More Than Conquerors # 2

More Than Conquerors # 2

I'm persuaded tonight that neither height, nor depth, nor any other creature can separate me from the love of God. "For I'm persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor THINGS present nor THINGS to come..." If that isn't defiance I don't know what is.

One day, this man was going down the Damascus Road. Look! You know what? A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument.

He was going down the Damascus Road, breathing out threatenings. He carried documents that said he could put any Christian he liked to death. (It's exactly what the blundering, blind, bankrupt world that you and I live in did), but he did not reckon with Jesus Christ Himself. And Jesus sits on His throne and met him in the road. Paul said, "Who art thou, Lord?" On that road, he said, "he revealed Himself to me." He said, "In the wilderness. In the school of silence." (It's still open if you want to go. It'll cost you nothing.) "On the Damascus Road God revealed Himself to me. There in the wilderness, He revealed Himself to me."

Then he soared up into heaven. I don't know all he saw except it was just so marvelous. The Lord said "Don't ever say a word about it. As long as you live, you can't tell anything you saw." And he never did! Sometimes I wonder if God rolled out the plans of the ages from the incarnation to the consummation. I wonder if he saw the day in which you and I live. I wonder if he saw the depravity that was going to strangle the world silent before Jesus comes?

There where he and God were alone, and God stripped him, what happened? I tell you, he became spiritually pregnant. He birthed these churches to whom he was writing here. He birthed these epistles in the Holy Spirit.

God put something in him that, when later he is put in the waters, thirty-six hours in the Mediterranean; the waves couldn't wash it out. They lashed him one hundred ninety-five times; they couldn't whip it out. The devils chased him; they couldn't scare it out of him. They wouldn't give him any food; they couldn't starve it out of him.

Brothers and sisters, you and I had better get an experience like that before long because the roof is going to come in before we go much further. God hasn't raised you up  to be bottle-fed babys from here to eternity. He's coming to gather His jewels out of your life. He's invested a lot in you. He didn't save you that you might escape eternal fire. That's fringe benefit. He saved you that you might be conformed to the image of His Son, however costly that may be.

A lot of people say today when they talk about victorious life, "Well, you know what Paul said..." in the end of Romans chapter 7: "Oh wretched man that I am!" Well, I didn't need the Lord to tell me that. I know that well enough. But you see, we tack onto that another statement. We say - listen now to what the Scripture says: "They that are in the flesh cannot please God." But read the next verse: "Ye are NOT in the flesh." Now, what do you do with it? This flesh...Yes. But a fleshy nature, a lusting, sinful, greedy, lustful nature...No.

You see, Paul here uses one of the most amazing things in all his career. He says, "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Now what will you do? Is that the end of the story? In the original there are no chapters. There's no 7th chapter and 8th chapter. The 7th goes right on into the 8th chapter. Now what do you do? Do you stop at the end of Romans 7 and say Paul is saying all through his life, "O wretched man that I am! I've another war raging in my members?" What does he say? He says, "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Well, tell me tonight, can Buddha do it? Can Confucius do it? Can transcendental meditation do it? No sir. A thousand times over. There is One who is able to do it.

You know, there were over 120 different types of crosses. There was a traditional cross. There was a cross like the letter "T" on which a man's head was allowed to drop back. There was a cross like the letter "X" where a man's body was stretched up. His arms went up into each section of the "X" and there he was crucified. There was another cross. It was a straight tree like this, with a spike. They pushed the man's body on it and turned it any old way they liked - like a propeller - and left him to hang and the birds to eat him.

Now Paul had been talking about the Law in chapter 7. He says the Law is holy. He says the Law is spiritual. But, you see, the Law could bring condemnation. It could point out sin, but it couldn't cast out sin. Can the Law break you free? No. Who shall deliver me from this wretched man? He says there's no end to this! But then he says, "Yes, there is - Thanks be unto God through Jesus Christ my Lord...!" Romans 6:6 says that "Knowing this, that our old man is (not was, but is) crucified with Him."

The trouble in the church of God today is that we preach half a salvation. We tell people how to get rid of the lousy sin, yet we don't tell them how to get rid of the principle inside that has dominion over them. This is exactly what Paul is talking about in this epistle. This is why I say it's the song of the soul set free. Come over to verse 9. "You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit." Are you in the Spirit? Or in the flesh? Have you got secrets? What's biting you on the inside? An unforgiving spirit? Laziness? Jealousy? Anger? Secret lusts? What is it?

He says, "ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be..." Now listen! "...the Spirit of God dwelleth in you!" Look at the next verse (verse 10): "If Christ be in you." Look at the 11th verse: "The Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus...dwell in you." My! Oh my! How in God's name can you be indwelt by God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit and be defeated? Don't argue with me about it. Scratch it out in your Bible if you don't believe it. If you're a Christian, you're an indwelt person. God dwells in you. The Father dwells in you. That's what it says. I didn't write that. The Holy Spirit wrote it. I want you to know; if you're really born of God, God dwells in you. And the Son dwells in you. "He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son..." It doesn't matter if they baptized you three times a day, it won't make you a Christian. Who is a Christian? He that hath the Son. He that is born of God, and He that hath the Spirit of God indwelling in him.

~Leonard Ravenhill~

(continued with # 3)

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