Peter Barnes | Romans 7:14-25
SERMON NOTES
THE FIGHT CONTINUES! (part 2)
(Romans 7:14-25)
– We have seen that Paul struggles to understand and obey.
1. We must be realistic.
– if Paul struggled, we must expect to.
– even the Christian finds it easier to read the paper than the Bible or to chatter away rather than pray
– John Owen: ‘He shall find the stream to be strong who swims against it, though he who rolls along with it be insensible of it.’
– 1 Thess.5:23 is perfected at the coming of Christ
– J. C. Ryle: ‘We must not undervalue grace because it is accompanied by much corruption.’
2. Sin is alien to the Christian.
– Rom.7:20, 23; Thomas Schreiner: ‘Paul does not deny responsibility but confesses impotence.’
– Augustine as a Manichaean thought his body was sinning while his spirit was pure. That is not what Paul is saying.
– Charles Spurgeon told in a sermon in 1860 how fearful oaths and blasphemies poured into his mind once as he was walking down a lane in a country town. An old saint comforted him that these thoughts were not his.