical treatise on Christianity. When you become saved, you are still as rotten as your were before but now you can start growing the new nature instead of feeding the flesh. Your old nature is still with you and the battle begins when you are saved. David told us in Psalms 51 that God is looking for a broken spirit and contrite heart to restore the fellowship with Him. Paul is showing this struggle with the old nature in Romans 7:15 “For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.” Every Christian has this battle for there is a war against the world, the flesh, and the devil. Jesus talked about the warfare with the world in John 15:18-19 “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” Further, Jesus said He has overcome the world in John 16:33 “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” The war with the flesh is what Paul is wrestling with in Romans 7:18 but that war has been won as well because of what Christ did. The other battle we participate in is with the devil. Satan has been said the be the prince of the power of the air in this world and that’s why Paul tells us in Ephesians to put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.