Title: 13
Author: Joe G
Last saved by: PJD-SymCast
Company: GDC

© 2004 Joe Griffin		04-04-06.CC02-271 /

Paul’s Behavior Problem: The  Imperative of Language in the Divine Plan; Frustrated Desire to Serve God Results in Production of Human Good & Evil
18.	In order for divine policy to be revealed to the human race, God instituted a three-fold system of communication:
			1.	Divine inspiration:
Thieme, R. B., Jr.  Canonicity.  (Houston: R. B. Thieme, Jr., Bible Ministries, 1973), 5:
The Greek noun, qeÒpneustoj, theopneustos, or “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16), entails the principle of inspiration and involves both inhale and exhale.  In the inhale, the Holy Spirit communicated to human authors, like Paul, God’s complete and coherent message.  In the exhale, the human writers of Scripture so wrote that without waiving their human intelligence, their vocabulary, their personal feelings, their literary style, their personality or individuality, God’s complete message to man was permanently recorded with perfect accuracy in the original languages of Scripture.
2.	A man with the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher who, under a system of grace didactics, communicates doctrine from the Bible to his allotted congregation.
3.	The mentorship of the Holy Spirit by which long-term wheel-tracks of righteousness are established in the cerebral cortex of the believer.
19.	By means of this system and this system only, does the believer acquire knowledge of divine policy.
20.	It is only by means of this knowledge of divine policy that the believer can accomplish the production of divine good which he desires to do.
21.	Otherwise, he becomes frustrated since his desires are overridden by facilitated wheel-tracks of wickedness.
22.	Therefore, we see that the second attack of the first husband emphasizes the emotional desire to serve God frustrated by ignorance of how to accomplish it.
Romans 7:18 -	In fact, I know [ oda, oida ] with certainty that in me (that is [ e„m…, eimi ], in my flesh) there does not reside [ oikšw, oikeō ] any good thing of intrinsic value; for the consistent desire [ qšlw, thelō ] is always present [ par£keimai, parakeimai ] in me but the honorable accomplishment [ katerg£zomai, katergazomai ] is habitually not [ in me ].	
23.	In verse 19 we will observe the continuing dilemma of the believer who has little doctrine.  Such a person places a lot of sincere stock in observing religious conventions but only seems to come up with facilitated trends of the sinful nature.

Romans 7:19
Romans 7:19 -	(NKJV)  For the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do.
		1.	This verse begins with the explanatory conjunction g£r, gar plus the relative pronoun Ój, hos: “For which.”
		2.	Next comes the present active indicative of what has become a very popular verb in this passage:
		(#17)	qšlw, thelō -	“I desire”
present:	Customary; used to denote what habitually occurs, or may be reasonably expected to occur.  [R(2)]  It also may be viewed as an iterative present which describes what recurs at successive intervals.  Also called the present of repeated action.  [R(3)]
active:	Paul produces the action in this example where he uses himself to demonstrate the inner conflict.
indicative:	Declarative; a statement of fact.
1.	Paul has facilitated wheel-tracks that desire to please God and to do things which serve Him.
2.	In some cases Paul knows what to do in order to fulfill these desires.
3.	Because of other facilitated wheel-tracks of wickedness, he is unable to actually accomplish his objective.
4.	On the other hand, Paul is ignorant of how to properly serve God and thus resorts to facilitated wheel-tracks of human good and evil.
5.	In either case, Paul desires to serve and please God by doing the right thing, he just can’t pull it off.
6.	This is the impact of this customary present: Paul habitually wants to serve God.  The problem is that it just doesn’t happen.
		3.	Paul now defines what he desires to do with the singular adjective:
			¢gaqÒj, agathos -	“good of intrinsic value”
				“For the intrinsic good I desire to do …”
		4.	Next comes another old friend, the present active indicative of the verb:
		(#18)	poišw, poieō -	With the negative oÙ, ou it is translated, “I do not perform.”  [S(3)]
present:	Historical; views a past event, i.e., Paul’s carnal function, with the vividness of a present occurrence.
active:	Paul produces the action of performing that which he does not desire to do.
indicative:	Declarative; a statement of fact.
1.	Paul is writing Scripture, specifically the epistle to the Romans.
2.	He is using his previous battles with the inner conflict as an example of what is normal in the life of a believer who is without doctrine and as a result functions habitually in status quo carnality.
3.	The logical sequence goes like this: the customary present of thelō tells us that Paul habitually desires to do the right thing.
4.	The historical present of poieō says that historically he has consistently been unable to perform it.
5.	This dichotomy is a lifestyle with behavior patterns and character traits that reflect Paul’s poor decision-making during his period of carnal function.
6.	Again the reason: wheel-tracks which are facilitated into long-term memory traces will always get the volition’s permission to act even though mentally the believer may desire to do otherwise.
7.	Paul is correct in perceiving that believers are to do things which are pleasing to God and which serve Him.
8.	The unfortunate human rationale however, is that we are capable of determining what these things are and that we may accomplish them through human energy.
9.	This defies logic.  Why?  Because first of all if there is a God then He has seen fit to permit His existence to be perceived in the finite mind of man.
10.	If God exists, and if man perceives His existence, then it follows that God desires to make Himself known.
11.	If God desires to make Himself known to us, then it follows that He must also desire to establish some sort of relationship between Himself and us.
12.	Consequently, if God desires to reveal Himself to man and to do so in such a way that man may establish a relationship with Him, then God must do it in a manner which man can understand.
13.	This requires the capacity to understand and communicate language.
14.	Again it is necessary to quote Dr. Richard F. Thompson, director of the Neurosciences Program at the University of Southern California:
Thompson, Richard F.  The Brain: A Neuroscience Primer.  2d ed.  (New York: W. H. Freeman & Co., 1993), 391, 389:
All languages, from English to obscure dialects of isolated aborigines, have the same degree of complexity and similar general properties.  It is a though humans came into the world equipped with a well-elaborated, complex, and biologically determined language system.  In short, it would seem that we may have speech and language centers in the brain that are in some ways predetermined or preprogrammed.  (p. 391)
Language is the … one species-typical behavior that sets humans apart from all other animals.  (p. 389)
15.	The reason?  Man is the only animal with whom God seeks to communicate.
16.	The communication vehicle by which He has chosen to reveal His policy, plan, and purpose to man is the Bible.
17.	What God desires an individual to do in order to establish a relationship with Him is to freely express faith alone in Christ alone for eternal salvation and eternal life.  
18.	At the very moment of this nonmeritorious faith decision, the person’s soul is saved, he is placed into fellowship with God, filled with the Holy Spirit, and indwelt by Christ. 
19.	At this moment the new believer’s Christian life begins.  The things which God desires for the person to then do as a means of serving and pleasing Him are also revealed in the Bible.
20.	Absolute, unalterable, and immutable principles that distinguish right from wrong, good from evil, righteous from wicked are clearly proclaimed.
21.	If Paul, or any other believer, wishes to please and serve God, then he must do so within the parameters of these biblical revelations.
22.	Otherwise, the biblically uninformed believer will falsely assume that “what he wises for is good and what pleases him is holy.”
23.	This leads to the frustration of desiring to please and serve God but not being able to do so.
24.	The believer who is ignorant of how to serve and please God is ignorant because he has not taken the time to learn the process and procedure from the Bible.
25.	In some areas he may be entirely aware of how to serve and please God but, although he desires to do what is right, he is unable to get it done.
26.	Why?  In both cases it is because of facilitated wheel-tracks of wickedness producing the children of the first marriage: sin, human good, and evil.
27.	Until biblical truth makes up the brain’s paths of least resistance, man will always choose to follow the currently facilitated wheel-tracks.
28.	Thus we may quote Solomon in:
Proverbs 23:7 -	As a man thinks in his own soul, so is he.
					This is why Paul is compelled to say in:
Romans 7:19 -	For the intrinsic good which I desire to do, I do not perform …

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