|
"The
Old Man Is Dead"
Romans 6:3-14
Page
2
On
January 1st 1863 Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation
Proclamation which declared free all the slaves in the cessation
of southern states. As
a result the south lost its source of slave soldiers, and
then nearly 180,000 former slaves joined the Union Army.
[Special note here.
I'm a serious history buff.
General Lee had been working on getting every slave
who served in the Confederate Army his freedom. If the Confederate States of America had won,
from what I am beginning to learn, they would have ended slavery
all on their own sooner or later.
Watch "Gods and Generals".
But God himself did not want to see this nation of
ours divided into two parts. America, the United States of America, has always
been a force for good and not evil in major conflicts. When we conquer a nation, it is to set it free
from tyranny, and we never remain as an occupying force, but
only as a guarantor of that nation's new won freedom.
That's the big picture.
I know it's muddied by evil dollar diplomacy, which
also funds gun runners who support evil wars. [Rent and watch
"Lord of War" staring Nicholas Gage.] But America stopped
an evil empire, Nazi Germany and Tojo's Imperial Japan from
becoming rulers of the world.
Had the South been allowed to free the slaves on their
own time schedule, there would have been little of the bitterness
of loosing the war which fueled 100 years of segregation in
the South which held the Blacks down. In the North dollar diplomacy toward the South
took over after Lincoln's assassination, often called the
era of the "Carpet Baggers".
History is not as clear cut or well understood when
you get down to the fine points. But the big picture was that we had to remain
a single major nation and power in order to be a force for
good and help hold evil at bay.
WWIII will be different, evil will win out, even against
our fine nation which is now succumbing to evil within its
midst at all levels. Jesus
will have to return to put an end to WWIII and save what's
left of humanity. Just some thoughts about the North and South.
And btw, my family had a Major-General in the Union
Army. The Emancipation
Proclamation was written in 1862, and not delivered in a speech
by President Lincoln until 1963, when the Confederate Army
was still a powerful force to be reckoned with.
So the slaves in the Confederate States were by no
means freed by a speech given by a President in the Northern
states. Slightly wrong
historic event to use as an analogy.] But even though the slaves of the Confederate
States were freed, several problems existed, and one of the
problems that existed was that of ignorance.
The slavemasters tried to keep the slaves from hearing
that they were freed, tried to keep them from hearing the
news that 'You've been declared free.' Because the news would set them free, and they
didn't want them to be free, so they'd 'Don't let 'em read
a newspaper.' 'Don't
let 'em listen to anybody who's come from town.
Let's keep 'em in bondage as long as we can.'
Do you see that happening to some Christians today? They've been told 'You're this, and you're never
going to change.' And
we need to understand that we're not, we're not legally bound
to our old master, our old nature anymore.
We've been set free in Jesus Christ.
Another problem those slaves had was, a lot of them
still lived in the south, and as long as they were around
their old master, he could push them around. But as Christians we've been delivered from
the domain of darkness Colossians 1:13 says, ".and [we] have
been transferred to the kingdom of his beloved Son."
And so our old nature cannot do anything with us today,
we're dead to that, we died to sin.
It doesn't have any power over us.
It's not our master anymore. [A more accurate analogy was used by Paul in
1 Corinthians 10, where he showed how the Israelites were
freed from the Egyptian slavemasters, the Egyptian Army had
been killed in the Red Sea while they passed safely through
it. But the problem
was, they left Egypt, but Egypt hadn't left them yet. They didn't put Egypt out of their lives even
though Egypt for them had been made inoperative, there were
no more slavemasters over them, the Pharaoh of Egypt had been
rendered inoperative over them, no longer had authority over
them. But then Paul
goes on to warn the Corinthian believers not to follow in
the sinful attitudes that apparently Israel was not capable
of coming out of, murmuring, complaining, rebellion etc.
But Egypt was no longer their master anymore, Pharaoh
of Egypt was no longer their master.
So Paul's analogy seems to fit better than the Civil
War one. Always search
the Bible first for your analogies, then go to secular history
afterward if a suitable analogy exists.] Man, as one of my illustrations, you know I
have a few strings I could pull with mortuaries, and I wanted
to bring a cadaver in. I
thought, 'Man, this would be the greatest illustrated sermon
I've ever had!' And I'd have this cadaver here, with a white
sheet over him, and then I'd say "Now the Bible says, "You
have died!" And then I'd pull back the sheet, you know,
like in biology class. Ooow,
remember the smell of cadavers in biology class, that smell
of embalming fluid? Yuck. And
I would say, "Now, let's see how much power temptation has
over him, now that he's dead.
Come on, somebody bring a filthy magazine.
OK, let's open his eyes."
Someone would hold his eyes open.
"Now let's see, is there any response here?
Is he grabbing for it?
Is he going 'Yeah, yeah, yeah!'?
No response. Man, he acts like he's dead or something.
Well let's whisper some temptation in his ear.
'Hey, you want a drink?'
He used to be an alcoholic before he died.
'You want a drink?' No response.
What's the matter with him?
He acts like he's dead."
Well you say, 'Mark, you turkey, he is dead,
that's why he's not responding.'
Exactly. Exactly. Look at verse 11, "Even so, consider yourselves to be"-what?-"dead
to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus." You see, Satan wants to keep you in ignorance concerning who you are in
Christ. He wants you
to think you have to sin, you have
to do
this, because you always had to before you were a Christian. Well I'm telling you, by the authority of God's
Word, that you don't have to sin anymore.
'Mark, are you saying that we are to be sinless?' No, 1st John 1 says "That if any
man says he's without sin he's a liar and the truth is not
in him." But I'm telling you, you should sin less.
No, I'm not teaching sin-less-ness, but I am teaching we can
sin less, and sin doesn't have power over us. We don't have to do those doggy things anymore,
because we're not dogs anymore-we're
sheep. Amen? We've
had a fundamental change of nature. And we don't have to obey the old master anymore,
because he is dead to us.
When the children of Israel passed through the Red
Sea, that Red Sea represented the death of Christ.
(It's really hot, everybody's fanning themselves.
Is the air-conditioning on?
It's on, ok. So, stop breathing, pretend that you're dead
today, [laughter] it won't be so hot in here.) Anyway, when they passed through the Red Sea,
which represents the death of Christ, there was a separation. And remember, their enemies, their old masters
were coming-"Come back you slaves!
You're going to be our slaves, you can't get away from
us!" And they were on their chariots-and everybody's
watched the Ten Commandments, so what happened?-the water
crashed down over them [the Egyptian Army]-Right?-and destroyed
their enemies. And they were free on the other side. And now they could say-"Na, na, na, na na!-we
don't have to serve you!-Na, na, na, na, na, there's separation,
there's death between us and you!, Na." [laughter].
But you know what happens to a lot of Christians, instead
of having that attitude toward sin?
The attitude they have toward sin is they still jump
when the old master says "jump!". It's sort of like where you were involved in
a terrible job where they expected you to do everything, they
ruled your life, they controlled you-not 40 hours a week,
we're talking about 60 to 80 hours a week-they call you in
the middle of the night-"We need you to come in! Get in here!"
They were never grateful for anything you did, you
sort of lived in terror of losing your job, so you did everything
you said, you tried to do it well, but it wasn't well enough.
Nothing was ever good enough for them.
You felt like a slave.
They'd call you up, you'd have to cancel going to your
kid's birthday party. You'd cancel vacations for them, everything-they
had you in bondage! And
then one day they up and fired you! [they call it being laid
off nowadays, but it amounts to the same thing.
This is not a laughing matter, right now I am in a
job that has become like this, for me, and most of the employees
where I work, for this large electronic manufacturing company
which will go nameless for obvious reasons. But look up and read James 5:1-5. God knows what's going on in the business world,
even today's.] First
you were devastated, and then suddenly you realized that you
were relieved. "I'm free."
For the first time in a long time you went to bed at
night and didn't think you'd have to worry about the phone
ringing. Within a few days you got a new job, an actual
five-day work week job, a job with benefits-a job where you
had Saturday and Sunday off!
You had worked at the new job for maybe a week, when
in the middle of the night the phone rang. On the other end of the phone was the old boss.
He said, "Hey Martin! Martin, get in here right now, we need you right
now! You left us in
the lurch, we need you to come in here right now, we need
this fixed." "Oh, oh, just a minute.and you start to get
out of bed, you start looking for your pants, you get your
pants about halfway up, and you say-"Wait a minute!
You fired me! I
don't work for you anymore!"
You pick the phone back up "Hey, jerk!
Get lost!" [What a coincidence! Pastor Martin has just described my company,
except for one thing. When
they "lay you off", since it's legally termed a "lay-off",
if you haven't found employment yet, say two weeks down the
road, say, you're unemployment checks are just about to start
(so you've been two weeks without pay), and if you answer
that phone so they actually contact you, and they say they
want you back, that stops that unemployment check right in
it's tracks, and you have to go back, or risk going three
months without unemployment coverage for refusing work. And then after three or four weeks they lay
you off again. I say
this because it has happened where I work more than once.]
And you go back to bed.
You're free from that tyranny.
I mean, you almost went back to that, you almost went
back to work for him, out of habit.
And that's the way some of you are doing in your Christian
walk, I know because I'm talking to you, I see you.
You're forgetting, you're freed from your sinful nature,
you don't have a nature that's making you sin anymore.
If you sin, it's because you're choosing to.
Oh, oh, nobody likes that anymore.
Modern-day psychology has got an excuse for everybody
and for everything. Doesn't
it? You have a problem
with drinking, it's because you have a disease that is incurable. And this thing will have a control over you
the rest of your life, and you're helpless before it! [that's
what modern psychology says.
But I am-excuse me-was an alcoholic.
Now I am going to be perfectly 100 percent honest with
you. Over many years
I drank socially, but as time went on my tolerance for alcohol
went up and up and up. Solomon
warns us about this in Proverbs, saying that alcohol is deceptive. I.e. a person can be developing an addiction
to alcohol without realizing it, it happens slowly, as a person
slowly increase his or her intake of alcohol because his or
her tolerance for it has gone up-they're not drunk, so they
think they're ok. When
I did realize it, finally, and being a Christian (this happened
to me in my Christian life-alcohol consumption in extreme
moderation is not sin, that's what the Bible teaches) I cried
out to God for deliverance. Let me tell you this, this is the truth. I walked away from alcohol like I had never
had a drink. Miraculously,
the addiction was broken.
But I am human, and under a few times of extreme trial
and duress I have slipped up a few times and had a strong
shot of alcohol. But
then I realize what I'm getting into, ask for forgiveness
and power not to go back to it, and I don't.
So I have had a few of these slip-ups, but I can count
them on one hand over a three or four year period.
And even now, the desire for the stuff just isn't there.
Now for alcoholics in the world, I would honestly have
to say, these few slip ups would probably have started them
merrily back on their way into full-blown alcoholism.
Once a person develops an addiction to alcohol, he
or she cannot resume drinking, even in extreme moderation,
even as a Christian. I
will throw that caution out to all of you.
That is just the physiological nature of what an alcohol
addiction does to your body. But Pastor Martin is 100 percent correct that
we have become a new creation and that we have power over
sin. Alcoholics in the world-I'm talking about non-believers-don't
walk away from alcoholism without a huge, long drawn out and
often painful struggle with alcohol.
As a believer in Jesus, that has not been my experience
at all. That is my personal testimony, for what it's
worth. editor.] But
the Bible says "If any man be in Christ, he
is a new creation, the old things have passed away-look, everything
has become new!" Oh, if you have a problem, it's because of your
hidden childhood memories.
Today there are Christian books and seminars designed
to tell you that you are a prisoner of your childhood memories.
The Bible says if you're in Christ, 'you are a new
creation, and the old things have passed away, and new things
have come.' You
say 'What do you mean, Mark, I still think about those memories,
they hurt me.' Yes,
they don't evaporate, but they don't have a controlling power
over you anymore-unless you let them.
See, once you begin to see who you are in Christ, you
get freed from these things. But our 'modern' counseling techniques, the
stuff that's infiltrated the church from the world is drinking
in the lie 'that we are the way we are, and we cannot change.'
And you see, that's a fundamental difference between
Christianity and the world.
Christianity declares 'You are not the same person
once you come to Christ, and that you don't have an old nature
anymore, making you sin-you have a new nature.' I mean, these support groups, they're based
on the premise that you're never going to get over what you're
doing. Baloney. The
Bible says sin doesn't have power over you anymore, you're
freed from sin. Look,
verse 14, "For sin shall not be master over
you." Why? "because you're not under law
but under grace."
[i.e. you're not under the Old Testament requirement
to keep the Law of God on your own, but under grace, the grace
of God, which is spelled out by the promise of the new covenant
which states the God will write his holy Law in the hearts
and minds of his spiritual children, believers in Jesus.
Read Hebrews 8:6-13 and Jeremiah 31:31-33.]
You are free from sin now.
If you're a Christian you don't have to sin. I didn't like to hear that, I liked having an excuse
for my sin. I liked
being able to say, 'Well, I can't help myself.
I was born this way.'
I'm sorry, you've been re-born, and you've been reborn
a different way. You're free from sin, and if you sin, it's because
you want to. Look at
verse 7, "for he who has died is freed from
sin." Look at verse
18, read
it, "and having been freed from sin, you became slaves
of righteousness." Look at verse 22, read it with me, "But now having been freed from sin and enslaved
to God, you derive the benefit resulting in sanctification,
and the outcome, eternal life."
The NIV has "But now that you have been
set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit
you reap leads to holiness [sanctification], and the result
is eternal life."
Oh, how many of us have been
put in the bondage of our temperament types?-the four temperaments. What a mint someone made off of that baloney.
If you're in Christ, you're first-born anyway, aren't
you? What difference
does it make what your natural
birth order was? Weren't
you born again in Christ?
I'm saying that counseling and programs that are not
based on the truth of Romans 6, 7 and 8 are worthless.
They do not change, they change the outside, but they
don't change the inside. It's time for us to stop trying to manicure
the dog, the dog needs a new heart, the dog needs a new-birth. And you need to realize that the power of sin
is broken-not that you're helpless before it-no, you have
the power of Christ over it, and it [sin] doesn't rule and
reign unless you let it rule and reign. And this puts the responsibility back on the
individual. But we're
living in a society that wants to blame everyone else or anything
else but "myself". And the church has bought into it. And that's why the church [the body of Christ
in general] is so screwed up, and so messed up, and falling
apart-because it's living like the world.
And the counsel it's giving is the world's counsel.
We need to get back to the Word, and we need to reprogram
our people, and reprogram our minds, and we need to tell people
'Look, you're free in Christ-you've been freed from sin.'
'But I don't feel it!'
That's the problem with this whole generation is that
we live for what we can feel, instead of for the facts.
I mean, whatever happened to 1st Corinthians
6:9-11? It says, "Or
don't you know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the
kingdom of God." and
then it lists, "don't be deceived, neither fornicators, nor
idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,
nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers,
nor swindlers shall inherit the kingdom of God." And then he goes on to say, "and such
were some of you, but you have been washed, but you were sanctified,
but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
and in the Spirit of our God."
He doesn't write to ex-adulterers, he doesn't write
to ex-homosexuals, he doesn't write to ex-alcoholics, he writes
to saints when he writes to these people. He calls them saints, and he's telling them
they used to be that way.
Those things used to control your life, but now you've
been freed from those things in Christ.
You don't have to sin, you don't have to take another
drink, you don't have to shoot up one more time, you don't
have to sleep in bed with someone who's not your husband or
wife again! You can say "No!" if you're a Christian [or
Messianic believer in Yeshua].
Before you were a Christian, you couldn't say no.
Before you were a Christian you couldn't say no.
Before you were a Christian you had a nature that made you do things like that. Now you don't have that nature. What's your excuse? You're disobedient? You may be a spiritual brat? Or you may be a spiritual baby. Babies don't know who they are-do they? When a baby is born-have you ever met a baby
that said "Hi, my name is George, and this is my social security
number"? [laughter] No,
babies depend on everybody around them to tell them who they
are. Right? "You're Emily, Emily, say Emily. Say Emily. Who
are you? Who's this?" And when they finally say "Emily!" "Aah! She said who she was!! All right, she knows her name!" And you know, with new Christians it's the same
way, with those around us, we have to train them who they
are in Christ. You're
not the old doggy, you're not the pooch you used to be.
But every once in a while, you know, you just react
the old way because you are so used to it you forget, no that's
not who you are anymore. It's sort of.this happened years ago, but it's
such a good illustration.
I was over at somebody's house, we were having a swim
party and I was playing with their three girls and it was
'Pastor Mark, Pastor Mark, throw us in the pool.'
So I started, I was chasing them, throwing them in
the pool, throwing them in the pool. I must have thrown them in the pool twenty times.
And finally the youngest one, she began to get tired,
and I kept throwing her in the pool, and she'd lift herself
up out of the pool, and you could tell she's getting more
and more tired, and finally all I had to do is just look at
her, and she jumped into the pool. That's where some of you are at in your spiritual
life. You don't realize
that you don't have to get into the pool, you're so used to
having Satan throwing you into the pool, throwing you into
the sin, throwing you into the mess. But now his power has been broken, but you didn't
realize it and all he has to do is sort of look at you now. He can't even throw you in, he can't touch you
anymore. But he looks
at you and you jump in the pool.
I'm telling you, you don't have to do that anymore.
You're not a dog. The
world says "Once a dog, always a dog!-just reform the dog!
Put the ribbons in, paint the toe nails, spruce up
the old pooch." And so we got programs we pay hundreds and thousands
of dollars to go through the programs where they spruce up
the pooch, you know. And you come out and go roll in the poop.
[laughter] You're family's going 'We put all that money
into that program and it didn't even last a week!' That's because there's got to be a change of
heart. And the world
doesn't understand that, the world doesn't know that, it's
doing the best it can. But it hasn't read Romans 6, 7 and 8. And I'm telling you, that if you've come to
Christ, you're not a dog anymore!
You are a sheep! And
some of you just don't realize it.
You've been thinking, you thought you've felt this
"baah, baah" in your throat, but you're going around like
as sheep dog, you know. "Baah-Arf!
Baah-arf!" You're not a dog, so stop trying to be a dog,
stop acting like a dog. Stop
chasing cats and cars [and women, you guys], you're a sheep,
you're not a dog. And some of you, you're just doing gross things,
like dogs, they throw up and they eat it. [laughter] And
don't get grossed out, you've got dogs, you know they do that. The Bible says dogs do that. That Bible teaches that. It says "Even a dog returns to its own vomit."
And that's gross, but that's what I see some of you
doing. You're sheep-"Baah!"-and
you're trying to do the same gross things that you did when
you were a dog. Come
on, act like who you are.
Get a grip on who you are in Christ.
You don't have a dog nature anymore.
And yet, some of you are still eating dog food.
Why? 'Well, I ate dog food for so many years, I just,
I know I'm a Christian, and this dog food sort of gives me
indigestion, spiritual constipation [laughter], but it ah,
I'm just sort of used to eating it.'
I'm telling you, you don't have to eat it anymore.
The Good Shepherd wants to lead you in green pastures,
besides still waters. What are you doing living like a dog? You're not a dog. And you don't have two natures in you-"Baah-Arf!"-"baah-arf!",
you know. The dog was
shot. He's dead. You have a new nature. The flesh is the part of you that like remembers
all of that, and wants to sort of act like that. And we'll talk about the flesh next week.
We can't cover all of this [in one week].
If you can just get it, and get a grasp on the truth
that you have a new nature, and the old one is dead, and you
don't have to sin anymore-and you're only sinning when you
chose to. You see, that's going to help you. 'Oh yah, put me on a big guilt trip.' Well, I'm going to put you on an accountability
trip, because either you're going to make Jesus Christ a liar,
either he's right or you're wrong.
And I chose to believe him.
And I've seen it, I'm not preaching off the top of
my head. This set me
free, when I realized I didn't have two natures in me. I have a new nature, my new nature never wants
to sin. Did you know
that? Look at 1st John. Keep your finger in Romans. 1st John, near the back of your Bible,
chapter 3, verse 9. "No
one who is born of God practices sin..."
And that's true. Remember,
this letter of 1st John was written as sort of
a Christian ID-how do you know if you're a Christian or not?
You read 1st John.
One of the marks of a Christian is, a Christian is
a person that when something comes up in his life that's wrong,
and he knows it's wrong, he fights it, he doesn't practice
on how to refine it. OK? "No one who is born of God practices sin, because
his seed"-God's seed-"abides in him, and he cannot sin, because
he is born of God." What
does that mean? It means that the new you, the seed of God that
abides in you [i.e. the Holy Spirit cf. John 14 & 16],
that new nature, never sins.
That's going to go right to heaven with you.
Now what responds to sin?
The Bible calls it "the flesh."
It's more than just these bones and body we wear, but
he calls it a principle of sin that's still left in us after
we're saved. But it
does not have.it's not a master, it's not a lord, it's not
something that makes you sin. It's something
that just responds to sin.
It's something that says, when you're tempted, 'Yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah!' But
the new nature always says "No, yuck."
You say 'Yeah, it does?'
Yeah, but some of you never listen to your new nature.
Try it, next time you're tempted, just listen.
There will be part of you that says "Oh yeah!
Yeah, I've got to do it."
But then if you really listen, there will be a new
part of you, that new nature that says "No."
And at that point I wish there was a button I could
push that would say "Yes" or "No." But that's encouraging to me, to know that the
new me, my new nature, is not a sinful nature. It never sins. Sort of cool, isn't it? And I don't have to sin. Now I do sin.
Why? Because
I'm not thinking. Temper
flares, driving down the freeway someone does some stupid
thing, I forget I'm a sheep and think I'm a dog-bark! bark!
bark! bark!-you know. What
did I do that for? I'm
not a dog. But, you
know, for years I barked.
Some of you walk by certain places and you smell that
smell of poop, sniff, sniff, sniff, and you want to go roll
in it. I mean, that's
as gross as it is in God's sight.
You look around. 'Only for a minute. Only for a minute.' What are you doing in there? [probably referring to a bar room, but it could
be worse depending] You're
not a dog. See, if
you were a dog, you'd have to.
Ever watch dogs, you try to keep them from sniffing
something? Sniff, sniff,
sniff, sniff-you know, it's like their nature, they have to. But you don't have to anymore. So stop. And
you have the power-we're going to look at the power of Christ
too, in a couple of weeks, the power of the Lord.
And I wish we could stay here all day and maybe talk
about the whole thing all in one lesson, but we can't.
And so what you leave with today (oh I don't have a
watch, we can stay here all day long), we're free in Christ,
we're freed from sin. Some of you need to think differently. You need to see there's a difference between
psychology and Christ's way.
There's a difference between humanism and God's Word.
And it's not some figment of my imagination, it's a
basic difference we believe that our gospel causes a brand
new creation, a new spiritual life in a person who is born-again,
and that they have freedom over sin, and Christ can set you
free from anything. And
the problem is, if you're not free, is either you don't know
it, or you don't want it.
It's not popular, because a lot of us want somebody
to come along and coddle us for the rest of our lives, and
make excuses for us, for the rest of our lives.
And I'm telling you, you're wasting your life. Come on, get with it, wake up, stop wasting
time, stop running after these things that won't work and
won't satisfy. Stop eating the dog food, and paying $50 an
hour for it, and get into the Word of God.
You need to get into the Word, you need to be praying,
you need to be fellowshipping with other Christians if you're
going to be strong. You need to act like who you are. You need to hear that you are in a new family,
and in this
family we don't do those
things, because we're not in that life anymore.
We have a new identity.
We're free. Let's
pray. Father God, I thank you for the truth of your
Word, that has revolutionized so many lives, when we see that
the old nature has been broken, that we are free from sin
in Christ-that the old taskmaster, the old slavemaster is
on the other side of the [Red] Sea, we don't have to obey him anymore. There's no whip on our back making us sin.
We've quit, and we have a new job, we don't have to
listen to the old boss anymore. We're free to say "No!" now, in Jesus name.
We're not dogs, we're God's lambs.
Some of us, Lord, we've never realized that, we thought
we were just reformed dogs. We didn't realize that there was an absolute
change of nature. And
yet, some of us Lord, have never had that change in our lives.
We've never had a new birth.
Today, as we sit here, as your heads are bowed, eyes
are closed, if you want to become a new creation, if you want
to have a new nature, you want to be able to live a brand
new life in Christ, I want you to be able to. And all you're going to have to do is ask Jesus
(Yeshua) to give you a new life, and he will. Just pray this prayer with me. In the prayer, we're going to ask God to save
you, cause you to be born-again, make you a new person. If you feel God moving on your heart, if you
want to be free, if you want to be a new person, and you're
sure you're not right now, then pray this prayer with me right
now. 'Lord Jesus, I ask you please to come into my
life. I need desperately
the change that has been talked about here.
I need a new nature.
Please forgive my sins. Please forgive me for living the way I've lived.
I come to you just as I am, but I believe that if you
come into my life, I'm going to be changed. I believe you're going to make me a brand new
person. You're going
to give me power in my life to say "no".
The old person is going to die, and Jesus you're going
to live in me. I believe that. I accept you as my Savior, in Jesus name.
Amen.'" [A transcription of "Romans 6:3-14, THE OLD
MAN IS DEAD", given by Pastor J. Mark Martin, Calvary Community
Church, PO Box 39607, Phoenix, Arizona
85069]
end
|
