The Doctrine of Sin

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Alright, good day gentlemen.
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Good morning.
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I have a handout, hopefully you've all received your handout.
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We are in week 7 of our 12 weeks on theology.
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The program that we created here for set free.
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Last week we looked at the doctrine of man, anthropology.
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This week we are looking at the doctrine of sin.
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And the word sin in Greek is amartia.
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And you'll notice behind me, I've written it for you.
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Just so that you can see it.
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The word amartia is really going to be the focus of today because to understand sin we have to understand what sin is.
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And so the outline is two fold.
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We have the nature and extent of sin is our first half.
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And then the consequences of sin is our second half.
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And under each of those there are several sub points.
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We're going to talk about each of those sub points as we go.
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But if you want to open your Bibles, we'll start with one verse of scripture.
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1 John chapter 3.
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Not the gospel of John, but the first epistle of John, which is toward the back of your Bible.
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Chapter 3 and verse 4.
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I want you there to say Amen.
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Amen.
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Alright.
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1 John 3-4 says this.
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Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness.
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Sin is lawlessness.
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This is one of the few passages of scripture that actually define our terms for us.
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It gives us the actual definition of the term.
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And so John as he's writing the letter is explaining to his readers that everyone who makes a practice of sinning is making a practice of lawlessness and then he gives an equal statement.
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He says sin is lawlessness.
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So the first thing when we ask the question the first question on your sheet, what is sin? We can answer it from a biblical proposition.
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Sin is lawlessness.
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Now how many of you know what a catechism is? Okay, only a couple of you.
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A catechism is a list of questions and answers that are used to teach doctrine and were used for hundreds of years in the church both by Catholics and Protestants.
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A lot of people who grew up as Baptists or Pentecostals never saw catechisms because it just wasn't used.
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But there used to be Baptist catechisms and they were very popular.
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We use them with our children.
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We have catechisms and every week my wife does five questions and five answers.
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What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
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That's the way it goes.
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You ask the question, you get the answer.
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And it's just memorizing.
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Rote memorization of the truths of the doctrines of Scripture.
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Well, when you look at the Westminster Catechism, which is one of the more famous Protestant catechisms, it asks the question what is sin? Now we just answered sin is lawlessness, but the Westminster Catechism expands on that idea and gives us a more full definition because if I said lawlessness many things come into our mind.
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You could think, well, you know, some of you have been in front of a judge and you have been adjudicated guilty.
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At that point you were lawless, but that was dealing with the laws of the land.
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That was dealing with American laws or civil laws, governmental laws.
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What law is John talking about when he says sin is lawlessness? He's talking about God's law, right? Yeah, so here is how the Westminster Catechism describes sin.
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This is a long sentence.
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I don't expect you to write it.
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If you want it later you can come up and look at my notes.
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But this is what it says.
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It says, sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God.
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I'll say it again.
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Sin is any want of conformity to or transgression of the law of God.
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So basically what it's saying is there is a standard.
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We'll call the standard the bullseye.
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Right? So imagine like a target.
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Okay? And the target in the middle is the standard.
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That is the standard.
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We'll call the point of the bullseye the law of God.
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Right? To be in want of conformity unto simply means to be, to fall short.
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Right? So if you were firing, let's say an arrow at this target and your arrow hit here you would be Well for this sake you would be falling short.
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Right? Because you missed the target.
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Right? The target was the center and your arrow fell short.
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Right? And we would say that would be want of conformity unto or rather the lack of hitting the target.
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And that's what's interesting about that word hamartia.
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Literally that is a word which means to miss the mark.
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In an archery when an archer would pull back his bow and would release the arrow, if the arrow went into the dirt rather than reaching the target they would say hamartia! Missed.
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Fall short.
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Missed the mark.
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Right? So that's the first understanding of what is sin.
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There's a standard the standard is God's revealed will or his revealed law and we have missed the standard.
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We have fallen short.
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What's the one verse that often we think about with sin? For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
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Right? So it's right there in the Bible.
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The definition sin is lawlessness, sin is falling short of God's standard and then the Westminster Catechism also says or a transgression of it.
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And you might say well that's the same thing.
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Well, if the standard is here and we fall short of the standard then that's falling short.
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But there's also the rebellious rejection of the standard.
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There is going away from the standard.
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The difference, the way I usually describe it is the difference between sin and trespass.
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How many of you know the Lord's model prayer? Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name.
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You know there's different ways to pray it.
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Right? Some of them say forgive us this day our debts.
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Some say forgive us our trespasses.
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Right? And really the reason why is because it comes to us in two different books.
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It's in Matthew it's in the Sermon on the Mount.
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Jesus gives that prayer.
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Well in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus gives a similar prayer, not the same one.
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He gives a similar prayer when somebody asks him, how do we pray? So it's two different times that he's giving almost the same prayer but the difference is in Matthew's Gospel he uses the word for debt and in Luke's Gospel he uses the word for sin.
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Forgive us our sins.
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And that I think is important simply because this is two different times.
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So Jesus is able to he's showing us that the prayer isn't meant to simply be memorized and prayed like you know our Father.
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A lot of Roman Catholics will have beads and every time they get to a certain bead they'll say our Father.
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It's not meant to be prayed that way.
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It's meant to be modular.
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It's got parts and each part is teaching us something.
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One of the things it's teaching us is about sin and trespass means to go further than you're allowed.
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So where sin is falling short trespass means like if there's a border don't go any further and you see the border says no trespass but you climb the fence and go on in anyway that's now trespass.
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I would say that's a good example of transgression.
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Adam and Eve transgressed in the garden.
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Did they fall short? Yes, but they also trespassed.
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They took what they shouldn't have and they ate what they were commanded not to eat.
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So we now see the expansion.
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This is why the catechism makes the point.
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It's not just falling short but it's also transgressing against.
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It's not just missing the mark but it's violating the standard.
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But it all comes down to the standard and the standard is the law of God.
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That is the standard.
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The standard sin is defined in relation to God's holy character which is revealed through God's holy law.
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Is that on your sheet? Did I just read? Okay, because my sheet's a little different than yours.
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Mine's a little fuller.
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It has my notes on it.
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Now, some people might argue and say well how can all people be sinners? Not everybody knows God's law.
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Not everybody has the Bible.
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So turn with me to Romans chapter 2 and I want to show you something.
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Romans 2 14 Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sin.
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Amen.
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Alright, so in Romans 2 14 we read this For when Gentiles who do not have the law what do they not have? The law.
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Okay, so they don't have the law.
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By nature do what the law requires.
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They are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law.
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They show that the work of the law is written where? On their hearts.
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While their conscience bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when according to my gospel God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
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No man can say he does not have some access to the law of God.
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Because God has placed the general understanding of his law in the hearts of all men.
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We call that the conscience.
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Right? There are three different ways that the Bible describes law.
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The three different ways are number one natural law and that's what we just talked about.
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The law that's in every man.
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Every man knows what it's like to feel shamed.
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Every man knows what it's like to feel guilt.
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And shame and guilt are based on a standard.
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So every man recognizes that there is a standard.
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So that is natural law.
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But then there is what we call mosaic law.
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What is mosaic law? Law of Moses.
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Right? So it's the law that God gave to Moses.
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Now the law that God gave to Moses included more than natural law.
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Because there's laws that God gave to Moses that men don't know naturally.
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Like men know not to murder.
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Men know not to steal.
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But men do not know that on the second day of the third month they're there to take an animal and sacrifice it to the God who created them.
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Right? That's one of those laws that we have that was what we call special revelation.
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And the people of Israel were given special revelation.
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How to build the tabernacle.
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How to build the ark of the covenant.
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Those were laws given to Israel that were by special revelation.
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We would call that the mosaic law.
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So we have natural law that all men have.
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Therefore all men are sinners.
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But then we have the special revealed law of God through Moses.
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And we would say that would be particular to the old covenant people of God.
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Primarily the Jews.
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But then we have a third type of law that the Bible describes which is the law of Christ.
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Did you know the New Testament talks about the law of Christ? Sometimes it's called the law of love.
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Sometimes it's called the law of liberty.
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But it's also referred to as the law of Christ.
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Now some people think the law of Christ and the law of Moses are exactly the same.
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Because Jesus did make a lot of references to the law of Moses.
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But there are some things that Jesus gives to us that are not part of the law of Moses.
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For instance, the book of Mark says Jesus made all foods clean.
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Which meant that a part of the law of Moses regarding food laws is now under the law of Christ no longer to be applied to his people.
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So eat your pork sandwich and enjoy it to the glory of God.
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Hallelujah.
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You can have a barbecue.
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Because we see that.
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We see the food laws being abrogated.
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We see also in Christ new commandments.
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Go into all the world and baptize.
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That's part of the law of Christ.
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We're to go baptize.
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How about this? Take this bread.
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This bread represents my body.
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This cup represents my blood.
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Every time you eat it remember me.
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Remember that? Remember Jesus saying that at the last supper? That's part of the law of Christ.
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Again, revealed law.
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It's for God's people today through the church.
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So when we talk about law, it's not all one thing.
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Sometimes you'll hear people break law into three categories.
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They'll say there's moral law, ceremonial law, and civil law.
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Typically I don't do that.
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But I do understand why.
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Because if you go to the Old Testament, there's laws that were seeming to be purely moralistic.
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There were some that were seeming to be purely ceremonial.
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And there were some that were purely civil for managing the people of Israel.
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But I think it's easier to simply say there's natural law.
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The law that everybody knows.
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Which is basically found in the Ten Commandments.
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Everybody knows not to murder.
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Everybody knows not to steal.
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Everybody knows that if they lie they're going to be in trouble.
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These are all things that are in the conscience.
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That we would call natural law.
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And then the mosaic law.
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In regards to food laws and sacrifices and all those things.
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And then the law of Christ.
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Which if you are a Christian, you are not lawless.
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Understand that.
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People think Christianity is a lawless religion.
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It's not.
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We live under the law of Christ.
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You know what the law of Christ says? It's not good enough that you don't commit adultery.
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You don't lust.
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It's not good enough that you don't murder.
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You don't hate.
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Right? So the law of Christ deals with more than the law of Moses.
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Because the law of Moses dealt with the external.
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The law of Christ deals with the heart.
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Therefore if somebody told me, well I'm not a murderer because I've never killed anybody.
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I say, Jesus says if you've ever hated somebody with your heart you've murdered them in your heart.
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Therefore you're guilty.
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I've never cheated on my wife.
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Yes, but if you've ever lusted in your heart, you've committed adultery in your heart.
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Therefore you're guilty.
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See the law of Christ puts you under under the weight of the spirit of the law.
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Not just the letter, but the spirit of the law.
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And now we find ourselves condemned and that's why we need a Savior.
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And that's why I'm so excited because next week we're going to talk about the doctrine of salvation.
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Today we're going to leave condemned.
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Next week hopefully we'll be you know, maybe we'll talk about it a little bit today.
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Before you can get saved, you've got to get lost.
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Before you can see your need for Christ, you've got to understand why you need a Savior.
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Yes, sir? Yeah, Jesus' law stepped the old covenant up when it was all about the heart.
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Yeah.
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I mean, it's easier to break the new covenant than it was to break the old one.
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I agree with that.
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I think Jesus...
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I was like, wow, I've never looked at it like that.
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Yeah.
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The Pharisees had what I call tricks to get around the Mosaic law, like on the Sabbath.
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They weren't allowed to work, but they had little tricks to do.
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They'd get around because they're not calling it work.
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Right? They could take a certain amount of steps or whatever.
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Because it was all external.
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Jesus cuts to the heart.
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He cuts us to the heart.
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He shows us where we really stand before God.
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And so when we're defining sin as a natural man, we define sin by natural law.
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But as a Christian man, we define sin by Christ.
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He is our standard bearer.
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And so I would say this.
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Sin is any one of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God.
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I would add this.
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I would say sin is any one of conformity unto or transgression of Christ.
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If we are lacking in conformity to Christ, we have sin.
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What's wrong? What? Cushion's falling.
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Don't worry about it.
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You don't need a cushion.
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You ain't with, what, 30 pounds? You ain't got cushion.
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You got cushion enough.
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Hush.
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Alright.
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Now, sin is, first, as we just said, in relation to the law of God.
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The second thing on your list is that sin is also privation of godliness.
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And you say, well, what does that mean? Well, basically, what that is referring to is trying to get to the argument of what sin is and how sin came into the world.
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Because the big question people often ask is, well, if sin is in the world, is sin something God created? Stop.
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Is sin something God created? The answer is no, because sin is not a created thing.
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Sin is the privation of something.
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You say, what's the word privation mean? Privation basically means the lack of something.
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God is the standard.
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Christ himself is the standard.
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Sin is the missing or the lack of that standard.
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So it's not something that is created.
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It's something that comes into the world by way of missing the standard.
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I want to read to you.
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This is from Augustine.
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Now, you may not know.
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You may call him Augustine.
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You know, St.
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Augustine, the city named after him.
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This is what is stated.
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It says, Augustine taking a page from Aristotle argued that evil is not a thing, but rather is the lack of a thing.
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The privation theory of evil says that evil is the lack of good and being where being and good are understood as convertible.
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Evil is not a substance or a property, but a lack of a substance or property.
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So, how do we define sin? We define it by the lack of something.
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Unrighteousness.
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Ungodliness.
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Right? That's what it is.
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Because, and here's the point I'm making.
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You can't have sin without a standard.
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You can't have, you can't say what sin is without there being a standard to compare it to.
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You gotta have the mark.
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Right? For there to be anything to miss.
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So, when we talk about sin, it is not a thing in and of itself.
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But it's the lack of a thing.
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Every one of us lacks something.
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You know what you lack? Not money.
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Not time.
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Not health.
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You may lack all those things, but that's not the most important thing.
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You know what you really lack? Well, you lack wisdom, but that's not the most important thing either.
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Who said that? Yeah, I mean, you're true.
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It's true.
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You do lack Anna, and so do I.
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But what do we truly lack? Righteousness.
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What does the Bible say? All our righteousnesses are filthy rags.
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The very best I can do.
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The very best I've ever done is a dirty, filthy rag when compared to the righteousness of God.
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One of my favorite scenes in the Bible is Isaiah chapter 6.
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You've heard of Isaiah 6.
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I know Pastor Martin has probably preached on it many times.
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I know I preach at least once a year.
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I will talk about it with our people.
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Because Isaiah 6 is one of the most important passages in the Old Testament regarding the nature of God.
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Because God appears to Isaiah as a vision in the temple.
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In Isaiah 6, it says, I was in the temple in the year the king Uzziah died, and I saw the Lord seated on His throne, and the train of His robe filled the temple.
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And above Him were the seraphim with six wings.
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With two, He covered His face.
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With two, He covered His feet.
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And with two, He flew.
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And each of the seraphim were saying, Holy, Holy, Holy.
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The whole earth is full of His glory.
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And what did Isaiah say? Woe is me.
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The word woe is a word of judgment.
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Woe unto you, Bethsaida.
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Woe unto you, Chorazon.
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For if what had happened in you had happened in Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have repented.
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Remember Jesus said that to the cities that rejected Him.
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Woe unto you.
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So when Isaiah says, Woe is me, he's making a statement of judgment.
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Now, Isaiah was the most righteous man in Israel.
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He was a prophet of God.
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But when he was in the presence of Almighty God, he recognized how much he missed the mark.
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He recognized the standard and how far he fell from the standard.
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He put his hand over his mouth and he said, Woe is me.
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For I am a man of unclean lips.
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And I live among a people of unclean lips.
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And I have seen the king.
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Woe is me.
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Now that is recognizing our privation, our lack, our sin.
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Isaiah understood himself before God as having missed the mark.
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And that is what we mean when we say it's a privation of godliness.
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Letter D says sin is also a principle within man.
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Now this might get a little bit in the weeds.
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I hope not.
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I hope this makes sense.
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Sin is more than just active disobedience, but it is also an internal principle.
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And I'll give you a verse for this.
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Matthew chapter 12 verse 35.
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Listen to this.
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The good person out of the good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.
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This tells us something internal.
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There's a principle within us.
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See, the Bible distinguishes between sin and sins.
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You say, what do you mean? Well, sin and sins, if we talk about your sins, you can come and we can confess sins all day back and forth.
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We can confess the sins of hate.
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We can confess the sins of lust.
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We can confess the sins of gross sins like stealing and idolatry and adultery.
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We can confess sins to one another.
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But sin as a principle is what's behind all of that.
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We talk about the nature of sin that is within us.
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See, this is the thing I try to remind people.
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The same nature of sin that was in Adolf Hitler is in me.
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The same nature of sin that was in Genghis Khan is in me.
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The same nature of sin that was in Ted Bundy is in me.
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Huh? Yeah, that's that sin nature, that principle of sin.
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This is why in Romans Paul says, the good I want to do, I don't do, and the thing I do, I hate because there's a nature of sin that I'm battling.
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So sin is more than just what we do.
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Sin is a principle that is within us.
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This is why 1 John 1.8 says this, if we say we have no sin, we are what? Liars.
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If we say we have no sin, we're liars.
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We have inherited a sin nature from Adam.
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We are sinners through and through.
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We are sinners both by nature and by choice.
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Through one man, sin entered the world, and death through sin, and death spread to all men because all men sin.
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Romans 5 verse 12.
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So all men possess a sin nature.
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John tells us if we deny that, we have deceived ourselves.
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The first verse we looked at today.
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Yes, yes, I'm sorry.
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Yeah, if we say we have no sin, we are we deceive ourselves.
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I remember a guy I've told this story before, so if you've heard it before, I'm sorry, I don't mean to be repetitive.
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It's just these things come into my mind.
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Guy came to our church one night.
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I was not preaching.
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One of our other teachers at the church was teaching, and so I was sitting in the back, listening, and the man came in, and so I greeted him, and I said, hey, may I sit with you? Since you're a new person, I want to sit next to you.
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So I sat next to him, and about halfway through the lesson, he gets up to leave.
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Now, you know, I'm curious why he's leaving abruptly.
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So I get up and follow, and get out the door to the narthex.
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If you've been to our church, you know where the front door is.
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You go out, and the front door's there.
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And I said, so why are you leaving? And he says, well, I gotta go.
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I don't want to stay for the rest.
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He said, but I gotta ask you a question.
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What are you about? I said, you mean our church? What's the church about? He said, yeah, what are you guys about? I said, we are about helping people understand that they are sinners before a holy God, and the only way to have their sin forgiven is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
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That's what we're about.
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If you gotta put it in simple, one sentence, that's it.
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You are a sinner before a holy God, and the only way to deal with that is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
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And he said, I'm not a sinner.
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I always love to tell this story, because when I say that, people always go, what? Yeah, that's what he said.
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He said, I'm not a sinner.
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he wanted to get in an argument, and he did for a few minutes argue with me that when he became a Christian, he was no longer a sinner, but now he was saved, and he's not a sinner anymore.
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I said, I understand categories.
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The Bible does take, say, believers are now holy, right? So there is a categorical change where we go from those of the hamartia, those of sin, and those who are made righteous in Christ, declared righteous in Christ.
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I said, so I understand that, but are you telling me that you no longer sin? He goes, yes, I don't sin.
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I said, let me get this straight.
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From the moment you woke up this morning to this very moment, you have loved the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your mind, and all your soul perfectly and without fail.
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Well, I didn't say I was perfect.
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Yeah, you did.
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You like totally did because you said, I don't fall short.
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When you say I'm not a sinner, you're saying I don't fall short because that's what sin is.
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You have to understand something.
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Sin is any lack of conformity to Christ.
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One thing Jesus did perfectly is He loved the Lord His God.
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He loved His Father with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength.
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That's one thing we know Jesus did.
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And that's one thing I know I don't do.
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As much as I try to love the Lord my God, as much as I can, I fall short of that.
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One man said to Charles Spurgeon, you guys may know who that is.
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He's a 19th century preacher over in England.
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He came to Charles Spurgeon's house and he said, I'm not a sinner.
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He says, I no longer sin.
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Charles Spurgeon threw a cup of water in his face.
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And the guy got angry.
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He said, see, that sleeping sinner only needed a cup of water to wake him up.
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Amen.
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He said your sleeping sinner only needed a cup of water to arouse him.
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See, sin is more than just what we do.
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It's our nature and therefore when we come to Christ this is why we die.
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The Bible says we die to ourselves.
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It doesn't mean we become perfect because we struggle.
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But we have to understand what sin is first and foremost.
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Sin is any lack of conformity to the law of God.
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This is what drove Martin Luther.
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This weekend I'm going to be preaching at a church in Ocala and I'm preaching on the life and legacy of Martin Luther.
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Now, just to be clear, not Martin Luther King.
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People get confused.
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Martin Luther King was an important civil rights leader in the 60s.
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Martin Luther was a reformer in the 16th century.
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So, a span of 500...
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You watched the movie? Okay, so you know what I'm talking about.
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So, Martin Luther his sin overwhelmed him.
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He was convinced that he was so bad that all of the good works he did could not save him and he was right.
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That's what pushed him to understand that justification is not by works because he said if anybody was justified by works it was me because I was doing everything I could and I still couldn't find peace for my soul because I understood the weight of my sin.
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To understand salvation, this is why I do this lesson before next week because next week is on the doctrine of salvation.
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But before we understand salvation, we have to understand sin.
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It's absolutely imperative that we understand the weight of our sin.
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And now let's look we're about halfway through we've got to maybe go a little short today.
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Let's look at the consequences of sin.
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As we've looked at the definition of sin Now let's look at the consequences of sin.
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What happened as soon as Adam and Eve sinned against God? Okay.
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I'm glad you said that.
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Who said that? You said they felt shame.
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That's important.
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Because I'm going to erase this.
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Anybody need this? I'm going to erase it.
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Amartya, that's the Greek word for sin.
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Okay.
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That's written in Greek.
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I just did that for fun.
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That's in the Greek letters.
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Alright.
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So three words we need to understand.
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Guilt.
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Shame.
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And death.
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Okay.
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As soon as Adam and Eve ate of the tree.
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Remember how the devil convinced them to eat? You'll be like God.
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God doesn't want you to be like him.
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God doesn't want you to know everything.
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So the devil convinced them that their biggest problem was a lack of wisdom.
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And if they eat of the tree they'll gain the wisdom.
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Eat of the tree and you'll be like God.
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Adam and Eve wanted to be like God.
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Not in a good way.
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Not godly.
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They wanted to be like God as their own authority.
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They wanted to be their own God.
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They wanted to be their own master.
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Their own standard bearer.
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So they ate of the tree thinking that when their eyes were opened because that's what it says.
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It says when they ate their eyes were opened.
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They thought when their eyes were opened that what was going to happen was that now they're going to feel a euphoric sense of power because they're going to be like God.
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But instead of feeling a euphoric sense of power they felt, as my brother just said, shame.
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Shame is something that many people today are they think is totally bad.
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They'll tell you, you should never feel shame.
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You should never you should always put shame away and even modern psychologists will say that shame is not good.
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If I told you that shame is good you'd probably think I was crazy.
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But I'm not wrong.
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Because shame is the built in mechanism that tells us that we are guilty.
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You see guilt is not the same as shame.
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You don't feel guilt.
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You are guilty.
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Guilt is a legal term.
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Shame is a feeling or an experiential term.
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Conscious or experienced.
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See because somebody says, well I feel guilty.
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I say, no you don't feel guilty, you feel shame.
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You are guilty.
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Because guilt, whether you feel shame or not you'd be guilty.
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Because guilt is legal.
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You stand before a judge guilty.
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Not guilty.
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Right? That's it.
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You're either guilty or you're not guilty.
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And it's legal.
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When Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were they guilty? Yes.
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Whether they felt it or not.
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They were guilty because guilt is legal.
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The feeling of shame is God's built in mechanism by which we know we are guilty.
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So shame is not bad.
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Not in that sense.
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Now I will say this, if you're a Christian and you're constantly living in shame you need to understand that your guilt has been taken by Christ and therefore you can release your shame and trust in Christ.
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So there is a sense in which you can't just live in shame all the time and be defeated.
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But understand that there is a sense in which shame has a purpose.
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Yes sir, I see your hand back there.
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Say that again.
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Guilt is a legal term.
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It is legal.
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Well, guilt is a...
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You're legally guilty.
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You have broken the law.
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You have broken God's standard.
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You are legally guilty.
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Guilt is a legal term.
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Shame is an experience.
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We experience shame.
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And death, according to the Bible, comes in two ways.
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Death comes spiritually and death comes physically.
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What does Ephesians 2.1 say? And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked.
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You were dead.
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That's spiritual deadness because you were walking.
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It says you walked in it.
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So it's not talking about physical death.
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It's talking about spiritual death.
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See before Adam and Eve sinned they had a spiritual relationship with God that was unbroken.
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He walked with them in the cool of the day.
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They had this relationship.
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Then they sinned and what happened? Spiritually dead immediately.
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So not only was the consequence guilt, not only was the consequence shame, but the consequence was spiritual deadness.
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And then 930 years later, physical deadness because it took a little while for their body to catch up with their spirit.
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But they started to die physically the day they ate of the tree because at that point their body was now subject to remember what God said to the thorns and the thistles and all the pain of work.
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Adam never had a callus before he sinned.
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He never had a pricked finger or a toothache or pain in his stomach or head.
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Every day that I wake up I got a new ailment.
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What's that? Fat.
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I thought you said fat.
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I was going to say that's true.
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I am fat but that was a little hurtful.
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I thought I saw and brother I would have agreed that's a perpetual ailment.
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I thought that was what you said.
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I wouldn't have been mad.
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I just thought you were being honest.
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No.
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Yes.
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The fact is I hurt.
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I have started developing pain in my left foot.
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I think I may have gout.
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Have you ever heard of gout? It's basically like having a sprained foot.
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It hurts like all the time.
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Every three or four days I wake up.
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I step out of bed and I stand up and my left foot just feels like I sprained it.
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I'm like oh man it's going to be a bad day.
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I'm going to be limping today.
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That's just a reminder that my body is dying.
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My body is subject to death.
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One day this body will die.
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It will die because that's part of the consequence of the fall.
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That's part of the consequence of sin having entered the world.
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Death spread to all men because all men sin.
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My body is subject to death because of sin.
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I'm going to get gray hair.
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I've already got gray in my beard.
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I'm getting a little gray on the side of my head.
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More kids get older the grayer it gets.
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I get headaches.
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I get toothaches.
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Earaches.
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That is the physical overtaking of my body.
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One day it's just going to stop working.
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One day will be my last day.
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One day my heart will stop.
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One day a blood vessel will burst in my brain.
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One day I'll cease to be able to breathe.
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Something's going to happen and that will be my last day on this earth.
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And that is what I'm subject to because of sin.
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The wages of sin is death.
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So the three consequences of sin right away were guilt, legal declaration.
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Shame, experiential declaration or experiential feeling and death which came spiritually and will also come physically.
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So now on your sheet it says discuss Romans 5.12.
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I've already mentioned it.
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Romans 5.12.
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Sin came into the world through one man and death spread to all men.
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Do you want to know how we know that all men are sinners? All men die.
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That is the universal proof that all men are sinners because sin is a consequence or death is a consequence of sin.
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1 Corinthians 15.22 For in Adam all die.
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What does that mean? We're all born of Adam and because we're all born of Adam and we all share in his sin nature we all die.
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This is why Jesus' death was different than our death.
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Jesus said no man takes my life from me, but I lay it down on my own accord.
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1 Corinthians 15.22 For in Adam all die and in Christ all are made alive.
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That's an important verse because what it says is if you're in there's only two places you can be and we're going to talk about this more next week.
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You can be in Adam or you can be in Christ.
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Everybody is by nature in Adam, but by new birth we are placed into Christ and you're either in one or the other.
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There's no middle ground.
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There's no purgatory.
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There's no in or in between.
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You're either in Adam or in and the picture I always say is like the picture of Noah in the ark.
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You were either on the ark or you were not.
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Nobody was hanging on the side.
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You were either in it or you were outside of it.
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And the same is for Christ.
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You were either in Adam or you were in Christ.
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And this leads us to the ultimate consequence of sin and that is eternal punishment.
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Without doubt the most dramatic effect that sin brings is in regard to our eternity.
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Because of sin our relationship with God, our body and our spirit and even our environment has been corrupted and at the end of this corrupt world, at the end of this corrupt life is another time of terror and that is eternal death, eternal punishment.
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And we use the term ECT was the term I use.
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ECT is Eternal Conscious Torment.
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Because I think that is the way the Bible describes hell.
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It is eternal meaning never ending.
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It is conscious meaning you are experiencing it.
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You are conscious and it is tormented.
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It is not pleasant.
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That is the way the Bible describes hell.
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And hell is a consequence of sin.
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And people say I don't think, I don't agree with, people will say this, I don't agree with hell because I don't understand how a good God could send people to hell.
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It is because God is good.
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Yes sir.
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I can say that without any doubt because the Bible says God is omniscient.
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He knows all things and that he has perfect knowledge of all things and he has decreed all things.
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So he not only knew what was going to happen but it happened because it was his decision.
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He could have decided that we not fall.
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He could have determined that we not fall.
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But he didn't.
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Yes.
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I am a strong believer but I have a question.
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Let's say if God allowed you to be tempted since he knows all things and he would know that you would fail say if he would know that you would fail why would he allow you to be tempted? Well let me ask you a question and this is I am not trying to answer a question with a question but you have to take a step.
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No I know that but I am taking a step back when you say if God knows we know he does.
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So we can take the if away right away.
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But because God knows that you will be tempted and so you are saying why would he allow you to be tempted? If he knows you are going to fail.
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If he knows that you are going to fail.
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Well it is still your responsibility.
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The failure is still your responsibility.
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Why God allows things into people's lives and does as he does in people's lives I don't pretend to know all the answers to that question.
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Particularly though I think the when we fail especially as a believer often times our failures are what cause us to have to look back to him and to lean upon him.
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But I do want us to remember what James teaches us because James is very clear on this.
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He says when we are tempted we should not say that we have been tempted by God.
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And so even though God knows what is going to happen and God is in control of what is going to happen ultimately we cannot blame God for our failure.
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I have just been reading the book of Job and the question came up.
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Remember what was the answer God gave to Job at the end of Job? That's fine.
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Because the question is why? Why did this happen? Why did it happen? And the answer God gives is to some people very unfulfilling.
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Because the answer God gives is I am God.
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And I do what I please.
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And that really is.
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Toward the end he says, because he says to Job, he says where were you when I formed the foundations of the world? Where were you when I created the mountains and the seas? I am God.
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You really who are you old man to answer back to God? That becomes the we have to remember that he is God and his ways are higher than our ways.
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And he knows more than we know.
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And so it comes down when we say because some people say well God you allowed this to happen therefore it's your fault.
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And we can't do that.
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I know that's not what you're saying but we have to be careful not to fall into that trap.
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And the answer why God allows what he allows why God does what he does ultimately he is going to receive glory in it.
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Right, that's what I believe man.
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If I humble myself and surrender myself, he will use all my strength.
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Absolutely.
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Ultimately everything he does is to maximize his own glory.
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And that's why we say solely Deo Gloria.
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To God alone be the glory.
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Do you have your hand up brother? I do see you.
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Go ahead.
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Yeah, I'm sorry.
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I didn't know that was on your sheet.
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I would have explained it a little better.
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Okay, we talk about federal headship.
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Federal means representative.
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We have a federal government, right? What is a federal government? A federal government is when we elect representatives.
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We have congressmen, we have senators, we have a president, we have a supreme court.
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What is their job? Their job is to represent us.
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Right? That's what federal means.
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The Bible teaches that when Adam sinned, he sinned on behalf of all of us.
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Just like a king.
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If a king went to war, guess who goes to war with him? Everybody else, right? Because he's the king.
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He's taking us to war.
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When Adam sinned against God, he sinned against God as our representative.
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He took us all to war against the worst enemy in the universe, against God.
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He sinned against God and he took us with him.
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This is why Jesus is called the last Adam.
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In fact, if you want that verse, that verse is in 1 Corinthians 15, 45.
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It says the first Adam became a life-giving or living being.
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The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
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See, Jesus comes in to do what Adam failed to do.
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Adam rebelled.
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Jesus did not rebel.
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Adam sinned.
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Jesus did not sin.
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Adam was unrighteous.
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Jesus was righteous.
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Therefore, you are either in Adam in rebellion or you are in Christ in righteousness.
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That's right.
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That's why you have to be born again.
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Be born in Christ.
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Oh, all the verses following.
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Sorry, you know, sometimes I forget what's on your notes.
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I need to have your seat up here.
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Yes, if you ever see something I hand you and it says Romans 1, 10, FF, that just means all the rest of that chapter.
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It means forward, basically.
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All the following verses.
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Yeah, all the rest.
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So, I just want you to have your seat here.
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So we talked about eternal punishment.
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Let me bring us to a conclusion because we're out of time.
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Sin brings man into the position of enmity with God.
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Enmity means war or hostility.
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Man is opposed to God and God is also opposed to man.
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People don't like to hear that.
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Well, God so loved the world.
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Yes, He loved the world, but the Bible also says in Psalm 5, 5, the boastful shall not stand before your eyes.
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You hate all evildoers.
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It is a difficult thing to understand.
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That's easy.
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What's that? Here is something to think about.
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If you are outside of Christ today, and I know some of you probably are.
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If you are outside of Christ today, you are at war with God.
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You are at war with God because of your sin and the only way to have peace, the only way to be reconciled is through Christ.
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He is the peacemaker.
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He is called the Prince of Peace.
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He is the one who came to bring peace, not between man and man because that is not ever going to happen perfectly, but to bring peace between man and God.
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The peace that you need is available in Christ.
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We will talk more next week about how Christ made peace for us.
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Let's pray.
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Father, thank you for this time of study.
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I hope that it has been fruitful, Lord.
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I pray that it has been.
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I pray, Lord, that you would use this in the lives of all these men to draw them closer to yourself.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.