WWUTT 881 The Truth Will Set You Free?

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You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. It's a very popular phrase, people will use it as a proverb, but they don't understand that it means, if you believe in Jesus, you're set free from sin to live in righteousness, when we understand the text.

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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text, as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt

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.com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the

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Gospel of John, Chapter 8 this week. As for today, we'll be looking at the section that goes from verses 31 to 38.

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The Apostle John wrote, So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed Him, If you abide in My word, you are truly

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My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

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They answered Him, We are offspring of Abraham, and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that You say,

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You will become free? Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

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The slave does not remain in the house forever, the son remains forever. So if the

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Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill

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Me, because My word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have heard from your

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Father. Ooh, that's rather an indictment from Jesus. If you know where it is

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He's going next, that's the section we will look at tomorrow. As for today, we have one of the most famous verses in scripture that many people take out of context and they use it as a proverb.

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You've probably had somebody say this to you before, even though they couldn't quote you ten Bible verses, but you've heard someone say,

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You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. I was actually watching a movie just recently where the villain said this to the hero, and he was trying to entice the hero,

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Hey, I've got some knowledge for you that you need to know, and it will set you free. So he quoted that verse, he quoted it as a proverb.

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You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Well that's true, but not when it comes whispered out of context through the lips of Satan.

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But through the word of Christ, we are set free from sin and we have freedom in His name.

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Verse 31, Jesus said to the Jews who had believed Him. Remember where it is that we stopped last week in verse 30.

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As He was saying these things, many believed in Him. As He was saying what things?

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Well, going back to verse 28, He said, prophesying of Himself, When you have lifted up the

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Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing on My own authority, but speak just as the

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Father taught Me, and He who sent Me is with Me. He has not left

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Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him. And then verse 30, as He was saying these things, many believed in Him.

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But they didn't truly believe in Him, because that's what we read in the next section, starting in verse 31, is

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Jesus challenges whether or not they truly believe. They said that they believed, or they kind of acted like they believed, but it wasn't genuine belief.

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They were just attracted to the fact that Jesus spoke in a different way. He spoke differently than the rest of the teachers,

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Pharisees, scribes. They did not speak the way that Jesus spoke. And we got a little bit of that back in chapter 7.

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The Pharisees sent some officials to arrest Jesus when He was preaching in the temple at the

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Feast of Booths, and that's actually still where we are. That's still the setting of what we're looking at here in chapter 8.

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But when those officials came back without Jesus, the officers came to the chief priests and the

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Pharisees, who said to them, why did you not bring Him? And the officers answered, no one ever spoke like this man.

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So they were told by the Pharisees to go and arrest Jesus. But when they listened to Him preach, they were mesmerized by it.

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They were like, wow, we've never heard anybody teach like this before. Have you ever witnessed that before, that somebody gets attracted to a teacher who comes around, who just speaks in a different way?

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Now, when it comes down to it, when we understand the book of Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun.

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But as far as current trends go, somebody will come along that has spoken in a way that nobody else is speaking right now, and people will be attracted to that.

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They'll be interested in that person just because he's doing something different. And so that's why these people believed in Jesus, as it says in verse 30, as He was saying these things, many believed in Him.

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So then Jesus tests the genuineness of their belief. Verse 31,

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Jesus said to the Jews who had believed Him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.

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So that's like the thesis of his test here. They don't really believe, they don't really abide in the words that Jesus has been saying.

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And He will say that in verse 37, you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you.

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What does it mean to abide in the word of Christ? Well, in this particular instance, when He says that, when He says, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, it means that you didn't just believe it because you heard it and it sounded different, it sounded neat to you, and it's not like I've heard anywhere else.

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So for the time being, I'm kind of curious, so I'm going to believe this. Well, that's not genuine belief. To truly believe means that you will continue to believe it.

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You don't just believe it now. You don't just do your Sunday morning duty. You are continually thinking about the words of Jesus, trying to apply them to your life, living in them, abiding in them, abiding in these words.

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If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

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Now that instantly became confusing to these who claim that they believe Jesus because they answer him, we are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone.

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How is it that you say you will become free? So they're confused, they're asking for clarity, doesn't necessarily mean they immediately doubt or they're no longer ready to follow

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Jesus anymore because he's going to continue to press on them as they ask him these questions.

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When they say we're offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone, they're not talking about in the ethnic

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Jew sense, because of course the Jews had been enslaved. They were enslaved to Egypt, but these

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Jews are saying we've never been enslaved to anyone. Here we've lived in Judea and we've not been under slavery, and sure, we've got to answer to the

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Romans, but we're not their slaves. We get to enjoy that freedom of religion thing here, whereas long as we're practicing

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Judaism and we're not trying to convert anybody else and we're paying our taxes, then Caesar has let us do this thing that we do.

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So the Jews are saying that we're not a slave to anyone. Now the argument could be made that the

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Jews had forgotten their heritage, and to put it more specifically, they forgot

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God. They forgot what the Lord their God had done for them by bringing them out of slavery in the land of Egypt.

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Maybe that's what's being insinuated here, that it's not just a general thing of, well, yeah, we're being oppressed by the

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Romans, but we're not their slaves. None of us have ever been enslaved before, so why do we need to know the truth that sets us free?

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You could use it in kind of that generic sense, but it could also be speaking to the fact that the

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Jews did not remember God who brought them out of the land of Egypt, who brought them out of slavery.

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And remember, the interesting thing about that is all of this is going on during the Feast of Booths.

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This is a feast to remember how the Lord had brought them out of the wilderness. Each one of these feasts, these holidays that the

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Lord had given to them, was to be celebrated remembering what God had done for them.

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Like you take Passover, for example, in Exodus chapter 12, when you come to the land that the

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Lord your God will give you as he promised, you shall keep this service, the

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Passover meal. And when your children say to you, what do you mean by this service? You shall say, it is the sacrifice of the

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Lord's Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt when he struck the

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Egyptians, but spared our houses and the people bowed their heads and worship. That's in Exodus chapter 12, verses 26 and 27.

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So you take that concept, what the Lord told Israel to do. You shall remember this feast and you shall teach it to your children so that you may remember what the

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Lord your God has done for you. And you apply that to this Feast of Booths that's going on here where Jesus was teaching in the temple, and you realize that they had not been doing what

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God told them to do. To remember their heritage, to teach it to their children, to remember the faithfulness of God.

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They were just having a party and having a celebration and believing that they were religious because they were doing it.

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We have the favor of God because we're doing those feasts, which God told us to keep.

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But they forgot why they did not think about why they were celebrating these feasts. They were not giving glory to God through this celebration.

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That could be what this is revealing here about the hearts of the

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Jews, especially as Jesus is going to go on and say, I am doing what I've seen from my father.

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You do what you see from your father and the father that he's referencing the Jews are following is not

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God. So they're following after the devil instead of following after the

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Lord. So they say to him, we are offspring of Abraham and we have never been enslaved to anyone.

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How is it that you say you will become free? We're not a slave.

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So they're thinking in the literal sense. They're thinking in their current living environment. We're not slaves right now.

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You say that your word is going to set us free. Remember that some of the Jews are looking at Jesus as he's possibly the

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Messiah. There are still some whispers among the Jews about that. Is this the guy? Is this the one who has been promised who was to come?

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We've seen him do all kinds of miracles. We have heard him say all these amazing, incredible things.

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Maybe this is the guy. So what they think their Messiah is going to do is free them from the tyranny of Rome.

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But here Jesus is talking about being freed from slavery. And now they're confused because it's like, well, we're not slaves.

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So if the Messiah is coming to relieve us from slavery, how can that be when we're not even being enslaved right now?

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They're taking that literally instead of understanding the spiritual connotation that is understood through the word of Christ, which does not abide in their hearts.

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So now verse 34, Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

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So he's saying to them, you are a slave in the spiritual sense because you practice sin.

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And then he tells them specifically what that sin is when he says, you seek to kill me.

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So he doesn't just leave them in wondering, like, well, how are we sinning? We're not doing any sin.

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Jesus says, no, you seek to kill me. That's your sin. So you are a slave to this sin that you are practicing.

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Truly, truly, I say to you, and remember when we were back in John 3 and Jesus said those words to Nicodemus, truly, truly.

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In Greek, it's amen, amen. And when Jesus uses it at the start of a statement, rather than the way that we use it as a conclusion to a prayer,

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Jesus is speaking authoritatively. He's saying, what I say to you is the truth. And I'm the originator of this truth.

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That's what this means when he starts his statements with truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

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In Romans 6, Paul made an appeal to the Christians in Rome that they would not walk in sin, that they would no longer be a slave to sin, but rather they would be a slave to righteousness.

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Romans 6, 11, you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

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Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions.

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Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

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For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law, but under grace.

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The grace of God has set you free, so you are no longer to walk in sin. So going on,

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Romans 6, 15, what then, are we to sin because we are no longer under the law, but under grace? By no means.

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Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey, either sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness.

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But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.

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And he goes on in verse 19 to say, I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations.

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That's why Paul is using this analogy of slavery because of our fleshly limitations.

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We can't understand slave to sin, slave to righteousness. You've been set free. Well, if I've been set free, then why am

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I a slave? And Paul says, I'm using these terms because of your natural limitations.

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I'm trying to put this in terms to help you understand you have to serve somebody. You're either going to serve sin or you're going to serve obedience.

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And you if you have been set free in Christ, you no longer want to serve the sin.

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You're no longer after the passions of your flesh. You've been set free from that to which all of us have been enslaved as descendants of Adam.

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But when we hear the gospel and we repent of our sin and we believe in Jesus Christ, we no longer want to do the sin.

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We now want to do the righteous thing. We want to walk in the righteousness of Christ, which has been given to us by faith.

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And we will demonstrate that we are in that righteousness when the works that we do will show that we have

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Christ's righteousness, not a righteousness from ourselves, but a

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So Paul says in Romans 6 19 for just as you were just as you once presented your members to slaves.

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I'm sorry, I start that again for just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness.

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So now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

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So Jesus doesn't quite use that double slave analogy here the way that Paul did.

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You're either a slave to sin or you're a slave to righteousness. But Paul also talked about being set free there as well.

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If you've been set free from sin, then you are free in righteousness. If you've been set free from sin, you are you are free in righteousness to do the righteous thing that God has called you to do, because now you have the righteousness of Christ and you can do it.

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So Jesus is talking here about freedom being set free from sin. If you know the truth, the truth will set you free.

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The Jews are confused about that. Jesus answered them. Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

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The slave does not remain in the house forever. The sun remains forever.

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So if you want to truly be free, if you want to be set free from sin forever, then you believe in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. So if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed.

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Not freedom from like some kind of earthly tyranny, but freedom from sin and the wages of sin, which is death and therefore saved from the wrath of God, which is burning against all unrighteousness of men.

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Luther wrote about the bondage of the will that we are in bondage to do the sinful thing until Jesus breaks the chains of that bondage and gives us his righteousness so that we may now do the righteous thing and know the favor of God through faith in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. It is only by this, by faith in Jesus, that we are truly free.

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You will know the truth. The truth will set you free. And if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed, not temporary freedom.

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The slave does not remain in the house forever. The sun remains forever, but eternal freedom in the sun, eternal life with God in heaven.

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Jesus goes on in verse 37, I know that you are offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me again.

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He mentions specifically their sin here, because my word finds no place in you.

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In Luke chapter 9, Jesus said, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

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For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

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For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the son of man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the

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Father and of the holy angels. So we must know the truth of what

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Christ has spoken, and it is by faith in what he has said that we find true freedom.

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And we don't just believe his words for a moment because we got the warm fuzzies one day, but we continue in this word, we believe it every day, we meditate on it every day so that we may not turn aside to the right or to the left, that we continue to grow in it every day, that it shapes us daily, conforms our minds to the thinking of God.

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When we abide in his word, he abides in us and he keeps us from all falsehood.

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So Jesus says, you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you.

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I speak of what I have seen with my father, and you do what you have heard from your father.

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And as Jesus will explain that as we go on in this, the section we'll look at tomorrow, these

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Jews who thought that they believed in Jesus didn't truly believe in him.

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Their belief was not genuine, but rather they followed the father of lies, the devil.

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There's an old spiritual, the title of which is everybody talking about heaven ain't going there.

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Just because somebody can use the right words doesn't really mean that they're a follower of Jesus or that they're heading to heaven.

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Last night was the Grammy awards and I didn't watch because all of the music is just absolutely filthy.

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But I did catch in, it was either on Twitter or Facebook or just a newsfeed somewhere that Lady Gaga won an award and when she won her award, the first thing she said was, first of all,

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I want to thank God. But she has no evidence in her life, certainly not in her music at all that she knows who

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God is, nor does she follow him. Be careful, Christian, that you do not fall into the passions of your flesh, but abide in the word of Christ.

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And if you abide in his word, he will abide in you and you will be set free from sin to walk in righteousness.

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Amen. Thank you for listening to when we understand the text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website www .wutt

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.com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page. Join us again tomorrow as we continue our