Feast: Boundaries, Incursions, Migrations, and God (Part One)

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John W. Ritenbaugh (1932-2023)
Given 24-Sep-18; 77 minutes

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I do not know whether you are aware that I did this, but many of the sermons that I have given in the past, I would say six months, have begun with an expounding of a characteristic or an element of serious importance to our fulfilling our responsibilities toward appreciating and then rightly using the awesome gift of our calling.

Now none of those brief messages within a larger message gave a complete picture of the gift of which I was speaking, but hopefully they were sufficient to stir a bit more of an interest and appreciation and a more detailed understanding of what it is that we have received and because of that understanding, a deeper and a clearer appreciation. Each of them were hopefully attached within the context of what a much larger subject would be, but I did not want them in any way to steal from what the larger subject was.

As important as each one of those elements was, it did not add up all by itself as important as the overall message. And thus I have spoken on subjects such as our being individually selected (which Richard really put a nail on this past Sabbath), carnality, treasure, and heart, among other things. Each one of them is important to the whole. Though important on their own, they are combined with other elements that need to be used with them.

Today I will be beginning a subject that may take two sermons, but the first of these sermons is largely tied to the Handwriting message that I gave last night, and it is also related to Richard's sermon this morning. But at the same time, I will be going over a great deal of familiar spiritual territory because it provides a firm foundation of easily provable truths for what will follow in the second (if I give that sermon).

Back to the present time now. I am about a month or two behind in that little opening, but back to the present time. Within the past two months, I read a speech delivered at Hillsdale College in Michigan by a man by the name of Edward Erler. It was titled, "Does Diversity Really Unite Us?" And from that I drew part of that sermon that I gave yesterday.

Now its theme was on citizenship and immigration, and Mr. Erler has devoted virtually his whole adult work within these subjects and is well qualified to speak on them. He is about 70 years old and he has quite an understanding built up over this period of time that he has been looking at immigrations. I mean many, many immigrations and what the effects of those immigrations were. They were in many, many cases destructive, and in many cases they almost destroyed the nation that received the immigrants. And why he is so positive that what is happening in the United States of America in the present migration is not going to help one bit. It is going to really uproot what is happening to this culture. Especially since those immigrants are so dead set against us. Maybe they do not like it, that they are so dead set, but they are so strongly for improving their life they are helping to tear up things in the United States of America.

Are you aware that there are some folks in high seats of authority in government and many more in universities where they are able to pass on their heresies to much younger minds and a large number are employed by international corporations striving to get United States government grants of money to fund their employers' interests? In other words, this money would be flowing out of the United States directly. But they believe that there should be no national borders. These people, these believers, believe that there should be no national borders.

Interestingly, their employers' interests involve immigration of workers into the United States to some degree, these people going after the grants. It is horrific to understand that, despite the massive negative effects in the United States due to the uncontrolled immigration that took place under the Obama presidency, an even greater dire forecasts of severe weakening of the United States that is resulting from the idea that there should be no national boundaries. They are looking forward to the time when everybody will be under one government. Spelled B-E-A-S-T.

These people claim borders incite antagonism. Well, so much for the truism that states that "good fences make good neighbors." And the histories of the nations from ancient times show that they always had well guarded national boundaries and that God Himself has already outlined even thousands of years in advance what Israel's boundaries will be after Christ's return.

That is kind of interesting to consider. Here would be God right on earth and God establishes national boundaries for His nation, Israel, and what are those people going to do then? But He does it right in front of them.

Turn with me to Exodus 23, verses 30 and 31. Now this takes place, of course, a couple thousand years ago, but He was showing a clear example of His belief regarding His nation, the nation that He was going to be making a covenant with. He says,

Exodus 23:30-31 "Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased, and you inherit the land [the land that had formerly been this other nation of people]. And I will set your bounds [so this is the first time around with God's nation] from the Red Sea to the sea, Philistia, and from the desert to the River. For I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you."

And so God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, He owns the earth. It is His, and He can do with it as He pleases. And He, as He does as He pleases, He sets boundaries for the nation that He is making a covenant with. That is pretty clear. What is there to argue with regarding God setting boundaries on His property?

Let us go to Deuteronomy, 32, verse 8, another very a familiar scripture for each and every one of us.

Deuteronomy 32:8 When the Most High [Moses speaking] divided their inheritance to the nations, when He separated the sons of Adam [not just the Israelite people, but the sons of Adam and set the boundaries, multiple boundaries of the peoples. He did not do it just with the Israelite people.], He set the boundaries for the peoples [nations of the earth, and He did it] according to the number of the children of Israel.

Now it is very obvious that God desired that the children of Israel live in a land separate from the other nations of the world, and that those other nations of the world treated them fairly. God says, "Okay, you're going to be over here and I want you to keep out of their property over there." So it was not just Israel that He set the boundaries for, He really set the boundaries for everybody. And that is the way we live to this day. We mark off a piece of land, so many acres or a quarter acre or a third of an acre or five acres or whatever it happens to be. A document is drawn up and this land belongs to us. And is it not in your mind that your land is going to be protected by you, and you do not want anybody coming in there and doing something that you do not approve of. Well, that kind of thinking ruled the earth for those who think fairly even about their neighbors, some who would be harsh enough to take it from somebody else and even do it on a national scale.

Let us go back to the New Testament to Acts the 17th chapter, verse 23. The apostle Paul is the one who is speaking at this occasion.

Acts 17:23-26 Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth, and Has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.

That is very clear. It is clear beyond doubt that God approves of national boundaries in spite of what these secularists, who are also in many cases leftists, are proclaiming that boundaries antagonize. Now granted, boundaries do antagonize. Let me give you that. It is not just boundaries on pieces of property, it is boundaries on moral obedience. Mankind is always, it seems, anti-God and pushing the boundaries as far from them as they can possibly get them so that they feel free to use what they have in the way they desire that it be used.

Conflict is not a difficult thing to figure out. It is not difficult to figure out why one person or one group of people wants to take something from somebody else, and it is because, simply, they feel they deserve it.

Now as for me, that ends, that is, God's position, any arguments over this issue because God, out of His love for His creation, always chooses the best alternative, and He is not, as we heard this morning, going to change His mind. And so the way He has ruled up until this time, and we know He is going to rule as He has always ruled because, "I am God and I change not," the same thing is going to be going on in the Kingdom of God. God is going to set boundaries for the nations of the peoples on earth, and He is going to strictly enforce that they stay exactly where they are. Jesus, you know, is going to rule with a rod of iron.

So, God out of love for His creation always chooses the best alternative, but in this nation led by secularists, who among them cares what God thinks when they do not believe He even exists?

Now I cannot help but think that those who constantly fight against a well established and guarded boundary, and in this case to our South especially, must have an interest in no boundaries that will give them great personal gain in some way. Their clamoring desire has nothing to do with peace, safety, prosperity, but with their personal gain. Now I am talking there not about Mexicans, it is about Americans in the United States, in government bureaus, who are stirring things up to make the Mexicans look bad. They just want their own personal gain to get things moving in the direction that they feel will help them.

Last night's Handwriting is on the Wall sermon had a statistical focus on how this massive migration is already affecting the USA, and the forecasts and what our future portends. It clearly anticipates that the American future will be worse socially and economically if present trends continue. The problem that I am going to explore a little bit further is much broader and deeper than the massive immigration. That problem is just one of many. This problem is an internal one with mankind. Why cannot mankind believe it should take God's Word that His way is best and go on cooperating with Him and living life to its fullest? In other words, a different way of framing that is, why does man not believe God? He would like, the unconverted person, God to just leave him alone to do his own will.

Now, why cannot mankind just set its will? We heard a lot about will this morning. Richard was talking to you about God's will. I am going to be talking to you about man's will. Why cannot mankind just set its will to do the right things rather than actually working to make living conditions worse, because the histories clearly reveal mankind is only making things worse but calling such happenings progress. Now, is it progress that a hydrogen bomb is somehow better than a rock or a sword? You get the point. Is the hydrogen bomb really progress when it is used to destroy life and destroy properties? Apparently.

What I want to explore is why this worsening will occur just as surely as the sun will rise in the east tomorrow and set in the west tomorrow evening. The tremendous accumulation of problems worldwide most certainly has to do with how mankind is mixed up in its relation to God. The popular intellectual concept that has been floating in man's mind from having it preached almost continuously for a goodly period, as well as having been taught in philosophy classes at the universities, that mankind has a free will. Is mankind's will free? I think that I will show you that it is not quite as free as we have a tendency to think.

The popular intellectual concept has been floating around for centuries of time. And the popular concept even in religion is that salvation comes to a person through his will cooperating with the Holy Spirit and as we saw disproved on the Day of Atonement, mankind just cannot do that on his own. There are limitations that God has placed on mankind's ability to understand, understand salvation. Salvation is limited to when God chooses to give it.

Now let us begin here. Turn with me to John the 8th chapter, verses 31 through 36. Pretty familiar scriptures here, but we want to touch on this so that we have a proof text that we are working from.

John 8:31-33 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him [these are people that believed it], "If you abide [continue] in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." They answered Him [immediately questioning what He was saying], "We are Abraham's descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone."

That was a blatant lie! Everybody knows that at that very time they were in bondage to the Romans. But that is how quick mankind is to defend itself, its guilt, from the truth that is given to him. They shot right back to Him, "We've never been in bondage." They could not see, understand, grasp even the most obvious things that Jesus said—that played a part in it, it was God Himself who was talking to them, and they were trying to refute what He said of a blatant truth that He was giving to them.

You think mankind's mind is free when these people who should have known better what He said to them. But when God is speaking, all bets are off as to how free mankind really is. Is mankind free to not refute what this Book says? It comes out just as quick as anything because it is the Word of God. There is something there, something spiritual there that makes man rebel at what God says. Somebody who has really nothing good in the way of a reputation can say something, and a man will agree with it. But if God, who has the greatest reputation of all says something, there is something that clicks in a man's mind that wants to reject it. And as Jesus said, only those who believe Him will get it.

They could not conceive that they were enslaved, these people here in John the 8th chapter. But this slavery that Jesus was speaking about was very different from what the normal understanding was, and still is.

Now I showed you in the offering sermonette on the Day of Trumpets that the rich young ruler who came to Christ was enslaved to his wealth and could not, as far as the example goes, break free from it because his carnal mind was focused on earthly things. Let us turn to Romans 8, verse 7. It is another very familiar scripture. The rich young ruler could not break free from his enslavement to his wealth though there were no prison walls or bars anywhere within the mental picture. But he was tied to it. And so Romans in the eighth chapter and in verse 7, you should know this scripture by memory. For it says,

Romans 8:7 Because [here comes a reason] the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.

Let me ask you something. How can a human have free will when he is born from the womb with a carnal mind that is not subject to God? The person already has a spiritual form of an enslavement there because he is subject to a carnal mind, and that carnal mind is enmity against God. It is at war with God! We can say, at least to some degree, the carnal mind, as soon as the baby is born is going to start sinning. I mean, in a way it is kind of comical, but it is not so comical to parents. What does the carnal mind in a baby immediately do? It wants to take care of itself. It is already self-centered to a certain degree, and we can forgive that. We can understand that because the baby cannot go out and work, cannot plow the back 40 or anything like that. He is going to have to be taken care of by mom and dad, but boy, is he demanding on mom and dad. "Take care of me!" That never goes away!

Do you understand that? And that is where the enmity between man and God lies. Mr. Armstrong used to put it this way because he wondered about it too. "Did God put man behind the eight ball right from the beginning?" The answer to this is yes. But we know God put man behind the eight ball, as Mr. Armstrong said, not with some pull that was absolutely overwhelming because parents have found ways to control that to a great degree. And the better job that parents do at taking care of that carnal mind in the right way from the very beginning, the better converted life that child is going to have. Take care of a child when he is young and when he is old, he will not depart from it. That is as true today as it ever was.

So God is warning parents that you are going to have to deal with this carnal mind that I put in them. Mr. Armstrong felt that all the carnal mind was, it was not a tug on the mind that is overwhelming. He always felt that there was, though, some inclination born with the baby in which there was a desire to simply take care of the self, and the problem was that the parents do not rear the child right, and that little tug toward the self gets exercised and gets stronger and stronger and stronger because of the exercise that it does in order to feel justified in the little acts of terror that the child does. We have all done it. Every one of us is guilty. And our parents did not do as good of a job, they did not know God's way, and maybe if they did know God that way, they did not make the exercise of taking care of the child in the right way.

So let me ask that question again. I do not want you want you to lose it. How can a human have free will when he is born from the womb with a carnal mind that is not subject to God? God is honest. He tells us right from the beginning, there it is. They are not going to like Me. They are not going to want to obey Him right from the beginning.

Now another point that I brought out in this regarding that carnal mind subject, we saw in a previous sermon that the carnal mind is focused on earthy things. Here is another angle that we have to consider. The Father and the Son are heavenly things. You see a difference there? The carnal mind is not focused on being in the Kingdom of God, is not focused on pleasing God. And so the apostle Paul taught very clearly that we have to exercise the authority over our minds, over our carnality in order to focus on heavenly things rather than carnal things.

Here is a question then. Can that aspect be humanly changed—this natural mind-pull, tug, whatever you want to call it, that is anti-God, at war with God? It may not be an all-out shooting war, but it is at war with God. How free is man in terms of his will? Now, you ought to be able to answer this. The natural inclination of man is going to want to break God's law. That is just the way it is and we have to deal with it. It is there, and so we are warned in God's own Word to be aware of this and deal with it in a loving, kind, gentle way, but with the right kind of pressure move that child toward a neutrality at the very least.

So, what is the person's will? We are going to get a little bit more to that. We heard about God's will this morning. A person's will is that aspect of his life that he exercises in order to make choices to accomplish what he chooses in relation to God. We are trying to limit this to our godly relationships. But not only in relation to God but perhaps to any other situation involving morality, because in God's creation every situation involving morality has a God connection. We just cannot get away from it. We want to get away from it, but there is a godly connection in every choice that has a moral attached to it. Can one exercise his will and decide on his own to flat-out obey God, and follow Him wherever He goes?

Richard approached that a little bit differently than I am. Let me give you that question again. Can one exercise his will and decide on his own to flat-out obey God and follow Him wherever He goes? I am asking this question not involving God's choice of this, but separating it entirely to man making the choice of doing it.

The answer to that in a way is very obvious. He cannot do it. He cannot do it because the mind is enmity against God. God has us boxed in. And He has us boxed in for the purpose of making us overcome this pull because the overcoming of this pull against God is going to create in him the kind of character that God wants in His Kingdom, where he resists the self-centered service of himself and instead creates love by doing the right thing.

Let us get away from the carnal mind for just a little bit, and I want you to turn to Matthew the 15th chapter.

Matthew 15:16-20 So Jesus said, "Are you also still without understanding? [He is speaking here to the apostles who are listening.] Do you not yet understand that whatsoever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man."

One of the major things that Jesus made clear to us in His teaching, is He clearly shifted our thinking regarding the center of committing sin from the human will to the human heart. He is essentially saying that it is a cause, a motivation inborn. Now how deeply lodged is it? It is indeed a teaching that has existed from Adam and Eve's sin, and when they committed their sins, they hid from God, from Him, and tried to cover themselves up. Why did not they run to Him and ask for forgiveness? It was because the carnal mind was already in them. They were against God, mildly so, but they were still against God right in the Garden of Eden. That is where the sin was committed. They did not have to go outside of it, they did not have to go beyond it, they did not have to leave it. They committed their sin right in the Garden of Eden—in God's presence.

Now what we have to get through us, since we are God's children even as Adam and Eve were God's children, we are committing our sins right in His presence too! And yet we still do it. That is how deeply burned into our mind, into our human character, this carnality is. It is not something that we can just cast off by willing ourselves to do it. It cannot be done by willing it away. Jesus said, "If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." That is who can get us free of this carnal mind and away from its self-centeredness.

So what Jesus made very clear to you and me is that the problem in a sense is not in the human will, the problem is in the heart. Man sins from the heart because that is where sin is generated. If we put it in another, little bit different context, all sin begins within. Now, if the sin begins within, how difficult is it to get that urge to sin out of us? Simply by setting our will? It does not work. We have to receive a new nature. Otherwise it is there all the time wearing away at the relationship. That is so set on itself that it loves it to death. I do not know how else to say it.

Do not get discouraged, please. Because that is what Jesus said, "I can free you from that." And that is why this is the most important relationship we will ever have in our life. It is that relationship that we have with Him on our knees, or whether we are walking and talking with Him, or studying His Word or whatever it is, we are spending time with Him and we are learning to love Him for what He is as our Creator. He is our Savior, He is our King, and we need Him more than we need the very next breath that comes into us. It is that important. He lives, and He lives to save us from ourselves.

Now, how deeply lodged is it? Well, it is indeed a teaching that has existed from Adam and Eve's sin. When they committed their sin, they hid from Him and tried to cover themselves up. There was no effort to rid themselves of what was a part of them because it was perhaps too humbling, too hard to circumcise it.

Let us go to John the 15th chapter.

John 15:17-19 [Jesus said] "These things I command you, that you love one another. If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you."

One of the reasons that He is saying this is because these people were going to meet persecution that they were going to receive from the world. Well, why would they hate them? Anybody know the answer to that? Because He was living in them! If the world hates Me, it is going to hate you. It is something that the carnal mind will detect, that there is something about this person who needs to be hated because they were related to Jesus Christ as brothers in a family. That is hard for us to reconcile because we are so carnal. A relationship with a spirit being that we are to be obedient to in the faith.

"If you were of the world, the world would love its own." That is deep. "Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world. . . " It is just as natural as breathing. ". . .the world is going to hate you." Because somehow that carnal mind recognizes the relationship. I do not know how, I only know that I believe that Jesus Christ is telling us the truth there.

Let us go back to the original question. Just how strong is man's will? "If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed." That is the only way to get rid of this antagonism for God. He changes the nature of the converted. Brethren, do you appreciate this? This is what I am getting at here. It is an appreciation that comes from our understanding of what He has done for us and given us the ability to discern things that are hidden from this world because they just do not have the mind to get it.

John 15:20-21 "Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me."

There is something spiritual here that we have to be willing to accept, to believe in, to take it for the awesome value that is there, that there is activity in the spirit world that we are not always aware is going on. Just happened to think of something. We cannot see demons. We are blind to them. We cannot see good angels. We are blind to them unless they give us the ability to perceive them. Is it possible that as God through Jesus Christ is converting a child of His by giving them His Spirit, that there might even be demons around whispering in somebody's ear to persecute this person? There is a war going on, a spiritual war for our souls.

Think about it. You know very well from the pages of the Bible there is a war going on for our lives. And the best way to kill us is to turn us off to the fact of the relationship with Jesus Christ being so important. He can see the demons and He can see what they are doing. And so He chooses ways to let us know. "Don't go in that direction! It's bad." We might not see it at all. We might not perceive it at all. But somebody whispers in our ear and makes us a little bit fearful about going in that direction.

So again, how strong is man's will? Listen, man's will will only submit to the Father and to the Son willingly. That is what Jesus said a little bit earlier. If they would have obeyed Me, they would obey you. How do demons know that you have the Spirit of God? They know, they perceive things of the spirit world that we do not. And that our protection is from Jesus Christ.

Now this that I am talking about is something that a man does not want to admit to himself nor to the world. He has a heart that is the very generation point of sin—all sin, sin of every type—revealing that he hates God, that heart does. Man by nature wills himself to choose that which is according to his nature and his nature is carnal and therefore earthy. Was there not a time in your life when you—us—were willing to come to Christ? Brethren, there were times when that occurs, but since then you have come to Christ, are you willing to give Him all the glory for that transition? Are we willing to bless God and give Him the thanks for that?

Let us go to another place where an Old Testament writer touches on this subject.

Psalm 115:1 Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to Your name give glory, because of Your mercy, because of your truth.

Do you willingly acknowledge that you came to Christ because by His Holy Spirit He brought you from unwillingness to willingness? He does that. Until He did that we were still unwilling.

I gave you some verses in that previous sermon to help all of us to understand this, again, a little bit different context, of how much we need this relationship that Jesus Christ is willing to give us. Do you remember when Jesus had that meeting with Nicodemus? Nicodemus was beginning to understand a little bit about what was going on in his life, and he questioned in the right way. And as far as we know, by the time that Jesus was crucified, Nicodemus, though maybe not completely converted, had grown a great deal in understanding and he participated in Jesus' burial, and as we know from carnal history, may have even traveled to England with His mother Mary. It has at least been recorded in legends that that occurred.

But when Jesus spoke to him, Nicodemus began to understand. That is when the opening of his mind began. It took him a year or two to really become converted, but he had an awful lot of unlearning to begin his life in Christ with.

But do you willingly acknowledge that you came to Christ because by His Holy Spirit He brought you from unwillingness to willingness? Are you willing to admit that God has worked in you personally in a way He has not in most others? And God, are you willing to admit to Him has wrought far more in you than He has in many, many others?

I want to turn to another scripture here that adds a little bit to this in Romans the 9th chapter, verse 16. That carnal mind is fighting all the time to give glory to the self.

Romans 9:16 [it says here] So then it is not of him who wills [Look how plain this is. A person does not will unless God is prompting him to will. But that is not what Paul means here.], nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.

That is so easy to understand. We would never come to Christ unless God willed it. Not ourselves, God. The Amplified says on this verse, "So then, God's gift is not a question of human will and of human effort but of God's mercy. It depends not on one's own willingness nor on his strenuous exertion as in running a race, but on God having mercy on him." I will tell you, that puts a cap on my proposition to you that no other verse has ever made that impression.

There are people who study the Bible. Seriously so, they study the Bible. But God never opens their mind, and though they know about the Bible, they are not converted. That is pretty interesting. A person does not get converted simply because he reads and he studies the Bible. He becomes converted because God wills it. No matter how intelligent they are, no matter how great their memory is, how many scriptures they have in their mind, those things will all come back to help that person. But unless God Himself knocks down the barriers between the man's heart and God's heart, there is never going to be a conversion.

Did you not read with me when I read through that verse, when Jesus was selecting the apostles, that it said very plainly, Jesus selected the ones He wanted. And He did not want the others. They may have been very fine people, they may have even been converted people. In fact, I believe that they were converted, but of the mass of people that were following Jesus, He only picked 12 of them to be apostles. And I expanded on that to help you understand that He has done the same thing with each one of us. He chose the ones He wanted to break down the carnality that is within us.

Unless the Son sets you free, you never get free. That is how closely They are building the building that They are building. I am talking about the church. Every part of that building is going to be perfected the way the Father and Son desire, and they are going to fit into that building exactly as He designed for them to fit into it, and He does not want the others in those positions. It is not that He does not want them, He just wants you more. What a concept! And so He picks those He wants in it. He spent the whole night praying about that. It says that. It implies it very strongly right in the book of Matthew. But it does say the ones He wanted. The part about praying all night for it, it just implies it. This was before He chose them. And did He not say later on? "You haven't chosen Me. I chose you." Ah, humbling. You know, in a sense we can almost say they had absolutely nothing to do with it. That is humbling. I was not that important. He wanted me. And He wanted me to fit into a certain place within the configuration of the church, and I know now that He is working to make me fit into that configuration. And you are the same way as I am. We are part of a team, we are part of a building that He is putting together and that building is the Temple of God.

I will tell you, any really good builder, any really good artist is not going to want anybody to mess with their creation. These people who volunteer, they are sincere, and we might say they are good citizens, they are nice people, but that is not the way God is operating. From the beginning, He has been operating according to His plans. That is awesome! When you consider there are billions of people who live on this earth, and He is personally taking us into consideration, and if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed to prepare for that place. Do you appreciate that? That is what those little vignettes that I was giving in that series of sermons. This is a little bit of an expansion on the carnality that we have within us.

So chapter 9 and in verse 16 is one to always remember, and especially the Amplified is so clear. So then God's gift is not a question of human will and human effort but of God's mercy. This does not mean that we do not have to put effort into things, we do. I read one just recently. How can we reconcile that the Israelites, they trudged out of Egypt, 40 years they were going, and then God tells them, "Well, you're only here because I'm giving you this land as your own." And then, this is the amazing part, they had to win the land themselves after He gave it to them. Figure that one out.

That is exactly what our life is like. He gives us the knowledge of Him. He gives us His Spirit. He gives us repentance. He gives us the opportunity to be in His Kingdom. And then He said, "Fight for it." As if we were making all the effort. God has a peculiar sense of humor. But that is the way He works. He wants to see whether we appreciate it. Are we getting understanding of what He has to give us and wants to give us, but it is not going to come free? His kids are going to work.

Do you understand that in order for you and me to yield to God, He had to overcome the enmity you personally had for Him? Did you realize that? The key word there is you personally. It is not just John Dillinger that had the enmity against God. It is every one of us. And He had to overcome it by a series of circumstances, a bit of thinking here and there and so forth, but He reveals it to us gradually so that we are able to move in the right direction. So do you understand that in order for us to yield to God, He had to overcome the enmity you personally had for Him because, brethren, I can say that with positiveness that is exactly what Romans 8:7 says. "The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be." That is every single one of us. There was an enmity there and it had to be erased. Though He did not take it all away at once, but He did take it away so that we were willing to move in the direction that He wanted us to move in.

The carnal mind is at war against God, and the unconverted, carnal mind is our sovereign to that point in our life. That is, until God grants that liberty. It does not want till that point to yield sovereignty to God.

Take another look with me at a scripture in Proverbs the 23rd chapter, verse 7, where it says,

Proverbs 23:7 For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.

That is the way mankind is—as he thinks in his heart. And where is the center of sin? It is in the heart. And every one of us had the human heart, and every one of us was at some point and to some degree antagonistic to God Almighty. So, is your human heart's will a self-determining agent? Or is it in turn determined by something else? Is your heart sovereign or servant? This is something that we have to evaluate. Is our heart sovereign or servant? Is our will superior to every other faculty of our being so it governs them? Every other faculty of our being is that by which we live. Is it a servant or is it sovereign? We are going to try to resolve this question. Is our heart servant or sovereign? Is our will superior to every other faculty of our being so that it governs them or is it moved by their impulses and subject to their pleasures?

Let us take this a little bit further. Does the will of a human being rule the mind or does the mind rule the will? Is the will free to do as it pleases, or is it under the necessity of rendering obedience to something outside of itself? This is an important thing. Does the will stand apart from other powers of the body so it can reverse the man and split him into warring segments? If the will is master within the body, it can do that. Is your will sovereign or is it a servant?

Now let us change the direction of the question a bit. Is our heart subject to God as our sovereign, or is it rising to satisfying the demands of our stomach, or the demands of our sexual organs, or the satisfying of some vanity-seeking praise and admiration from men, or from a drug so that we might "take a trip," as they say? Who is sovereign in those situations? Is the God of creation sovereign in our heart, so that any sin that arises, that comes up in our mind, that we obey the sovereignty of God, or is our stomach or our sexual sins or what we eat or whatever, are they demanding of our will that we are submit to them?

I am getting to the area that causes sin. Where we have to make a choice between whether God is sovereign in our heart or whether some portion of our body is sovereign and it tells God "go pound salt." This is the issue. Is God really sovereign there? Is our heart taking orders from God, or is it taking orders from other portions of our body? This is the issue in sin with God's children. And so we are faced with making a decision, a choice. See?

Let me put it this way. A little bit different. Think of a dog. Tail going back and forth. Only it is not really a tail, it is some part of your body. But what I am going to ask you is, is the tail still wagging the dog because we are serving as its slave or is God sovereign so that we use our will to make sure that it obeys the will of the sovereign God? Is our stomach still demanding that we eat certain things that we should not? Are our sexual organs still demanding that they should be satisfied with a prostitute or adultery? Or are we going to do our absolute best, submit to God, and say, No!

That is the issue in sin. It is, in a sense, that simple. Where is the sovereignty center in a converted person's mind? The sovereignty center is up in heaven. But we bear enough of its impression upon our mind that we are not going to submit to anything that is going to bring shame upon our Sovereign. Sin is not hard to figure out. Because God is educating His children and He makes them fight to keep that freedom. He wants to know that His children are going to be loyal to their sovereign.

So is God really the sovereign? Or are we still serving something in our body and mind that is anti-God? There are undoubtedly some elements of carnality that still are within all of us. We are not perfect by far, and we have things that need to be overcome. But always remember that the one that we want to be honored is our God in heaven and that He is our sovereign, and we are going to do all in our power to not in any way, shape, or form, bring shame to Him. In that way, we show Him that He is our sovereign and we are His slave.

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