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Rom 13,1-7

(73d) Authority >> Respect Positions Of Authority >> In the Church – Paul is telling us to respect authority in the world, and let it do what it wants and not get involved. When a Christian gets involved in secular issues, he invariably puts himself in a no-win situation. For example, the reason capital punishment is an issue is that the Old Testament commanded us not to kill, while the New Testament commands us to love and forgive our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Therefore, how can Christians approach such a contradictory issue? However, God has given authority to the world to exact judgment upon those who break His laws, giving Moses authority to enforce capital punishment on violators of his law, and passed that authority to the leaders of Israel. Therefore, capital punishment is an issue of the state and not of the Church, and that is the case with every secular issue of government. Rather, we are to mind the issues of the Church.

(87k) Thy kingdom come >> Obedience >> Obey authorities – We should not listen to tyrannical governments such as Hitler’s Germany, anymore than an individual should listen to someone telling him to commit murder, steal or vandalize property. Most governments have a nucleus of decency and a sense of righteousness, which incorporates a semblance of God’s Law, otherwise they could not sustain their country for long, and with the individual it works the same way. Therefore, to the degree that governments and individuals incorporate the attributes of God is the degree to which we should obey them.

(191j) Die to self (Process of substitution) >> Result of putting off the old man >> Set apart >> Set apart from the world

Rom 13,1-6

(72d) Authority >> Transferring authority >> Men delegate authority in their position – We have reason to fear God, country and government, because if we do evil, their judicial powers will punish us. It’s the uncivilized governments where corruption is a way of life, where sinners have less to fear. It says that a benevolent government maintains a rule of law and does not bear the sword for nothing, being a minister of God. We know that the Church is not called to kill anybody, but Paul is advocating that governments should assume this role in society as an avenger against those who do evil. He mentioned the sword, which is not a weapon that injures or maims but kills. Jail might be the right sentence in many cases, but in capital crimes where somebody has committed murder, rape, etc., Paul is saying they have forfeited their right to live. Nevertheless, the world has this ongoing debate whether capital punishment should exist in an age of grace. God ordains capital punishment for governments, but He has not ordain the Church to get involved in such matters.

Rom 13,1-5

(51a) Judgment >> World & Church >> Warning of wrath >> Consequences of sin – Most people who are against the use of capital punishment as a punitive measure say it is not an effective deterrent against crime, essentially calling God an idiot who instituted it (Deut 13,6-11). Although the Old Testament insists that it would have worked as an effective deterrent had Israel consistently used it, being a deterrent is merely a byproduct of the real reason God instituted capital punishment. The bigger reason for capital punishment is to remove the offender from the earth. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone deserves to live. There are many who would argue that point, until a family member is murdered. Think of all the tyrants speckled throughout history who have perpetrated mass genocide; do they have a right to live? Where do we draw the line? (Read Leviticus chapter 20.) There are some people who have forfeited their right to live by some of the things they have done. "Life for life" is what the Old Testament teaches, but this is the new covenant, people say, so capital punishment has no place in the world anymore. The working mechanism in this debate is the fact that governments in charge of maintaining order and justice have no connection with the Church. Remember what our founding fathers said? There should be separation between Church and state (Thomas Jefferson); they were right about this. To think that governing authorities are somehow an offshoot of the Church is a huge error in our thinking. In fact, it would be fair to say that those who don't believe in capital punishment also don't believe the Church should be set apart from the world (sanctification).

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Rom 13,1-4

(7i) Responsibility >> Defend God’s cause >> Protecting your freedom – Protect your freedom by obeying the law, or the governing authorities will rightly take your freedom from you. So long as the governing authorities are passing laws to protect the freedom of the people it serves, obeying their authority is equivalent to obeying God’s authority.

(11d) Servant >> The law is our standard of conduct – Moses taught Israel to do to others as was done to them, “an eye for an eye and tooth for tooth.” The grace of God is meant for the Church, while governments implement the Law of Moses. For example, if someone maliciously put out somebody's eye, the victim should not seek revenge, but the government should track down the assailant and enforce the letter of the law against him.

(30c) Gift of God >> God knows our needs >> He is the source of our obedience

(40d) Judgment >> Jesus judges the world through His own death – The loyalty of the Church is to Christ through faith and love, while the government’s loyalty is to justice by the sword, exercising its authority against lawbreakers and avenging its citizens. This makes a distinction between Church and state. When we look at the thousand year reign of Christ that is coming, the embodiment of grace and mercy will rule the nations with a rod of iron, implying that His office will enforce old covenant laws. He will not be soft on sin, suggesting the world has had so many problems throughout the ages from a lack of righteous judgment. That is, during the millennium Christ will thoroughly root out all forms of corruption that try to affix itself to His government, and these attitudes and values will trickle-down to the people, and they will learn to fear God. The whole purpose of the millennium is to show people how to live and prove to mankind how man could have lived throughout the millennia. In order to maintain peace, a rule of law must be in place and enforced without partiality. Therefore, capital punishment will be enforced during the millennium, and if it exists then, it should exist now.

(51g) Judgment >> Judging the Church with the world >> No partiality between saved and unsaved

(181a) Works of the devil >> Practicing witchcraft >> Rebellion >> Rebelling against God >> Rebelling against the authority of God – The Apostle Paul was a very learned man regarding the Old Testament. He knew it inside out, being also familiar with his countrymen centuries earlier who were captured by the Babylonians and deported to Babylon. The Assyrians treated Israel reasonably well if they did what they were told, but if they refused to comply, the Israelites were chastised. God very sternly warned them many times through His prophets not to resist them, because God had sent the Babylonians as a judgment against them. Being no longer able to take care of themselves, God sent Babylon to take care of Israel after they had become so dysfunctional that their own country was imploding from corruption. 

(245j) Kingdom of God >> Spirit realm imposed on the natural realm >> Literal manifestations >> Manifestation of God’s righteous judgment >> Manifestation of God’s authority – The Church has its priorities and doctrines stemming from the new covenant while secular governments have their policies and laws stemming from the old covenant. These are two completely different kingdoms: the world and the Church; to compare them is like comparing apples to oranges, and to say that the world should not practice capital punishment because we are living in an age of grace is equally erroneous. Governing authorities have no place in matters of the Church; likewise, the Church has no place in matters of the government, and for this reason there is division between Church and state. The office of governor is a secular authority, not a Christian office, hence the new covenant standards have no application there, though the people in those offices need to believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins. So in a sense, governing officials lead a double life; they go to work and rule from an old covenant stance, and then come home and retain their faith in Christ. The Ten Commandments are still in force in the world while the new covenant reigns in the Church, distinguishing us from them. Therefore, the Church demanding that capital punishment be abolished is like telling a complete stranger how he ought to live.

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Rom 13-3,4

(48f) Judgment >> Levels of judgment >> Judged according to your deeds >> In this life

(69j) Authority >> Righteous judgment (Outcome of Discernment) >> Passing judgment by the authority of God

(127m) Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >> Goodness >> Rewards for doing good >> Clear conscience is the reward for doing good – Paul is speaking about the best-case scenario where we have a righteous government and a punished evil and a suitable reward for doing good, but that is not always the case. The more corrupt a government, the less they understand what is good and evil, and the less chance we have of being rewarded for doing good, and evil goes unpunished. Following Paul’s thought of a righteous government that knows the difference between good and evil, we should have no fear of authority who follow Jesus, but if we do evil, we should be afraid, “for it does not bear the sword for nothing.” The sword was the equivalent of a gun in ancient times; it was a deadly weapon. They used the sword to kill; that’s called Capital Punishment, and so Paul advocated capital punishment, but today in our corrupt society, capital punishment has become an issue. There is an attempt to merge church and state, saying there is no occasion to kill. For the citizens of a country that is true, but for the government of that country, they have authority from God to administer capital punishment. This proves the separation of church and state as a necessity for justice to reign in the land. The Church says, “love your enemies” and “do not kill”, while those who condemn capital punishment say, ‘no one, including any government official, has the right to take a life,’ as though God did not give authority to governments; in fact, they believe there is no God. On the contrary, the state operates according to the old covenant, which we know advocated capital punishment, whereas the Church operates according to the new covenant, and to merge these is to muddy the waters of both. People who condemn capital punishment probably are not Christians, and if they are, they don’t understand the tenets of their own faith, for their stance is not based on Scripture but on emotion. They hold to a form of godliness but have denied its power (2Tim 3-5). Godliness is based on the truth, but they don’t care about the truth; they only care how they feel, and how they feel determines what they think, so their precepts are based on emotion. They belong to a list of characteristics in the Bible, a very gruesome list. They are, “lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, not lovers of good, traitors, headstrong, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2Tim 2,2-4). Those who condemn capital punishment usually advocate abortion; thus they flaunt their hypocrisy as though it were their flag, and Paul said that we should avoid such people. Show me a Christian who condemns capital punishment, and I will show you a false brother, who is not actually a follower of Jesus, who is not a student of God’s word or a disciple of prayer, rather a nominal Christian at best, not understanding the intent of the Scriptures or the power of God to delegate authority.

(218d) Sovereignty >> God overrides the will of man >> God’s will over man >> Reaping the harvest >> We choose our actions, not their consequences >> God controls the consequences of our actions

(227b) Kingdom of God >> Illustrating the kingdom >> Rewards of heaven >> God rewards us for obeying Him >> Rewarded for doing good – God has a day of judgment prepared at the end of time, when God will judge the world in righteousness, but before that He has set-up human courts that judge man shortly after the crime was committed (hopefully). God gave us the Law, and since then whatever lag time between the crime and its punishment, the more willingness of criminals to commit their crimes, in part because of their shortsightedness. The Law of God and the laws of man correlate with each other, so that the court system is doing the will of God, though they are a secular institution. They understand that law must rule a nation, or anarchy will reign in its place, resulting in the deterioration of civilization. God showed His wisdom from the beginning; man is merely emulating His wisdom in the Law. The benefit of old covenant Law was the promise of peace and prosperity (Deuteronomy chapter 28), whereas the benefit of the new covenant is the Spirit who dwells in us, which is like the Law dwelling in us, instead of a set of mandates written on paper. The Spirit tells us how we’re doing and blesses us with His righteousness and keeps us on course with His will. Therefore, the Law is unnecessary to the Christian. The Law is like a giant billboard along the road, reminding us of sin, whereas the Spirit is like a built-in tour guide, reminding us of His righteousness, who speaks in us at every turn so we don’t get lost, and when we finally arrive at our destination, we are in a place where God can use us.

Rom 13-3

(94g) Thy kingdom come >> God’s perspective >> His perspective on the sovereignty of God

Rom 13-5,6

(155b) Witness >> Validity of the believer >> Witness of the believer >> Conscience >> Having a good conscience >> Conscience bears witness of our good behavior – We should be in subjection to the governing authorities for conscience sake; we are to fear the government, not to sin or violate its laws. It is impartial and will sentence us to whatever punishment it thinks we deserve. We live under the new covenant and obey the Holy Spirit through our conscience and not through the law. An evil conscience disobeys the law and seeks its own way, but maintaining a clear conscience, we obey Christ and pay our taxes.

Rom 13,6-8

(119g) Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >> Freedom >> Debt free – Paul equated paying taxes with loving the brethren, because they both have to do with debt. We are indebted to the state to pay our taxes, and we are indebted to our brother to love him. Just as the state places a burden on us to pay taxes, so God has placed a burden on us to love the brethren. When we pay our taxes, we become debt-free, until next year when taxes come due again; and when we love the brethren, we become debt free. When somebody is in need and we have the world’s goods and the opportunity to give to our brother what is necessary for his body, when we give, we become debt free. The moment we stop paying our taxes we are no longer free, and the moment we shirk the yoke of love that God has placed on us, we fall under bondage to an evil conscience and prove we don’t love God. This gives rise to rebellion, eroding our faith, and if we continue in this way, we will eventually consider ourselves to have believed in fairytales. The trip from faith to unbelief is a short one. We look for ways to serve God and opportunities to practice love, and in this way we have nothing to fear, for we are free to do His will in a relationship with the Holy Spirit, and we have fellowship with Him as a slave.

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Rom 13,8-14

(6b) Responsibility >> Advocate God’s cause >> Jesus’ yoke of love

(41j) Judgment >> Satan destroyed >> Be like Jesus >> Be godly toward one another

Rom 13,8-10

(42g) Judgment >> Satan destroyed >> Transformation >> Conform to the Love of Christ – Paul is describing both sides of the same coin; if we love our neighbor, we will not commit murder or adultery, etc.

(74e) Thy kingdom come >> Heart is man’s central value system >> Where man interprets worth – The law is about love. Lawyers often misinterpret the law on purpose in effort to win cases, a form of corruption, and since the laws of God are definitively stated, there is no need for interpretation; hence, to interpret them is to misinterpret them. This was Israel’s fault: they interpreted, thus misinterpreted the law to mean something other than love, deviating from its original intent so that obedience no longer produced the desired effect. When we look at the way the Jews treated Paul, wanting to kill him who had committed no crime against God or man, they virtually emulated the opposite of the law, which they claimed to follow. See also: Comparing Law to Spirit; 90h / Law is our tutor to lead us to Christ; Act 16-13; 150a

(90h) Thy kingdom come >> Keeping the law >> Righteousness of the law >> We must keep the law because it is righteous – In summary of the Law, when it says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength,” the word “love” was mentioned in regard to loving God, and the commandments pertained to how we should treat our fellow man, so Paul said that to love our neighbor was to fulfill the law. Therefore, fulfilling the law has translation to our fellow man, for Jesus taught that we love God by loving one another. That is, if we love our neighbor we will not commit adultery or steal from him or covet his things, and certainly we will not murder him. However, note that the first commandment pertains to worshipping idols, having translation to loving God. See also: Comparing Law to Spirit; 234k / Idolatry; Rom 13,12-14; 190e /

(234k) Kingdom of God >> Pursuing the kingdom >> Invest in the kingdom >> Be a blessing >> Be a blessing and love your brother – In exodus chapter 20, where the law was first annunciated, it doesn’t say we should love God; that was written later in Deuteronomy 6-5, and the same is true about the statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” located among the chapters regarding the sundry laws of ancient Jewish tradition (Leviticus 19-18), summarizing the majority of the Bible, and it should be a summary of our lives. Love is not an action; rather, it is something we do in place of doing evil. It is like this: if we go to New York, then we won’t go to Los Angeles; so if we walk in love, then we won’t violate the law. The fruit of the Spirit and the works of the law from a distance seem to resemble each other; but when we look a little closer, their differences begin to emerge. For one thing the fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5,16-25) are not actions. We can be patient, but it isn’t expressed as an action, but refers to something we don’t do during frustrating circumstances. That is, the only way to demonstrate patience is to not get angry. Compare that with the law that dictates certain behaviors, most of them telling us what not to do. Another example is “Kindness”. It is the fruit that comes closest to an action, but when we look at all the other fruits and see that they more resemble states of being, it leads us to understand that acts of kindness emanate from a spiritual state. God doesn’t want us to do acts of kindness; he wants us to be kind, so that everything we do is graced with kindness. Everybody does acts of kindness on occasion, but not everybody is kind. See also: Comparing Law to Spirit; Rom 13-8,9; 151f

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Rom 13-8,9

(151f) Witness >> Validity of the Father >> New Testament bears witness of the Old >> The law – Just about any Christian today would tell us that the law is no longer in effect; in fact, Paul was the one who put that thought in our heads in the first place by the many passages in Romans and Galatians, such as Rom 6-14, “For you are not under law but under grace.” When he spoke against the law, he was partially referring to the Jewish use of it. They had invented their own traditions and put them in place of the Law of Moses and told the people that they were obligated to follow them, “Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men” (Mat 15-9). Another thing Paul was saying in denouncing the law was that we don’t use the law to fulfill it; instead, we use the Spirit of God, but the fact that we use the Holy Spirit to fulfill the law proves that the law is still in effect. In fact, when we think about the commandments, it is obvious they will never expire. Even in heaven it will be wrong to steal, but no one steals in heaven, so the law is irrelevant there. The same is true in this life with Christians, we don’t steal, but if we do, then the law will judge us along with the world. Therefore, the law is only relevant to those who are in violation of it, and that was Paul’s point; it remains in effect for those who will not walk by the Spirit. See also: Comparing Law to Spirit; 74e

Rom 13-10

(1b) Responsibility >> Avoid offending God/man >> follow the golden rule – There is not a sin or an act of righteousness that is not covered by the law. The purpose of the law was a standard, so people didn’t make up their own ideas about what was good and evil. The whole law is summarized by two commandments: you shall love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself (Mat 22,37-39). Whatever we do to our neighbor whether good or evil, the law addresses it. What is ironic is that the original wording of the law (in Exodus chapter twenty) does not mention this phrase: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” taken from an obscure verse in the book of Leviticus (Lev 19-18). This statement is based on the assumption that no one obeys the law who gnaws his tongue and gashes himself with stones; to him the law reads that he can mistreat his neighbor as he mistreats himself. If a masochist loved his neighbor as himself, he could even throw rocks at him, so Jesus amended the law to the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and that goes for the crazy person. Throw a rock at him and he probably wouldn’t like it.

Rom 13-11

(196j) Denying Christ >> Man exercises his will against God >> Spiritual laziness >> Replacing God’s standard of excellence with yours >> Sleeping in the spirit – Paul was talking about love when he said, “Do this.” Then he said, “knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep.” The Romans we sleeping in the Spirit, and Paul tried to wake them from their spiritual slumber. This happened in the First Century; imagine how asleep we are today in the last century after 2000 years have elapsed. Perhaps we can say that we slept all night, and now morning is coming and we are beginning to awake. Maybe it is just a natural occurrence that we should waken in these last days as the sun rises in our hearts. As Paul said to the Church two millennia ago, so he says to us, that salvation is nearer than when we first believed. How much closer is His second coming to us? God wants to save us in this life for the sake of the life to come, and in this case he was talking about salvation at the return of Christ. Salvation can be defined in many ways, such as going to heaven, or receiving our resurrected bodies, or participating in Christ's return, yet all these things happen at the same time, though we don’t know the day or the hour, though we do know it is a moment of salvation at the resurrection of the righteous. Therefore, the First Resurrection is the best definition of salvation, and at that time the Rapture will occur of those who are alive and remain. That is all part of what Paul meant by salvation. The worst thing that could happen to anybody is to be asleep when Jesus comes. According to the parable of the Ten Virgins both the wise and the foolish were asleep and will awaken at the First Trumpet. This means that the Church overall is asleep, everyone, both the faithful and the unfaithful are asleep when Jesus comes. That is given. We can remain diligent all we want, but when that day comes and revival begins, there will be a spiritual awakening that will make our greatest moment in the Lord seem like we were asleep. Man in his effort to serve God in sinful flesh apart from Christ through faith, the only thing he can really accomplish is a good night sleep.

(237d) Kingdom of God >> Pursuing the kingdom >> Transferring the kingdom >> The Church is transferred to the kingdom >> The rapture >> Receiving the kingdom in God’s time – The usage of Paul’s word “salvation” refers to the second coming of Christ; that time is nearer now than when we first believed, and if we first believed in hope of His second coming, how much more do we hope for His imminent return?

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Rom 13,12-14

(2o) Responsibility >> Avoid offending God >> Get out of His way >> Quit sinning

(60c) Paradox >> Two implied meanings >> My clear conscience ministers to Christ / The way to a clear conscience – God doesn’t rate the level of violation to our conscience. It is either violated or it isn’t (Rom 14,1-23). The last bit of sin of which we repent can do wonders for our ministry.

(93k) Thy kingdom come >> Following Jesus as He lights the way – If there are deeds of darkness, then there are also deeds of light, our armor. We do the will of God to protect ourselves from darkness. We don’t go to war with a mental frame of mind only, any more than a police officer starts his day without first putting on his bulletproof vest. When Paul said to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, he was not talking about believing a little harder, but wearing our faith externally on our works. If we are having a hard time believing in God, we should recommit ourselves to the Scriptures and listen for the Holy Spirit in prayer to tell us His will. Whatever we do through His instruction will increase our faith, and we will essentially be putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. So the armor of light refers to spiritually elicited deeds that manifest in the natural realm. We do things that God has ordained for us. If we busy ourselves with fulfilling our calling from God, it will distract us from the temptations of sin and keep our hearts trained on Him. It is when we get distracted from the will of God and begin meditating on sin that we lose touch with His inspiration; and if we continue down that road, we will lose touch with God.

(112f) Thy kingdom come >> Faith >> Light >> Obeying the truth in broad daylight >> Church’s deeds in the light – This isn’t the first time Paul talked about wearing spiritual armor to protect ourselves from the wiles of the devil and from the temptations of our flesh. In Eph 6,10-20 he elaborated on the fact that the greatest enemy of the Christian is the deeds of darkness. Obviously, the "deeds of darkness" pertain to sin. Light and darkness are very familiar concepts, reminded of them day and night. How is light in reference to God? In the comic strips when someone has a good idea, the cartoonist draws a light bulb above his head. Light therefore refers to God’s truth, specifically the truth that God reveals to us by the Spirit. The Scriptures are not considered light until God reveals them to us, and darkness has the opposite meaning; it robs us of our enlightenment. Many a Christian once believed in Jesus and had a revelation of the Scriptures and now when they read the Bible, the words seem pale and lifeless. This is why we are called to protect our faith by walking in the light.

(113g) Thy kingdom come >> Faith >> The anointing >> Heaven’s clothes >> Garments of holiness – Jesus said in Jn 14-16,17, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” Jesus said that the Spirit of God would personally abide in us, which is what it means to be born again, but Paul was talking about putting Jesus on our extremities. This spiritual experience is intended to manifest the Lord Jesus in the natural realm, reminiscent of Mat 13-33, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three pecks of meal, until it was all leavened.” She awoke the next morning to a lump of dough that was leavened from the inside-out. Starting from the day of our spiritual birth, God over the course of our lives works on us to manifest the Holy Spirit whom He placed in us, until the outside resembles the inside. When Paul talks about our outer man, he is referring to the anointing. This anointing gives us the ability to manifest the Kingdom of God in the natural realm through the members of our bodies. Thus, putting on the Lord Jesus Christ can be seen as obeying the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. The anointing is celebrated in baptism, where we submerge into the water, symbolizing dying to self, and the ceremony has us returning from the water to enjoy a new life in the Spirit.

(159i) Works of the devil >> Essential characteristics >> Counterfeit God >> Counterfeit anointing >> Drunkenness >> Having a party spirit

(167a) Works of the devil >> Manifestations of the devil >> Carnality/Secularism (mindset of the world) >> The carnal mind is set on the flesh >> Lust of the fleshly mind

(187c) Die to self (Process of substitution) >> Separation from the old man >> Die to the flesh >> Ministry of dying to self >> Die to self to minister to people >> die to self to help the weak – The virility of our ministry is contingent on the extent of our repentance. When we first got saved we stopped practicing the sins that didn’t really matter to us, but there were other sins that were harder to break, sometimes taking years, and there were still others that we stuffed in our back pocket, not telling anyone and even trying to hide them from God, saying in our hearts that someday we would repent of them, though not really knowing how. These sins are most difficult to break, and we sometimes fight them our whole Christian lives, but if we find the faith to repent, it will cause our ministry to blossom.

(190e) Die to self (Process of substitution) >> Separation from the old man >> Circumcision >> Undressing >> Take off your sins – Circumcision is the removal of the foreskin representing sin that surrounds the penis, suggesting that male sexual lust is the basis of all sin, but we could also make a case for pride being the basis of all sin, and we could say the same for greed. Therefore, greed, lust and pride have equal weight in the sinful nature of man (1Jn 2-16). Sin is something we think we understand but in fact we don’t, alluding to the mystery of lawlessness. The same can be said about overcoming sin when our temptations no longer overpower us, referring to the mystery of godliness. The bottom line of sin is that it flagrantly defies God’s authority. All sin makes the statement to God that we ought to be god instead of Him; even the most innocent of sins carries this message. That is, all sins are forms of idolatry, the worship of other gods, and all idolatry is self-worship. Figuratively, we place an idol before our eyes and bow our knee to it. Every idol acts as a mirror, and behind the mirror hides a demon. We look in the mirror and see our own reflection and bow to it, but inadvertently, we are worshipping demons (1Cor 10-20), but we are unaware of it, suggesting that self-deception and idolatry come as a package deal. See also: Idolatry; Rom 13-14; 141j

(250i) Priorities >> God’s prerequisites >> Lists >> List of traits that can be found in man >> List of deeds of the body

Rom 13-12

(50c) Judgment >> God judges the world >> These are the last days

(84a) Thy kingdom come >> Be on the alert >> Remain on duty >> Stay awake

(184a) Works of the devil >> The origin of lawlessness >> Darkness >> Hiding behind your own imagination >> Hiding behind a false partition – People pass over these verses without thinking much about them, but this is actually a very dire warning; darkness replaces light, and light replaces darkness. Christians cannot dabble in the deeds of the flesh for long without it eroding their faith, and eventually it will die, just like when we turn off the light and darkness shrouds our vision. The darkness has blinded our eyes. Darkness will continue eroding our faith until we can no longer believe in God, and our hope of eternal life will disappear. We might still believe that a handful of biblical doctrines are factual, yet the truth of them are no longer alive in our hearts, unless we repent, but some people wait too long, until repentance is no longer an option. How serious a goal is heaven to us? Do we want it enough to repent of our sins and believe to the end? Faith takes sacrifice, but we can also sacrifice the truth; it is all in what we want.

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Rom 13-13,14

(158e) Works of the devil >> Essential characteristics >> Divide and conquer >> Strife >> Bitterness

(162g) Works of the devil >> Being a slave to the devil (Addictions) >> Bondage >> Addicted to sin >> Being a slave to the sinful nature – We like to hold onto pet sins as a way of venting our frustrations, and our frustrations are partly the result of being spiritually in bondage, making it a circular problem. Repentance from all forms of sin is the most difficult thing a Christian will ever do. The world refuses to get saved simply because most people consider living without their favorite sins as virtually inconceivable, showing sin to be like a drug, an addiction. People are addicted even to the viewpoint of secularism, the perspective that God, if He exists at all (as they say), lives outside of man’s world where He belongs, outside the universe itself.

(168b) Works of the devil >> Manifestations of the devil >> Do not conform to the world >> Do not conform to the world’s version of love

(21g) Premeditated Sin (Key verse)

(21l) Sin >> Premeditated sin >> Making no provisions for the flesh – Paul said in 2Cor 6-1, “Working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain.” This concept of making no provision for the flesh can be insidious in that we so easily deceive ourselves. To avoid making provisions for the flesh is harder than it sounds. We can tell ourselves that what we are doing is not for the purpose of committing sin, when in fact that is exactly what we are intending to do. Making provisions is in reference to making plans, such as when we go on vacation and pack our bags, we include some things and not others, whatever we predict we’ll need for the trip. There are some things we put in our suitcase that maybe we shouldn’t, because we know how we intend to use them. It is the simple act of including it that the decision has already been made to commit sin. It is almost impossible to avoid the sin now that we packed the offending article, and so simply excluding it from the suitcase is the first step in resisting temptation. We cannot work against God and expect Him to work in us.

(22f) Sin >> Lust (craving pleasure) >> Fleshly desire

(43c) Judgment >> Satan destroyed >> Conform to the character of Jesus’ image

(62k) Paradox >> Anomalies >> Being clever >> Making no provisions for the flesh

(75h) Thy kingdom come >> Motives >> Being manipulative >> Controlling people in the dark >> Through hidden motives

(84c) Thy kingdom come >> Be on the alert >> Be faithful until Jesus comes – Paul had reason to think Jesus would return in his lifetime, and He believed this two thousand years ago. Of all the generations after him who believed and hoped in Jesus’ second coming, we have the better reason than all of them to believe that Jesus will return in our lifetime, in that every passing minute is another reason to believe in the imminency of His return. As a result, we are to put on the armor of light. Wearing the word of God means applying it to the members of our bodies. To know the Scriptures is good, but to obey them is better.

(141j) Witness >> Validity of Jesus Christ >> Old Testament bears witness to the new >> Old Testament is for our instruction >> It reflects the nature of man in the law – When we repent of sin, the goal is to repent of it completely, but many times we leave things undone, like Israel. King David when he stood on his rooftop, looked over his empire and marveled at his accomplishments, obviously with pride in his heart. He saw Bathsheba and fell to the temptation of this bathing beauty. David made provisions for the flesh in his inflated ego that he allowed to outrun him, but he didn’t stop there. After he learned that he made her pregnant, Uriah would have known it couldn't be his child, so David had him killed in battle. Uriah the Hittite was a mighty man of valor attaining to the "thirty" (1Chron 11,25-47) and David's loyal friend. Instead of David personally running him through with a sword, he sent Uriah to the front line where he would most likely be killed, so David could blame his demise on the war, but God saw the whole episode transpire from the vantage point of David’s heart. His Son, Solomon, also made provisions for the flesh, marrying pharaoh’s pagan daughter, which was against the laws of Moses, but he did it anyway, which was not very wise, condoning the sin of miscegenation in the eyes of all Israel. These foreign wives as God had predicted led Israel to worship other gods of the surrounding nations. What we do to provide for the flesh in making opportunities for sin is very difficult to control. Israel could never do it, except during the days of Moses, and only then because Moses made them tow the line (Ps 32-9), but after Moses died sin quickly crept back into the ways of Israel and remained with them throughout their generations to this day (Deuteronomy 31,16-18). See also: Idolatry; Rom 13,8-10; 90h

(182c) Works of the devil >> The origin of lawlessness >> Deception >> Self deception >> Lying to yourself – We as Christian don’t provide for our sinful nature overtly because we would be rightly ashamed of ourselves, so we do it incognito like Jesus taught how to give, “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” (Mat 6-3). Jesus told us that this is how the mind is able to think, telling us to give alms this way to avoid tallying-up our giving and then bragging about it or using it to seek favor with God. In other words, we are to partition our mind for good cause. However, we can use this just as well for evil. We have all taken the Lord’s advice and used this mechanism to partition our left lobe from knowing what our right lobe is thinking in the process of making provisions for the flesh, so when temptation comes and everything is prepared to commit sin, we later wonder how it happened. What some people are capable of doing with this mental process is the stuff of horror movies. We can manipulate our conscience it until it can no longer convicts us of sin but convicts us of a set of rules that we have invented to replace God’s law.

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