Make No Provision for the Flesh

Introduction to the Series and Text

0:03 The following message was delivered on October 25th, 1981, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. This is the third in a series of five messages by Pastor Albert N. Martin on Romans 13 and verse 14, entitled, Putting on Christ.

0:25 Now may I encourage you to turn in your Bibles with me to Paul's letter to the church at Rome, the book of Romans, chapter 13, and follow as I read verses 11 through 14, Romans 13, beginning with verse 11.

0:50 And this, knowing the season, that already it is time for you to awake out of sleep, for now is salvation nearer to us than when we first believed. The night is far spent, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast...

1:10 Cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk becomingly, as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in betting around in licentiousness, not in strife and jealousy, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts, Few things are a greater burden to the true Christian than the presence and the activity of his remaining sin.

1:58 This being so, few things are more welcomed by the true child of God than greater measures of light and grace which result in more triumphs in the ongoing struggle with remaining sin. Now, assuming these things to be true of the vast majority of you gathered here on this Lord's Day evening service of worship, I have been seeking to open up the teaching of Romans 13 and verse 14, a portion of God's Word unusually dense in its practical directives relative to the ongoing battle of the Christian with his indwelling sin. Tonight, we come to our third study in this text. In the first and introductory study, we considered the recipients of this Word from the Spirit of God. We considered together the general setting of the passage, the immediate context, and in particular, the obvious structure of the text.

3:10 Two clear imperatives, one positive, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, the other negative, make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. In our second study, last Lord's Day evening, we focused our attention on the first half of the text, namely the divine mandate to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. And I tried to open up the imagery embodied in that text, a bold and almost shocking imagery, and then to suggest, from the Scriptures, and in particular the previous focal points of emphasis in the epistle to the Romans itself, what it means to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. And we saw in our study together that it means nothing less than self-consciously and believingly to appropriate to ourselves all of the realities that grow out of our union with Jesus Christ. all of the realities that grow out of our union with Jesus Christ. all of the realities that grow out of our union with Jesus Christ.

4:16 all of the realities that grow out of our union with Jesus Christ. by faith, and in virtue of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Now our task tonight is one in which we will seek to grapple with the negative injunction of the text, namely the divine mandate to make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. Now in seeking to understand this mandate, we'll begin where we often begin and where we often, ought to begin, with the meaning of the words of this mandate.

Defining 'Make No Provision'

4:51 And you will notice that the grouping of the words is very clearly set forth, even in our English translations. We have first of all the action forbidden, do not make provision for the flesh, and then the object of this forbidden action, do not make provision for the flesh with respect to its lust. Consider then the action forbidden. Do not make provision.

5:23 There is something which we are not to make, and that something is called provision. Now this word provision, in its verbal form, is a very interesting word, it's a compound word, as is the noun, made up of two words, one which means beforehand, and the other which means to think. one which means beforehand, and the other which means to think. So, etymologically, it is the idea of thinking beforehand with a view to making provision.

5:57 And in its three verbal usages in the New Testament, this idea is very clearly set forth. If you'll just look up or back into Romans chapter 12, you will find it used in verse 17. Render to no man evil for evil. Take thought.

6:17 There's the word, make provision for things honorable in the sight of all men. In some of the translations, render it, make provision. The 1901 renders it, take thought, and either, in a sense, is a proper translation, because it is taking thought with a view to making provision for things honorable in the sight of all men. In other words, the apostle says, to believers, you are seriously to reflect upon the ways in which you can do things that will be honorable in the sight of all men.

6:59 You are not to leave it to whim or to impulse, as to whether you live an honorable life before all men. You are to take thought with a view to providing a lifestyle visibly evident before men that will be honorable, and will commend your profession, as Christians. Over in 2 Corinthians 8.21, the same word in its verbal form is used again by the apostle. And here, as with the Romans 12.17 usage, the emphasis and meaning is clear. In this section dealing with the collection taken up for the poor saints in Judea, the apostle is explaining why he has gone to the trouble of getting a team of men together to handle this collection. Why not just have one man do it? Why not simply collect it and carry it himself? Well, he tells us in 2 Corinthians 8 verses 20 and 21, avoiding this, that any man should blame us in the matter of this bounty which is ministered by us, for, and here's the word in the verbal thought, a verbal form, we take thought, we think, we think, we think, we think, we think, we think, we think, we think, we think, we think, we think, we think, we think, we think, we think, we think, we think, we think, we think, we think, we think,

8:12 we think ahead of time and make actual steps and plans for things honorable, not only in the sight of the Lord, but in the sight of men. The apostle gave thought to what it might appear, how this might appear, if he were unilaterally to take the collection and bring it to the poor saints in Judea. He might give people the opportunity to say, well, Paul's taking, uh, skimming off some for himself. And so he gives definite forethought and planning to making a provision with respect to this collection that would cause the provision to be done in an honorable manner. And then that well-known text in 1 Timothy 5, 8, if any man provides not for his own, he is worse than an infidel, he hath denied the faith. And it's in the context of a believing man who is unilaterally to take the collection and bring it to the poor saints in making provision for widows who are close to him in terms of natural relationships. If any man provides not for such widows, if anyone does not give deliberate forethought about the needs of a widow who is close of kin, and in the light of that forethought make adequate provision, he is

9:37 worse than an infidel. Well, you get an idea, you see, of the feeling of this word. To think beforehand with a view to making provision. Now, the only other use in its noun form is found in Acts 24, but it illustrates the meaning very clearly. And so I would ask you to turn to Acts 24 with me. Acts 24 and verse 2. This orator, Tertullus, has been called down in order to aid the cause against Paul. And when he was called, Tertullus began to accuse him saying, seeing that by thee we enjoy much peace, and that by thy providence, by thy provision, that's exactly the same word, evils are corrected for this nation, we accept it in all ways and in

10:38 all places, most excellent Felix. Well, as this man, Tertullus, is addressing Felix, he wants to commend him, and he commends him for the fact that by his providence, by his provision, by his judicious forethought and provisions, evils had been corrected within the nation. Now, do you have a feel for the word? When the apostle, by the inspiration of the Spirit, wrote to the Romans and said, you are not to make provision for the flesh, he was saying, you are not to, involve yourself in activities that can be characterized as forethought and planning with respect to making provisions for the flesh to fulfill its lust. Now, the object of the forbidden action is equally clear. It is the flesh with respect to its lusts. The language is very abrupt in the original.

Defining 'The Flesh' and 'Lusts'

11:49 The wooden translation would be as follows, and for the flesh, provision do not make unto lust. In other words, the mandate, do not make provision, has specific reference to the flesh and to the flesh with respect to the issue of lust. So the two key words, then, are flesh and lust. And what does the word flesh mean in this context? Well, in the Pauline literature, as well as in the literature of the word of God in general, the flesh used in this sense refers to depraved, sinful nature, the corrupt propensities of fallen nature. Perhaps the classic passage in the New Testament is Romans 8 and then again Galatians 5, or the classic passages, plural. The works of the flesh are manifest.

12:50 And then you have listed those activities and attitudes that are the outcropping of the activity of flesh. And because some of them involve sinful attitudes of mind and disposition, not merely sinful actions that are carried out by the body, we learn from such a passage that the flesh does not refer to the body, the soma. Now the flesh will use bodily appetites and faculties to accomplish its designs and to fulfill its lusts, but the seat of the flesh is depraved human nature. The flesh is depraved human nature.

13:35 Now the apostle says do not be making provision, do not be making forethought with a view to providing for the flesh, that is the flesh with respect to lust. Now what does this word lust mean? Well the word itself is a neutral word. It simply means desire, good or evil. But here and in parallel passages it refers to evil desires or appetites.

14:05 And let's look at just a couple of passages that underscore this fact. James chapter 1, James chapter 1 and verse 14. Each man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed, then the lust when it hath conceived beareth sin, and the sin when it is full grown brings forth death. Here you see lust.

14:37 Lust is evil desire which results in sin. Turn further back in your New Testaments to 1 John chapter 2 in the well-known statement of the apostle John chapter 2 verse 15. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

15:02 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh. The evil desires of depraved human nature. The lust of the flesh. And then you find that close relationship between lust and flesh again in Galatians chapter 5 and verse 16.

15:29 Galatians chapter 5 and verse 16. Walk by the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust. Of the flesh. Depraved human nature has its appetites and passions and desires which are described by the word lust.

Distinguishing Legitimate Needs from Fleshly Lusts

15:50 So if the flesh is corrupt nature, then lust is its voice crying to be fed and to be satisfied. Now will you notice, and please understand that this text is not in any way, speaking of the body and its legitimate concerns and God-given appetites. It is our Christian duty to take care of and to give prayerful, thoughtful forethought to the responsible provision of our temporal, physical necessities. Ephesians 4 tells us, Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him work with his hands. That he may have to give to him who has needs. Here is a man with decided, definite forethought, working with a view not only to meeting his own temporal needs of the body, but the temporal needs of others. 2 Thessalonians 3, a chapter we'll read next, Lord's Day morning, God willing, says, If any man will not work, let him not eat.

17:03 The man who is so spiritual as to be indifferent, to the kind of calculated forethought and planning necessary to secure a legitimate job, to earn money, to buy bread, Paul says, let his super-spirituality begin to play a tool on his backbone and he'll come down to the world of true biblical spirituality. If he will not work, don't let him eat. Now if he cannot work, then it is less than Christian if you don't help him in his need. But if he will not work, for whatever reasons, and there at Thessalonica, it was a kind of piosity, a super-spirituality that was lifted above the mundane concern of forethought for temporal needs. Paul says, let a man feel the end result of such foolishness. And then, of course, our 1 Timothy 5, 8 passage, If any man does not provide, does not think ahead, and make plans for the provision of those who are, he is worse than an infidel, he hath denied the faith. 1 Corinthians 7 speaks in the very concrete terms of the husband and the wife being conscious of each other's sexual needs and taking forethought and action to see to it that the needs are met.

18:27 No, the Bible knows nothing of an asceticism that seeks to go after the flesh, that is, depraved human nature, by pounding. The body, in its legitimate, God-given needs and necessities. Our Lord condemns anxious forethought, Matthew 6, and again in Philippians chapter 4. But the word of God nowhere condemns, but rather commends, prayerful, thoughtful consideration to the provision of temporal needs.

The Mandate in its Roman Context and Modern Application

19:05 Now, so much for the meaning of the words, of this mandate. We have an action forbidden. Do not make provision. The object of that action is the lust, is the flesh with respect to its lust.

19:22 Now, let's try to set those words in their original setting as they came to the believers at Rome. There in pagan Rome, the flesh reigned in society at large. If you have any question about it, read Romans 1, 18 to the end of the chapter. There you have a graphic and even sickening description of the sins that had permeated the structures of the Roman Empire.

19:52 And now the people of God at Rome, living in the midst of that, are obviously feeling the pressure of that lifestyle of Roman sensual excess. So much so that as we saw in studying the context of our text, the Apostle had to warn Christians against these sins of excesses in eating and drinking, excesses in sexual activity, and these cursed inward sins of interpersonal relationships that created envy and strife. Well, what was going on at Rome? Well, Roman society was a sickening monument to what happens when people make provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. Romans plotted, schemed, and invented and promoted all manner of ways to make provisions for the flesh with respect to fulfilling its lusts. And Christians in the midst of that situation are called upon, to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, to dress themselves self-consciously to understand and appropriate

21:18 all of the provisions of their redemptive union with Christ, all the implications of that union. And in the midst of that mindset of faith, they are called upon to be radically different from their fellow Roman citizens who are not in a state of grace, who are continually thinking and plotting as to how they may, as it were, fill the cabinets, fill the storehouses, fill the cupboards with provisions for the flesh so that whenever fleshly appetites cry out to be gratified, they find themselves well-stocked with provisions to gratify the passions and appetites of the flesh. They are called to a lifestyle that is diametrically opposed to that, at all times and in all places, in all circumstances, while clothing themselves with the Lord Jesus Christ. They were not to make any planned provision. They were to indulge in no forethought with a view to providing for the flesh with respect to its lusts. And what God said to the people of God at Rome in this text, He says, He says to us, living as I have suggested in our modern Rome, in which it would appear that our society,

22:47 at this very point in the history of our nation, and this is true for the most part of the other Western nations, are engaged in a contest about doing one another in stocking up provisions to fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Conclusion 1: Indwelling Sin Remains Active

23:07 Now, what are we to say in the face of this? This situation in which we must live, while God has already brought His word to us, make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. Now, having opened up the meaning of this mandate, now consider with me some crucial conclusions in the light of this mandate. If we have truly understood the mandate itself, then several very practical conclusions, should be brought home to our hearts.

23:43 And I want to lay three of them before you tonight. First of all, to be thoroughly clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ does not put a believer in a position in which the flesh becomes eradicated or inactive. Now, you see how that conclusion is warranted? Having commanded them, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and assuming they will give themselves to that positive mandate, he follows through and says, and for the flesh do not be making provision with respect to its lusts. So, to be thoroughly clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ does not put a believer in a position in which the flesh becomes eradicated or inactive. Even when the positive mandate is being obeyed, the negative is still needed. And oh dear Christian, how you and I need to learn that remaining sin in its fleshly lusts is yet powerful, active, and demanding

25:06 in our most spiritual frames and conditions. Although Galatians 5.24 is true of every believer, he has crucified the flesh with the affections and the lusts thereof. Its dominance has been broken in definitive sanctification.

25:28 Though Romans 8.9 is true, you are not in the flesh but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. It is equally true that though we do not live in the flesh, the flesh still lives in us. Just as it is true though we have died to sin, sin has not died to us.

25:53 And so the same apostle who writes in Galatians 5.24 of all believers that they have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts, says in 5.17, the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these two are contrary the one to the other. Oh dear child of God, learn from this text.

26:18 Even though you are putting forth true, solid, constant, biblical endeavors to be thoroughly clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ, this does not place you in a position where the flesh is either eradicated or inactive. I thought of the words of John Owen on this point in my preparation. He said, Indwelling sin is never more active than when it seems most inactive. Some of you young people have been listening to Pastor Chantry's expositions of the life of David, and David's tragic fall is the sad monument of that principle.

26:58 What could have been more innocent than to go out on the veranda in the evening to meditate, to see in the beauty of a setting sun the handiwork of God, perhaps even to contemplate what we might call the setting of the mind and the soul in a poetic frame to pen us on. And from walking upon a veranda, perhaps with a view to meditation, leading to the composition of a psalm, he's plotting to get another man's wife in his bed, and shortly after plotting for the murder of her husband. When indwelling sin seemed least active, it was most present and powerfully active, plotting David's fall. And if a mighty one, a man after God's own heart, can fall so tragically, so foully, to the wounding of his own soul and the disgrace of the name of Jehovah, the very thing that caused the temporal judgments to come upon him, who are we to think that we are exempt? So learn from this text, child of God, though giving yourself to the positive mandate, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and even when you sense some help

28:26 in doing so, as you do, I trust, in an unusual measure on a Lord's day, when Christ seems peculiarly near in the singing of His praises, in the prayers addressed to the Father through Him, as you see Him in your brothers and sisters, have you not found to your shame and to your grief that Mondays are often your most tragic days in terms of spiritual downfalls, because you seem to be so clothed with Christ you thought surely indwelling sin will go on a vacation for a day? The activities of the Lord's day have either scared it away or shut it up into a state of inactivity. No, no. The Apostle understood this and therefore he buttressed that positive injunction, put on the Lord Jesus Christ with the negative injunction, and for the flesh do not be making provision. With respect to lust. Then there is a second conclusion to be drawn from the text and it is this.

Conclusion 2: The Duty of Watchfulness and Self-Examination

29:36 To be thoroughly clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ does not place us beyond the duty of intense watchfulness and self-examination. To be thoroughly clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ does not place us beyond the duty of intense watchfulness and self-examination. You see, this injunction, and for the flesh do not be making provision to fulfill the lust thereof, is really just another way of calling us to self-examination. And I'm glad Pastor Nichols chose the hymn he did.

30:20 Watch and pray is the word of our Lord. Matthew 26, 41. 1 Corinthians 10, 12. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed, lest he fall.

30:33 You see, if we're to obey this text, to make no provision, to take no forethought for the flesh with a view to fulfilling its lusts, we've got to do some honest self-examination and engage in some serious watchfulness. We have got to ask ourselves what it is in the general patterns of our life that results in laying up in the cupboard of our own experience provisions for the flesh. It means we've got to analyze the patterns of our own peculiar fleshly propensities. It means we've got to reflect on the patterns that have led to an indulgence in excessive appetite, if we go back to the context. What have I been doing that leaves me in a position to fall before the lust of excessive indulgence in food or drink or in deviant sexual behavior? What is it that leaves me in a position that when the lust cries, the food is there at hand? And I've got to analyze and think through and examine myself with respect to those matters, or there can be no fulfilling

32:01 of this biblical injunction. And so I say it's a call then to self-examination, not to morbid introspection. Morbid introspection is that terribly crippling activity in which you just simply gaze at the garbage that is your remaining corruption and sin. But self-examination is an activity that leads to specific spiritual activity mandated by the Word of God.

32:34 We are looking in only so long as to see the pattern that we might in the strength of Christ deal with that pattern and change it. The person who is so afraid of morbid introspection that he does not engage in self-examination will never obey this mandate. We must not only say with David, O Lord, search me and know me. We must end with David's prayer, Search me and know my heart.

33:05 Try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. And he's not asking God to do that so God will know something about him. He's asking God to do that that David may know what God knows about himself.

33:23 So to be thoroughly clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ does not place us beyond the duty of intense watchfulness and self-examination. Now let me ask you, dear child of God, when was the last time you ever sat down and for five minutes prayerfully concentrated your attention upon what we might call, for the sake of identifying what I'm after, a pocket of very stubbornly resistant remaining flesh in your life? You have a pocket of stubbornly resistant flesh. Maybe it's in the realm of an attitude, as Paul deals with envy in this very context. Maybe it's something that breaks out into a very specific expression of fleshly activity, such as excesses in eating or drinking or sexual, the fulfillment of sexual capacity and desire. Now when is the last time that you sat down for five minutes and asked yourself, why is it that that pocket of remaining carnality seems to be resistant to all of the ordinary means of grace? Could it be that it's been your failure to reflect long enough to see the subtle ways in which,

34:51 not even perhaps self-consciously, as the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, though perhaps even at the level of the self-conscious yet very really, you have been, as it were, laying up in a cupboard here and in a closet there and under a tree here and behind a house there, all along your pathway you've had little points where provisions for the flesh have been laid up so that when the flesh cried out, the provision was there. You wonder why you have fallen again and again and again? It's because you haven't been doing what God tells you to do. You've been making forethought to the flesh. And the forethought is seen in that you put provisions so that when the flesh with its lust cries, there is something to respond to it. And I'm wrestling very seriously with whether or not I ought to bring a final message next Lord's Day, getting into some concrete ways in which the people of God can actually carry out this principle. Tonight, I'm simply articulating the principle extracted from the text that to be thoroughly clothed with the Lord Jesus does not place us beyond the duty of intense watchfulness and self-examination.

Conclusion 3: Only the Regenerate Can Obey

36:18 And then the third conclusion drawn from this text is this. None but a new man, a new woman in Christ will ever take this mandate seriously. None but a new man or new woman in Christ will ever take this mandate seriously. You see, the mark of all unregenerate people is given to us in a passage such as Ephesians 2 and verse 3.

36:45 This sad, sad description of unconverted men and women. They walk according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, the spirit that works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived. Think of it. The man who could describe himself in the language of Philippians 3, touching the law blameless, says of himself, we all once lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

37:28 You see, as long as we are under the control of the devil, as long as we are as it were the puppets and the strings are the lusts of the flesh and of our mind, and whenever a string is pulled, we jump. You see, there is no hope that we will ever begin to wage warfare against the flesh with respect to its lusts until we are extricated from the morass of that condition described in Ephesians 2, where flesh and lust dominate. They will not rise up against themselves. A house divided against itself cannot stand.

38:09 Flesh will not rise up against flesh. Lust will not rise up against lust. That is why the Bible says, they that are in the flesh cannot please God. That is why Jesus said, you must be born again.

38:23 There must be the inclusion of divine life and power, implanting an entirely new principle of operation, in which the spirit dominates, in which, though there is remaining corruption and residual flesh, there is now this longing. The flesh is lusting against the spirit, yes, but the spirit now lusts against the flesh and is the dominant power in the life of a child of God. Perhaps I am speaking to someone who, sitting here tonight, has a tremendous problem. The problem is that because of your training or because of the influences of God's common grace upon you, you have not been able to give yourself up to a seared conscience. And there are areas in which you are abandoning yourself to the lusts of your flesh. And this text is as impossible as if I should issue a command, grab the sides of your seat and lift yourself three feet off the ground. If I gave such a command and pointed a gun at your head and said do it in the next three minutes or I am going to pull the gun, you would have to take the gun or run.

39:34 No alternative. You say, Preacher, it is impossible. How can I pull the sides of my chair and elevate myself? I cannot do it.

39:43 Well, in the same way, when a text like this comes saying, Make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust, you cannot comply with that text because your heart and your affections are wedded to your lusts. You are a slave, the Bible says. And that is why you are in the mess you are in, your conscience pulling you away from that lust, your conscience pulling you away from those constant provisions you make to fulfill the lust of your flesh and you are miserable in the very sins in which you seek pleasure. My friend, you are in a sad state, but thank God you can get into a glad state.

40:25 And what you need, you see, is power to cleanse the conscience from the guilt of all those sins you have indulged and you need something more. You need power to begin to comply with the dictates of the conscience that is under the light of God's law. And that is what God offers to sinners in the Gospel. He offers the full pardon and cleansing of sin so that the application of the blood of Christ is called the purging of the conscience.

40:57 But He also offers Himself in the purging of His Son to be the great emancipator whom the Son sets free, is free indeed. Whosoever commits sin is the slave of sin, but if the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed. Oh dear person, sitting here tonight, finding a text like this, nothing but an amplification of your own misery, I would direct you to the Lord Jesus Christ. In a sense, you see, this text follows the overall Biblical pattern of a call to faith and to repentance.

41:39 And you must put on Christ in that initial sense. You must put Him on as your only hope of salvation, your only hope of forgiveness, your only hope of liberation from the bondage to your lust. Put on Christ in faith. And then you will find in union with Him there is power to turn away from your lusts and the passions of your flesh and begin to walk in the way of holiness.

Exhortation to Desist and Pray

42:09 May I urge you as the people of God, who I trust have found in the past couple of weeks at least some encouragement as well as instruction in dealing with your remaining sin, may I urge you to pray in this latter part of the text. Ask God to help you to know, to discover, to come to honest and honest appraisal of where it is that you are making provision for the flesh with respect to its lusts. And then desist the force of the present imperative if there is any difference at all at least in the grammarians to whom I have looked for help. If there is any difference in the form of the imperative here from the putting on of the Lord Jesus, it is the assumption that some provision is being made. Stop it! Stop making provision! Desist!

43:07 Cease! And then go on ceasing. Continually make no provision for the flesh. I know there are not a few of you struggling with the very practical matters that are right here in this passage.

43:20 You've confessed it to me and to others of your elders. You're wrestling with the problems of physical appetites. You're wrestling with the problems of sexual activities that are contrary to the word of God. You're wrestling with the paralyzing power of envy and other inward attitudes that break out in interpersonal relationships.

43:44 Oh dear child of God, stop making provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. No amount of prayer and no amount of meditation, no amount of attempt to lay hold of the provisions that are yours in Christ Jesus will do. No amount of preoccupation with the first part of this text will do if you refuse to comply with the latter part. They stand and they fall together.

44:15 And all attempts to put on the Lord Jesus Christ that are not joined with obedience to the mandate and make no provision for the flesh can only lead either to frustration or self-deception. Just as surely as all attempts to make no provision for the flesh that are not attended with the putting on of the Lord Jesus can only lead to legalism, to a crippling kind of external wooden asceticism, or worse yet, to absolute discouragement that will eventually lead to the life of a libertine. Say, I've fought, I've tried, it doesn't work. What's the use?

44:58 Might as well give in. Oh, may God help us as his people to lay the truth to heart. And will you pray with me that if I should follow through with a very intensely practical pastoral word fleshing out some of the practical ways in which this duty can be implemented that God would direct me in my own meditations and preparation. Perhaps we've heard enough.

45:23 Maybe no more can be said beyond the general principles. That's all Paul gave him at the church at Rome. Now, I don't know what the elders did in opening it up and applying it and working it out. May God grant that we shall hear the word of God and seek by his grace to implement it.

Pastoral Prayer

45:41 Let us pray. Our Father, we are so thankful that you speak to us so plainly in your word. And though as we remembered this morning there are portions that are obscure and difficult, we thank you for those that are so plain that they embarrass us by their plainness. Because we cannot claim exemption from compliance for lack of understanding.

46:18 And if we will not comply it is only because we choose not to. O Lord, we ask that this part of the text that we've examined tonight may not only be written upon our minds and hearts by the Spirit, but that the same Spirit who originally gave it through the Apostle, the same Spirit who has been with us in our meditation upon it, will give us power to implement its directive. O God, enable us as your people to make no provision for the flesh with respect to lust. Give us grace, living in our modern Rome, where men on every hand study to make provisions for every imaginable lust. Give us grace that we shall in the power and strength of the Spirit be kept as your people. Lord God, we acknowledge now as we do in our moments of spiritual sobriety that we are so vulnerable. There are times when we long that you would take us home to yourself for fear that we should live long enough to fall in such a way as to bring reproach to your name, grief to your people, and dishonor to your beloved Son.

47:47 O God, help us to put on your dear Son, to arm ourselves with all of the provisions which are in Him, and teach us how wisely and with keen and accurate insight to our own peculiar vulnerability. Teach us how to make no provision for the flesh. Hear our cry. Seal the word to our hearts.

48:15 Be with us in the days of this coming week that we may live and speak and act as those who have indeed been in the presence of our Lord Jesus this day. Have mercy upon those that are yet in their sins. May some word from your word this night fasten itself upon their consciences and give them no rest until they in repentance and faith turn to you, the living God. Hear then our prayer and receive our thanks through Jesus Christ our Lord.

48:51 Amen.