If you take your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 7 Romans chapter 7, please So I want you to think about a question this morning Do you know your sin? You ever think about that? I'm not asking, do you know that you're a sinner? I'm asking, do you know your sin? And then come the questions, how do we know our sin? Where do we get that knowledge? Is our sin really that bad? Many would say, those are negative questions. Our world says sin is an antiquated concept that we need to get rid of. The key is our potential. When you talk about sin, that messes that up. Sin is simply a failure to live up to our potential. The key is look on the positive side. You can't do that if you talk about sin. So the theory of sin ought to be abandoned. Our world has no place for Paul and his kind of thinking. That's even true of much of our religious world. And Paul was aware that even some believers, especially those from a Jewish background, would have trouble with some of these contexts. So we're going to labor to put what we're reading in chapter 7 in the context of what Paul has already said. If the message had a title this morning, it would be The Law, Sin, and the Unbelievers. We're gonna read from chapter seven, and I'm gonna read the first 13 verses. We've already dealt with the first six. This'll be a review as we read this, since it's been three weeks since we've been in Romans seven. And we're not going to work down near through all of chapter, verses 13, but we're going to see some of it. So I'm gonna read that to get the context. So here we go. Romans chapter seven, beginning in verse one. Or do you not know, brothers, for I'm speaking to those who know the law, that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress. Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. Now verse 7. What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means. Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, you shall not covet. But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that which is good then bring death to me? By no means. It was sin producing death in me through what is good in order that sin might be shown to be sin and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. Father, this morning, we need your guidance. We need you to teach us, to help us to understand the things that Paul wrote some 2,000 years ago. Open our eyes to the meaning and give us grace to apply it even today. And Lord, as we get started into this section, kind of set a tone for us so that we'll understand what is to come. We rejoice that you have given us your word. In Jesus' name, amen. so as we work our way through verses 7 through 13 we begin in verse 7 with the question about the law now we're familiar with questions remember if you if you want to turn back it's just a page back in chapter 6 verse 1 Paul asked this question what shall we say then are we to continue in sin that grace may abound then in verse 15 he asked another what then are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace Paul makes a habit and again let me remind you the reason he does this he knows that people are going to object to some of the things he says they're not going to understand so he puts this question in the mouth of the objector so he can help explain this it's his method it's an argumentative method it's very logical and so he goes through it so now Here in verse seven, chapter seven, he asked another question, and here it is. What then shall we say that the law is sin? In light of all these things that I've said, shall we conclude that the law is sin? Now, that doesn't make sense unless we put it in the context of what he said. Who could ever conclude that the law of God sin. Now some soften this, some translations soften it and say, what then shall we say, that the law is sinful? Yeah, I think we need to be more literal, just like it's written, that the law is sin. He's making a very, very strong statement. So why ask such a question? Again, it's because he's anticipating objection one writer lays it out like this listen the Apostle has been making certain statements about the law and he imagined someone saying well there is only one conclusion to draw from what you've been saying and that is that the law that law that was given through Moses is something evil it's something bad in and of itself further you had already made two statements which disturbed me you had already insulted the law by saying that It only came in on the side That's 520 and then you had gloried in the fact that we are not under the law but under grace But you've gone further now you've said in verse 5 chapter 7 when we were in the flesh the sinful passions of our flesh Aroused by the law were at work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death Surely you are saying therefore that the law is sin You rejoice in the fact that we are not under law in exactly the same way as you have rejoiced that we are not under sin. Therefore, sin and law must be synonymous. There's no difference between them in your thinking. The law is bad, sinful, harmful, something that leads only to our death. Is that what you are saying? Now that little paragraph lays it out pretty well. There are good logical reasons for these people to... that Paul is Paul is saying the law is bad and it comes out a lot of it is a striking parallel he says the same things about the law that he said about sin for instance in chapter 6 he says that the believer died to sin that's 6 2 in chapter 7 verse 4 he notes that the believer died to the law 618 he said that we've been set free from sin in 7 3 we are free from the law It is true that Paul rejoices that the believer is not under the law and Then it seems that he says the same thing about sin Paul explains and we went through this in the first part of chapter 7 he explains that that we must be put to death with regard to the law so that we can belong to Christ and bring forth fruit for God. He says that it is a great hindrance to us if we're under the law, it hinders effective service for God. So it's no wonder that some people objected to this sort of thing. Go back again to the question here in verse 7. 7-7. What then shall we say? That the law is sin? And then he answers it like he does the other questions. He gives the short answer first. By no means, literally, may it never be. You should never even think such a thing. And then he gives the longer answer. that's what we're going to talk about it's obvious to Paul that these who object to what he's teaching they don't understand what he's teaching they don't understand the character of sin and the character of the law they don't understand why God gave the law and how it relates to sin and that's what we're going to deal with in verses 1 through 6 it's about the believer being freed from the law. In seven through 13, he's gonna talk about that character of the law and how it relates to sin. And he's going to say two basic things. But before we get there, I need to say a word about a certain feature in these verses. After verse 17 in chapter one, up until now, he's only used the word I six times. So basically in about almost six chapters, he has only used the word I six times. In verse, in 7-7 to the end of the chapter, I count 32 times he uses the word I. Why does he suddenly use this personal pronoun over and over again? There are three basic views. One view is that he's using I as a rhetorical device. It's just, we can do it in English as well. He's not talking about himself at all. He's just using I, and it's just a way of doing it, a way of language. The second view is he's using I representatively. He's not talking about himself. He's just talking about the person, men in general, people in general. The third view is this is autobiographical. Paul is talking about himself. People have different views, but I'll just tell you, I say Paul is talking about himself. That's why he uses I. There is no reason to conclude that Paul's not talking about his own experience. At the same time, He's well aware that he's not unique, that he's the only person that has this experience. So I would say that Paul is first of all talking about himself and his own experience, but he's also including others because he realizes that man in general has the same experience. So I may go back over that again, but just understand that Paul begins with his own experience with the law and with sin. So he's gonna say two things, and the first is this. The law reveals sin and exposes it for what it really is. The law reveals sin and exposes it for what it really is. Now, come back to verse seven. What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means. Yet, more literally, but, or as the New American Standard has it, I like it, on the contrary, it had not been for the law I would not have known sin if it had not been for the law I would not have known sin now what does he mean for that I would not have known sin is he saying I wouldn't have known that sin existed Oh what yes that that's exactly right and and that's what we're going to talk about He didn't mean that he learned that sin existed. Even unbelievers understand that sin exists. Was he saying that he had never committed sins before? No, he wasn't saying that. Even many unbelievers will acknowledge, well yes, I have committed sins. Rather, He is saying, or let me go further, though some won't admit it, we know that sin is universal. Every person has experience with sin. Everyone has committed sins. Paul was not talking about some superficial view. He's talking about something deeper. He's saying basically, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known the real nature of sin. I would not have known the real character sin in a sense he's repeating what he said back in 320 you can flip there if you want he says through the law comes knowledge of sin through the law comes the knowledge of sin he's saying that again but he's going to elaborate on it now so I ask you again this morning think about it in your own life have you known sin Have you become aware of the true nature of sin? The law of God brings this kind of knowledge. Will you let the word of God reveal to you what sin really is? Now, he doesn't stop there. Notice what he says again. What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means. Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said you shall not covet now Where did he get this you shall not covet? Where does that come from did he just pull it out of the air? This is interactive The Ten Commandments Bart read it for us earlier and which commandment is it Number 10, the 10th commandment. I'm gonna read it to you again, Exodus 20, 17. You shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's. That's the commandment, he quotes. And he says, I would not have known what it is to covet if the commandment had not said you shall not covet now just start thinking about this in your mind that word covet we have seen this word before flip back to chapter 6 verse 12 let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions that's the noun form of the word covet it's lusts lust covet same thing this word means a strong desire it can be a good desire or an evil desire but in the New Testament is almost always an evil desire and that's the way it's used here in 7 7 I would not have known what it is to covet or to lust to have this evil desire if the law had not said you shall not covet you shall not lust you shall not have this evil desire the ESV is good in that in verses 7 and 8 it uses the same English word to translate the original would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said you shall not covet verse 8 but sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment produced produced in me all kinds of covetousness or coveting or lust evil desires King James isn't helpful here it translates those three words in three different ways when it's used in an evil sense this is a craving of anything that is forbidden by God now notice in verse 7 yet if it not been for the law I would not have known sin for or because I would have not known what it is to covet he says for or because he's supporting what he said in the first part in other words I would not have known sin and now let me give you a specific example of that I would not have known what it is to covet if the commandment had not said you shall not Now, let me ask you a question. Why do you think he chose to quote the 10th commandment? There are 10 commandments. We read them. And most of us are aware, they usually call it, there's two tables, and the first four talks about our relationship with God. You shall have no other gods before you keep the Sabbath, all those four. But the last six have to do with our relationship with one another. Honor your father and mother, do not steal, do not commit adultery, and so forth. Why didn't he use one of the other six about our relations? Why does he use the tenth one, do you think? I think it's because it's the one that is connected most directly to the heart. Now the others have a connection to the heart. Remember Jesus connected adultery to the heart and murder to the heart. But do not covet is the heart only. There's nothing outward about it. It's all internal. It takes place in here without any outward action whatsoever. This is the commandment that deals exclusively with the heart. Now, remember who Paul was. Paul was a, what sect was he a part of? He was a Pharisee. And the Pharisees, their whole focus was outward, on the external. If you don't do something bad, you're okay. It's all about the outward thing. That is why Jesus said to them, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. So now Paul, the Pharisee, the man who was concerned about all these outward things, he says that the 10th commandment confronted him and revealed to him his sin. This commandment that dealt with the heart. Now understand, Paul grew up with the 10th commandment. He could quote that commandment when he was just a little guy. But at some point, this commandment that deals with the heart, it came home to him and he realized that he had broken it. Now we're gonna see just what it did in a minute. Not only does this statement about covetousness illustrate how Paul came to understand the true nature of sin, but it is also a stronger statement. I want you to notice in verse seven, notice the word known. I would not have known sin, for I would not have known what it is to covet." Two completely different words. The second is much stronger. The first talks about a mental comprehension. The second one talks about coming to this knowledge after reflection and experience. It is One writer, let me see if I can find it here. I've got it here somewhere. Yeah, that's all right. I would never have understood and come to feel in the depth of my being and have a full understanding and experience of the meaning of lust. the part lust plays in a man's life were it not that the law had said thou shalt not covet in other words the law had not only brought Paul to see that to lust was to sin it had brought him to see that terrible power of lust in his own life now remember the question what then shall we say that the law is sin and Paul's answer would be something like this We can never say that the law is sin. It is the law that has enabled me to understand the true meaning of sin. Because of the law, I can now see how sinful I am as a result of the power of lust within me. I'm not teaching that the law is sin, I am saying the exact opposite. While it is true that I contend the law can't sanctify anyone, that does not mean that I'm saying the law is useless. The law has done me a great service in revealing my sin and showing me the power of lust within me. Now, I ask you again, do you know your sin? Do you understand the depth of your sin? Now, I'm not asking you, do you know that you're a sinner? That's a question we throw out. The problem with that is, most everyone you will ever meet will say, well, yeah, I know I'm a sinner. And it usually goes like this, well, yeah, I know I'm a sinner. Everybody sins. We know that. Yeah, I'm a sinner. It's more of a defense rather than a confession. It minimizes sin. That's not what I'm asking. I'm asking something more like this. a truth about sin come home to you do you understand that you are guilty of all kinds of evil desires now I defined lust or covetousness as that any desire that is forbidden by God so the tenth commandment had specifics you shall not desire your neighbor's house your neighbor's wife your neighbor's animals property any of that But Paul understands that this is much broader than just those specific things. This is the evil desire. Notice what he says in verse eight. But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness, all kinds of evil desires. So let's suppose that you're a people pleaser. that we have a problem with we really want people to like us so we do the things that will please them that's a major problem that sin why because our goal is to please God not people these kind of things were what was exposed in Paul's life and sin came home to him in a powerful way now the logical question is so how do you know your sin what reveals your sin again it's the law of God that's what brought Paul's sin home to him and that's what brings our sin home to us as a Pharisee Paul thought all was well remember what he said in Philippians 3 concerning the law I was blameless and now that man who thought he was blameless understands the deep guilt of his sin so far we're talking about How the law reveals sins and exposes it for what it really is. Now we've got to go to verse 8. And this is the second thing. The law arouses and awakens sin. The law arouses and awakens sin. Let's read verse 8 again. But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Now that requires some serious thinking. Paul again, he's personifying sin. He's treating sin like it's a person. And he says, this is what sin does. It takes definite action. Now, if you just read the bare bones of verse eight, it doesn't seem too unusual. But sin produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Okay. No problem, yeah, that's what sin does. doesn't just produce a desire for what somebody else has, but it produces in me all kinds of evil desires. But the question is, how does sin do that? He tells us in verse eight, but sin, here's how it does it, seizing an opportunity through the commandment produced in me all kinds of covetousness. hear what he said sin uses the commandment of God to produce all this covetousness in me now we're going to talk about this next week as well you've got to get this down I've got to get this down sin uses the commandment The very commandment that says, do not covet. Sin uses that very commandment to stir up all kind of covetousness. That's crazy. How can it be? Now, Paul is already hinted at this, more than hinted at it, back in 520. Now the law came in beside to increase the trespass. then he said again in 7 5 for while we were living in the flesh our sinful passions our lusts aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit for death but now he is even stronger he knows that people are going to object to this but rather than softening it he strengthens it and makes it even more specific so we're thinking How does this work? How can a command that prohibits something be used to bring that something about? We can confirm it in two ways. We can confirm it biblically. Just go back to the Garden of Eden. Okay? Here we have Adam and Eve in the garden. And this is what God said. This is Genesis if you want to look at it. I'm not making this up. Genesis 2.16. the Lord God commanded the man that is Adam saying you may surely eat of every tree of the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die now notice he says you may surely certainly absolutely eat of every tree of the garden now again I want to emphasize this you probably know this but the Garden of Eden You couldn't ask for anything better Don't you know those fruits were good? You know we live in a fruit-bearing place. You know but sometimes the fruit gets frozen here not in the Garden of Eden It's always there. It was always good But there was only one Prohibition of all this multitude of trees. There's this one tree over here You can't eat from that tree. What did they do? They ate it. There is no logical explanation for why they would do that. Why would you have to eat of that one tree when you've got all these other trees you can eat from? It's crazy. But it's the perfect illustration of the way Satan took a single commandment and twisted their thinking into leading them to break that very commandment. Or you can take experience. So when we're raising our kids, we try to protect those kids. Some of you have young kids and almost young kids. We try to protect those kids in many ways but one of the ways is we try to protect their minds. We don't want certain things to be in their minds. And we try to steer them away from certain actions we know that will be bad for them. So let's say we have a 10 year old. And we're talking to this 10-year-old, and we certainly want to steer them away from certain things, but in order to do that, we've got to help them understand some certain things. But to that 10-year-old, we may introduce some things in the conversation that they hadn't thought about before. And kids are different, let's face it. Might not affect one kid, but we've got this kid over here, and he's never thought of these things before, but he begins to think about them. And maybe in a year or two, he decides he needs to experience with them. So things that he would never thought about, now his curiosity gets the best of him and he wants to know more. I don't need to be explicit about it. You understand what I'm saying. Now, that's an example of how curiosity, these things can be used. But there's another concept here. And it's the concept that the natural man doesn't have any desire to do this specific thing until somebody says, don't. That offends our personal liberty. If you say don't do it, I'm going to do it. Now, we wouldn't say that out loud. And I'm talking especially about unbelievers. The natural man has something in him. He doesn't want to be told don't. And when he is, the very thing he's told not to do, he ends up doing. Now, it's hard to illustrate this, and I know those are rather poor. But the truth is the law arouses and awakens sin. Sin takes the holy law of God and uses it against us to stir up all kinds of evil desires. Next week we're going to dig deeper into this. How sin uses the tenth commandment to stir up all this covetousness in Paul But that that's as far as we're going to go this morning So in this chapter in the first six verses, and you can just glance at him again there He talks about the believers relationship to the law and how we must be put to death by regarding the law so that we may be married to Christ and bring forth fruit for God. Now I don't want to get too far ahead, but I want you to know where we're headed and we're going to repeat this again and again. So here's the question. How bad is sin? How ugly is sin? Is sin really that big a deal? After all, Christ died and we're forgiven of our sins. Paul is going to show how bad sin is. His purpose is to paint sin as dark as it really is, and a big part of that is to show sin is so bad, so evil, that it can take the law of God, which is good, and sin will use it against us to stir up more sin in us. That's what he's going to talk about. So I want you to think about it this week. How do you picture sin? Is sin just something trivial? Do we see the ugliness of sin? So stay tuned for the rest of the section, but never forget what Paul said at the end of chapter five. But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. Will sin have the victory? When we look around as we did earlier this morning at the world around us, when we look at our own hearts and we're honest and we still see the sin that's there, will sin have the victory ultimately? Not if we're in Christ Jesus. The victory has been won. And as we go through this, I want us to remember that, what God has done. Let's pray. Father, I'm praying this morning that as we've looked at verses seven and eight, Lord, whet our appetite. even though we're talking about ugliness, sin, with all its evil, give us a desire to really pay attention to what Paul says, to read ahead this week, to meditate on this great truth that you're giving us. And Lord, we're asking that we really see sin for what it is, in all its ugliness, because we know that's the way you see it. And I don't have a perfect understanding, Lord. I know that you have done a mighty work in many of us. We died to sin. We don't have to live in it anymore, and yet we know that sin is still there. We're not totally free from sin. Give us a holy hatred of it. Thank you most of all that you did send Jesus to deal with sin. May we see the cross even more clearly than we see sin. Thank you that Jesus took my sin upon himself, paid the penalty, absorbed your wrath, that I might not only be freed from the penalty of sin, but also from the power of sin. Praise your name. May we keep on coming to you, Lord Jesus, in repentance and faith, believing what you say. Now, Lord, thank you that your word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Because it is, Lord, keep us in your word, in this portion and in others. May we love your law and may it be our meditation all the day. We'll give you the glory, in Jesus' name, amen. All right, any comments or questions this morning? All right, where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. God bless you.