Full text of renowned Bible teacher Derek Prince’s teaching on the book of Romans (Romans 6:23 – 7:16): “How to Apply God’s Solution in Our Lives” which was presented in in Ridgecrest, NC. March 1988.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Derek Prince – Bible Teacher
In our previous two sessions we have been looking at Stage 8 of our pilgrimage, which is God’s solution for the old man, and we saw that, that solution is summed up in one word: EXECUTION. But the mercy of God lies in this that the execution took place when Jesus died on the cross. Our old man was crucified with Him.
And we are given the privilege through baptism of identifying ourselves with Him in His death, His burial and then in everything else that follows on. But God has no other program for the old man but execution.
So Paul has answered the objection, “Well, if we want more grace let’s go on sinning more, let’s go on living in sin.” And he points out that’s impossible, because to be in the grace of God you have to be dead to sin. It’s a misunderstanding of how God’s grace operates.
Now we’re going to go on to Stage 9 which is the second part of chapter 6. This is very practical:
HOW TO APPLY GOD’S SOLUTION IN OUR LIVES?
In the previous part of the chapter Paul has given, what will I call, the doctrinal basis. Now he says how do we make this work in our lives?
And we’ll read, first of all, verses 12–14.
“Therefore…” Do you notice the therefore? I don’t know whether anybody is ever going to count all the therefore’s, it would be quite interesting. Of course, it depends partly on the translation you use but the NASB would be a pretty accurate one.
Romans 6:12-14: “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”
Paul gives instructions here but these instructions can only be acted on by people who’ve passed through the transition described in the previous part of the chapter. A person who has not put his faith in Jesus and accepted His substitutionary sacrifice on his behalf just is incapable of carrying out these instructions. So these instructions only work on the basis of what Paul has already said in the previous part of the chapter.
Now he says you’ve got to take a firm stand against sin. I heard a sermon preached years ago by somebody who said if you ever want to get to heaven you’ve got to learn to say no. And that certainly is the truth.
And Paul says you’ve got to make up your mind, say no to sin from now on. “You’re not going to control me, I take a stand against you, you have no more claims over me, you have no more power over me and I’m not going to submit to you.”
And sin and Satan are both alike, they only listen when you really mean it. They both have a way of knowing when you’re just saying it and when you’re saying it and meaning it. You have to say it with determination.
You see, applying the work of Jesus in our lives demands the exercise of our will. It’s impossible if we don’t exercise our wills aright. I believe through faith in Jesus our wills are liberated from the dominion of sin. But after that, it becomes our responsibility to use them aright. And God isn’t going to do that for us. Here’s the point where we have got to rise up and say this is my responsibility.
I want to illustrate this very briefly from a personal experience of mine during the period that I was pastoring in London. For several years I had a tremendous internal struggle against depression. I cannot describe how depression would come down over me and weigh upon me and shut me in and give me this sense of hopelessness and failure.
If you’ve ever been through something of the same, you can identify. And I struggled against this thing in every way that I knew and made no progress. Really, I had to give up, there was nothing more I knew to do and then I was reading Isaiah 61:3 in the King James Version and it says there:
“In place of the spirit of heaviness the garment of praise…”
And as I read those words the Holy Spirit spoke to me inwardly and I read “the spirit of heaviness” and said, “That’s your problem.” It was like a flood of light came in. I realized I was not fighting against myself. It was another person, a person without a body, a spirit that was tormenting me and oppressing me.
And when I realized that I was dealing with a person who was not myself I would say I was 80 percent of the way to victory. I actually only needed one other Scripture in that case which was Joel 2:32: “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered.”
So I put that very simply together and I went to God in prayer and said, “God, You’ve shown me that I’m oppressed by a spirit of heaviness. I’m coming to You now and I’m calling upon You in the name of the Lord Jesus, deliver me from this spirit of heaviness.” And He delivered me, I felt it leave me.
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