Romans (Program #37) – Being Freed from Death (2)

We need to call it by its right name – it’s death.  God in His organic salvation has a way of deliverance from it, a way to overcome it – in Christ as our resurrection life.

Today in chapter 8, we’re going to find out about being freed from sin and death.  What is the death that we are being freed from?

Romans 8 is a chapter of experience and the death here is not the physical death to which we are subjected in the old creation.  When we are talking about being free from death, we are not talking about some kind of miraculous cure for our mortality or some premature deliverance from the power of death in a physical way.  Death in Romans 8 is a terrifying and powerful spiritual source and force that has its source in Satan, the origin of death. more…

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Romans (Program #36) – Being Freed from Death (1)

We sinners are not sinners only because we commit some sin. Through the fall of Adam, we all were constituted sinners by being born in sin.

We’re somewhere at the midpoint in our study of Romans. I think it’d be helpful if we reviewed briefly and summarized the central focus of this book that has been dubbed, as we mentioned before, “The Gospel of God”.  This book of Romans is called “The Gospel of God” because it gives us the full gospel including the judicial redemption by Christ’s death and the organic salvation in His resurrection life. The focus of the revelation of this book is that God is making sons out of sinners to form the Body of Christ to express Christ. In this book, we have seen also that God is expressed in the Son, Jesus Christ, and further that the Son is expressed in a Body. We have seen and we will see further that the Body is expressed in the local churches.

That’s “The gospel of God” and Romans, as we’ve indicated, has also been called the fifth gospel.

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Exodus (Program #76) – The Enactment of the Covenant (1)

The book of Exodus is a story of God delivering His people Israel out of bondage and slavery in Egypt. He led them from Egypt through the Red Sea and into the wilderness, where they wondered for forty years. God gave them the law, His commandments and the ordinances in this wilderness time. Was it His intention for them to just simply take the law that He has given and carry it out? Or did God first need to reveal Himself and His heart desire?  He rescue them, delivering them from their bondage in Egypt and brought them to the wilderness to have an intimate fellowship with Him. more…

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Exodus (Program #75) – The Angel of Jehovah for His People (3)

Prior to taking possession of the promised good land, God’s people were commanded to fully and absolutely drive out the pagan tribes from that land. Failure to do so will result in the people sharing in the sins of these pagan occupants. History clearly shows that this ultimately is the case. This pagan enemies became the source of the sin of God’s people, Israel.  What is the source of our sins? And how does the Lord command us to deal with this source?   We can learn a lot about ourselves by following the story of God’s people Israel in the pages of Exodus.

We have seen so much in the book of Exodus these Old Testament stories are really all pictures of things that have very real and current New Testament relevant in our experience. That’s why we are here today in Exodus 23. It deals in parts the Lord’s command to the children of Israel to drive these pagan tribes completely out of their land.  more…

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Romans (Program #35) – Being Freed from Sin, the Law and the Flesh

Our destiny is not merely to go from hell to heaven.  Our destiny is God’s heart desire which is to make us sinners into sons of God, to be constituted the Body of Christ for His glorious expression in this universe.

Many of us know what it is to struggle against sin and the flesh.  And many also know the struggle of never living up to the standard that we or others set for us.  All three requires the freeing of the spirit recorded in Romans chapter 8.  This is our focus of the life-study of the Bible today.

Once again today we look at the tremendous revelation that God is busy making sinners into sons.  Sometimes you hear the word “adopted” inserted into this portion regarding our being the sons of God.   To be a son of God, you need the life of God. The word “adopted” doesn’t do justice simply because of our understanding of “adopted”. more…

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Exodus (Program #74) – The Angel of Jehovah for His People to take Possession of the Promised Land (2)

In the book of Philippians, the apostle Paul uses a striking expression, “that I may gain Christ.”  Of course when we get saved, in a sense we can say that Christ has gained us.  But what is it for us to gain Him?  A wonderful picture from the Old Testament that will help us to see this reality is given in the book of Exodus.   As the Lord unveil to His people, the way for them to possess the good land.  Stay with us today for a rich and enlightening life study of the Bible.

This message today is a continuation of yesterday’s program from Exodus 23.  Verses 20, 21 and 22 “I am now sending an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. Be careful before Him, and listen to His voice; do not rebel against Him, for He will not pardon your transgression; for My name is in Him.  But if you will indeed listen to His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.”

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Romans (Program #34) – The Basic Points in Chapters 5-8

The Lord is with our spirit, so this wonderful. If we’re going to contact God, we need to exercise our spirit. God is Spirit, those who worship Him must worship Him in their spirit so that we can live and walk according to the Spirit who is mingled with our spirit.

If you’ve ever had the experience of making a resolution to be better, or to try harder, or promising never to do something again and then failing miserably, you will want to stay tuned for today’s Life-Study of Romans with Witness Lee.

We’re going to revisit Romans 5 to 8. In these chapters, we’ll see something wonderful concerning how we can experience and enjoy Christ. In today’s message we’re going to hear Witness Lee talk about the Spirit as it’s mentioned in chapter eight. In reading these verses, it seems almost impossible to tell whether the reference is made to the divine Spirit or the human spirit. What’s the relationship between these two and is it important for us to make a distinction? more…

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Romans (Program #33) – The Consummation of the Gospel

In God’s salvation, He does not just wash us from our sins, forgive us and make us clean, but He imparts His very life into us.  He does this in order to make us His sons.  So sonship or being sons of God is a matter of receiving the life of God.

God’s plan or eternal purpose cannot be realized without genuine sons of God that are match to Him in righteousness, holiness and glory.  But all He has to work with is just sinner like you and me.  How can He accomplish such a lofty goal?

We have a favor theme of Romans as our focus today and that is God is making sons out of sinners.  This seems out of comprehension to most of us.  But what does it mean really to make such a statement?

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Exodus (Program #73) – The Angel of Jehovah for His People to take Possession of the Promised Land (1)

After the escape from Egypt, God’s brought His people to the mountain of God, Sinai, where the sky was clear and He could unveil His own portrait and a plan for His eternal dwelling with His people.  We would be all quite happy and satisfied to have such an experience with God.  But this was not the goal or the end of His plan for His people.   For after this, He sent His angel to lead them to a place, a place that He had prepared for them, the good land, a type of our wonderful Lord Jesus.  Stay with us today for another remarkable life study of the Bible with Witness Lee.

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Romans (Program #32) – A Closing Word

The book of Romans in its final three verses concludes with a beautiful offering of praise to God. Theologians have dubbed it a doxology; though it might aptly be called a melody, a melody of praise that we can fully enter into. It’s the peak of the gospel of God as presented in Romans.

This message begins with a concise overview of the entire book. The perspective is that of the revelation of God’s entire economy revealed in the New Testament. And the feeling is that in our experience and practice, we should have a book of Romans with sixteen chapters, that is with all of the stations or all of the sections, and not just part.  We appreciate the fact that when the reformation began, God used a segment of the book of Romans to recover a tremendous truth – that of justification by grace, through faith.  This is the first major station in the book of Romans.  The station or section of justification.  The importance of this can hardly be over-emphasized…

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