So sin works in us. How many know sin works in us? How many notice it works in you, quite regularly? Yeah, especially when you're outside of church, and you’re not so nice then - so sin is there. Now here's the thing you've got realise: while we're in this body, that thing is going to be operating.
Think about lust - there's something about lust that just keeps operating. I reckon it only stops operating about half an hour after the person's dead, and they start to stiffen in their body and get cold then they're safe now! There's no energy going now! That lust has stopped, once and for all, see. So lust is actually a strong, driving energy.
When you start to look at something you shouldn't be looking at, you'll find whether it's got energy or not. It'll rise up inside, and dominate your mind. It'll take some effort to try and stop sinning. Have you noticed? And when we try to stop sinning, do you notice it actually gets worse? You know a lot about it?
It just - I do know a lot about these things. I've wrestled most of them all my life; just didn't know how to get the victory, that was all. But I've discovered something that'll help you.
One of the things is, it says: the strength of sin is the law. You shouldn't do that you know. You shouldn't do that. Now every time you say: you shouldn't do that, I want to do it! Well you just put a sign up over there - 'Wet paint, don't touch' - you know someone is going to touch it. We'll come out of church, and it'll be covered with fingerprints.
You put a box in the middle of a room, and it's a box and it's got a lid on it, and it's got a sign up: 'Do not open'; and we leave you alone in that room, it won't be long, because you will be insanely driven to open the box and have a peek. It's not because you really ever came in wanting to do it, it's just the fact you couldn't open it, and it looks like it's interesting. The more you think: I can't do that, I shouldn't do it, I mustn't do that - I'll just have a quick peek, I'm sure it won't matter. That's what sin is like. It's an energy!
Trying harder to stop it, isn't going to help. It just makes it stronger. Here's another energy that works in us, Ephesians 2.
He made us alive, who were once dead in trespasses and sins; in which you once walked, according to the course of this world.
It says: how we used to live, just like the unsaved did, presuming we've changed that; and we were according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience.
Evil spirits work in you. That's the same word: energise. So they don't come and announce: hey, I'm an evil spirit, and I'm here. They just fill you with energy that drives you to sin, and if there are areas of sin in your life that are already energised, they just get in there, and ride in on top of them, and make it really hard for you to get over it.
So now, not only have you got a sin, you've got a devil pushing on you as well. There'd be a lot of people here who've got that happening, a lot. Well there's a lot. Now come on, don't be like that. You know that's true. You'd be a living a lot differently if there wasn't that happening; and we have a deliverance sermon every year, and we get people come in, and some of them are the same people that were there last year. Good on them for coming back. They've recognised they've got something going on in their life, and there's a sin energy that's defeating them, and making their life miserable and disconnected; and there's also demonic spirits, which are oppressing and energising the sin, making life very difficult, because as good Christians we know what we ought to do. And Paul wrote that in Romans 7. He said: