Let me invite you this morning to turn in your Bibles to Romans. Chapter 6. Romans chapter 6. we're continuing in our study, through Romans 5 through 8, which were entitling a journey to the Heart of the Gospel and just trying to gain a better grasp of some very fundamental aspects of, of gospel truth in Romans 5, Romans 6, Romans 7, and Romans 8.
And as we are working our way through this section of Romans, we come this morning to Romans chapter 6, verse 14. And my goal this morning is to try to make our way, from verses 14, through verse 17, maybe we'll start wading into verse 18, just a little bit. But if you want to give a title to the message this morning, it would be Thinking before you sin. Thinking before you, sin.
JC Ryle wrote a book for young men, and in that book he said this, Believe me, this world is not a world in which we can do well without thinking, and least of all do well in the matter of our souls. Isn't that true? if we're going to be who God wants us to be and make our way successfully from here to glory, then we must be a thinking people and specifically in the context of what we're talking about today, we need to think, think deeply about the matter of sin. And if we're going to be spared from a lot of heartache and a lot of bondage and sin and so forth, then we're going to have to be a thinking people.
Most of the trouble I've gotten into in my own life, and I think many would testify the same in this room, most of the trouble we've gotten into in our lives is the result of not thinking, right? And you might say, well, I've gotten into trouble because I've been wrong thinking. That's true. But normally, no thinking precedes wrong thinking....