What is a Sin Nature? Laborers' Podcast #sin #sinnature #originalsin

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Join the Laborers as we try to understand what the Bible describes as a sin nature.

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Welcome to The Laborer's Podcast. We're so glad that you could be with us this evening.
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Tonight we're going to be talking about a sin nature or the sin nature and why it's so important.
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We hope you'll stick around. Welcome to The Laborer's Podcast which is a part of the
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Truth in Love Network. Join us as together we strive to grow up together in all things into Christ.
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Subscribe and follow the Truth in Love Network on Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Spotify and iTunes.
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Now let's join our laborers for tonight's broadcast. Good evening.
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Up at the top we have a new face. Matt Breeding.
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No, Matt is not a new face. He has been with us and he's part of the Truth in Love Network and I'm so grateful for him and thankful for him.
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Especially all the work behind the scenes that he is doing that nobody knows but I'm gonna give him credit and praise.
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He's been working so hard for the Laborers Conference coming up in 2024.
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The end of April it's gonna be a Reformed Baptist Church and Matt has been working really hard to help secure some funds so that it will cover some travel expenses.
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It's a free conference. Go to laborersconference .com. Look at the schedule.
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There's some things to do. There's some hotels there on the website. There's several places where you can register.
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We would love for you to come see us at the Laborers Conference and fellowship with us. Learn with us.
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Worship with us the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ but I want to thank Matt for all that he's done and all the work that he's doing to help us raise some funds.
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So thank you brother. You're welcome. Hey we're having it in my town.
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I'm gonna try to help you guys out that are traveling in and like we discussed just try to take care of that stuff so we can keep it free for everybody that wants to come and not have to.
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That's right. I've heard it said and it's probably true in some cases you know you get what you pay for so that you you have a free conference so that's gonna be the quality of the speakers.
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In my case it that may be true however that's not gonna be the case for the rest of the speakers.
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You're not gonna we're not gonna be lacking in quality. These men love the Lord. They love
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God's Word and and they love sharing God's Word and I'm thankful for my brothers in the
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Truth and Love Network and the ministry that they're doing. So we we're gonna be pointing to Jesus.
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We're gonna be looking at his Word and so we're not gonna it's not it's not gonna be low quality because we're gonna be pointing to Jesus and I'm thankful for them and and also not only has
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Matt been working on some funds but he has secured some free resources that attendees can receive.
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Matt can you tell us about the the two books that we're gonna get? I don't have them right in front of me, the names of them, but one of them is from Truth for Life Ministries, Alistair Begg Ministries.
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The other one is from Banner of Truth. So two solid resources there.
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Again I don't have the names of the books right in front of me but trusted resources there so I trust that these are good books that will be beneficial.
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Absolutely. And we have with us this evening the
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Providence Perspective with a Reformerican, Jay Antelo. How are you doing brother? What's going on fellas?
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Thank you for having me. As always, glad to be here. Fantastic. So we're gonna start 2024 with the topic of sin and and what is a sin nature?
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I think sometimes when I was thinking through this, this can be one of those
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Christianese type words. Christianese is just language that Christians use that maybe an unbeliever or if you're not in certain circles you you you're not familiar with the terminology, you're not familiar with that language, and so and I'm sure
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I'm sure this this term has been used in some gospel presentations. You you've got a sin nature and they're like, what?
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I've got a what? So I think it would be good for us to talk about what is the sin nature and define define this biblical doctrine and understand why it's important.
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So getting started, Matt you're at the top. We'll start with you if that's okay just plainly in plain
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English. What is the doctrine of a sin nature? What does it teach? I think just at its root, a simple definition is that we all of us have a natural inclination to sin that given the choice to do our will or to do
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God's will, we're going to choose to do our will and go against what
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God's will is. That our nature again has that inclination to go against what is
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God's will, to sin against God. I think that's we're going to expand out from there, but I think that it's at root that's what when we talk about a sin nature, it's that inherent inclination within us to sin and not to do
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God's will. Would you add anything to that, Jay? No, I think that's perfect.
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I'm thinking of like Romans 14, I want to say 23.
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If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but it says for whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.
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And so basically if I can lay out what a sin nature is, is a nature that doesn't put its faith, that doesn't put its trust in God, right?
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And I would say that not only is that a sin nature, but you know to kind of start answering the first question, who does it affect?
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Who has a sin nature and why? Well, I would say it affects all of us, every single human being, right?
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Romans 3, actually Romans talks a lot about sin and sin nature. You know, Romans 3 talks about how no one is righteous.
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No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless, so on and so forth, right?
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Like we as human beings are fallen creatures, meaning that we have been separated from God and His will and basically have gone our own way.
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We have all gone astray, like Isaiah says. And so when we talk about the sin nature, and we're just describing the condition that we as humans are in.
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I want to share something actually, and I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier, but I had shared something that Voddie Bauckham had said not too long ago.
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I mean, he may have said this a while ago actually, but I heard it on one of his preachings, and I thought, man, that is so good and so precise.
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Let me see if I can find it here. Here it is. So he said, if only Christians can do good works, then why do unbelievers do good things?
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Because in order for a work to be deemed good, it has to be the right thing done the right way for the right reason, right?
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And so the problem that we as humans have is that in our natural state, we may do the right thing.
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We may even do it the right way, but we'll never do it for the right reason apart from Christ because we have that sin nature.
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So I will leave it at that for now. So basically you are pointing us to this thing that happened has affected us on the inside, where we reason and where we make our decisions.
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I think that's where you're pointing us to our motivations. You're pointing us to this sin that happened.
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You know, we go back to Adam and Eve, you go back to Genesis. This thing that happened that brought sin into the world, it affected us on the inside.
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Correct, yes, and it's exactly like you're saying. You know, like I said earlier, Romans 14, 23, whatever is not done by faith is sin, and so when you are apart from God, your motivation is not to bring glory to God, to obey
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Him, to serve Him. Your motivation is to please yourself, right? To seek out whatever you feel is right in your own eyes, and like I said, like Bodhi Bachman said, you might do it.
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You might do something that is right, maybe even in the right way, though not necessarily always, but ultimately you're gonna fail in at least the third category, which is for the right reason.
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What is the right reason? I would say it's ultimately the glory of God. So whenever you don't do it for the glory of God, by having faith in God, you're still sinning in some way, shape, or form because you're being motivated by something other than God.
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I like that word that you used. You talk about it being a condition, and that implies that there was a former condition, and now we're in a different condition, and I think that speaks to the sin nature and where we are in our state, that we're involved in this condition.
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And Matt, I like what you were talking about, too. The inclination, and I've heard people use the word, we have a bent.
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We have a bent towards sinning, and we don't have the ability to unbend it, to straighten it, and point in a different direction.
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We're permanently, I guess what I will say, the sin nature means that we are permanently bent towards doing those things that, and with a motivation or without a motivation, to glorify
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God. And so I totally agree with everything you guys were saying.
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The last part of, yeah. Well, I was going to touch on that last part of question two.
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I don't know if that's what you're getting ready to ask. That's exactly what I was going to ask, yeah. I think both of you all touched on it.
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Of course, Jay said sin nature affects us all. You mentioned,
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Rob, back in Genesis, the fall, Jay mentioned that as well. We can look at Romans 5 .12,
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Paul tells us, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, speaking of Adam, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.
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So he's clearly telling us that through the sin of Adam, that death entered through sin, and that infected us all right there.
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Right. Do you think that versus speaking of, I think there's two,
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I see two lanes in that verse, and you guys can can help me out here and tell me what you think.
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But all have, all have sinned, and so you have, you have
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Adam who sinned, and then we all have sinned. So I think there's, there's, it speaks of Adam's sin, which led to the the entering of sin into the world, but then you have all have sinned, which also doesn't throw all the responsibility on Adam.
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It puts it on us as well. I think it speaks of both there. Yeah, because we, whether it was
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Adam or us, we'd have, we'd have done the same thing, so it doesn't matter. So he just happened to be the one there.
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Yeah, so we, he started the domino effect, if you want to say, but yeah, we're, we're all guilty because we ultimately sin as well.
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Mm -hmm. We, we, we choose to sin ourselves. Right. The other two lanes that I see in the passage that you read, which
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I'm glad you did, when it talks about death, we can reflect back on on Genesis when
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God told him, you will, you will surely die, but when they ate the fruit, they didn't, they didn't die.
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So that goes back to what, what Jay was introducing us to, which was the effect that happens on the inside.
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Did death come physically? Yes. So there's one lane, and then you have the spiritual aspect of death that I think it refers to as well, which happened, occurred when they disobey
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God, and then also we experience spiritual death, where we're, I guess we're born spiritually dead.
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We need to be made alive in Christ. So do you guys see that? Am I pulling too much out of that, all that passage?
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No, I, I, I 100 % agree. I don't know if Matt is gonna disagree here.
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He looks like he's about to disagree. No disagreement. Maybe it's, maybe it's just the lack of beard that just makes you look kind of suspicious.
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I don't know what it is. What, what is original sin?
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Because that term is, is brought up in this conversation as well. What is original sin, and how is it related to the sin nature?
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I think that we have to, I want to try to be careful here, because I don't want to step into a heaping pile of heresy when
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I speak. So you guys, you guys are older than me, so you guys are gonna take care of me, right?
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But, but, but this, you know, I've thought about this problem of original sin, because when we talk about original sin, in some way, shape, or form, we are describing the first sin, right?
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Adam's first sin. But I think we also use it to describe our sin nature.
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I don't know if we can necessarily separate the two. Because the fact that we are sinful by nature makes us sinners, right?
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What, what you are is what you are, right? And so if you are sinful by nature, you're, you're a sinner.
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Some people might object to, well, you know, babies and things like that. They, they haven't done anything bad.
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But I think we can, we can make an argument that even babies are sinning, just by the sheer fact that they don't think of anyone except for themselves, right?
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You might say, well, it's a baby. How can you blame a baby for, for being the way it is? Well, that's exactly the point.
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It's, you know, they're not capable of thinking of anyone but themselves, because they are sinful by nature, right?
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And so, again, you guys can correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe that that in and of itself is already, you know, even, even babies are without excuse.
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Now, I'm not saying, right, I'm not trying to get into the whole, do babies go to hell? Then if they die in infancy,
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I'm not going to get into that right now. I have my own thoughts about that. But I would say that from the time,
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I mean, you know, it's, it's like David say, in, or David said, excuse me, in sin did my mother conceive me?
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You know, from conception, he recognized I was a sinner from conception. And so I think that definitely applies to the fact that we all have original sin, right?
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Like the moment that we're conceived, we sin, right? We are being sinful and we sin, um, which ties into that sin nature.
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I don't know if you guys get where I'm going with this, if it makes sense. Am I, am
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I being heretical? Hopefully my pastors are not watching right now. You bring up an interesting point.
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And so I'm going to ask you something hypothetical to get your perspective on it. And it would be the flip or the opposite of what you just described.
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So it makes sense what you're saying that, and I think we've already kind of said it and pointed ourselves in that direction, that original sin, sin nature, it has affected all of us on the inside.
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So therefore that nature that we have is going to have an effect on who we are and what we even from the beginning.
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So who you are is going to affect how you behave, what you do. So that,
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I mean, to me, it kind of begs the question or pushes me to get your perspective on the flip.
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So let's say that Adam and Eve did not disobey. So it remained a garden of Eden.
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It remained good. And think about glory. Think about after all this is finally over and done with, and you have, if there are babies in heaven, like we know them now, a baby without a sin nature, basically what
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I'm asking, a baby without a sin nature, would they behave differently? Well, what about baby
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Jesus? Did he behave differently? Hey, there you go. I don't know.
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The Bible doesn't say, at least as far as I know, if you guys know of a verse, let me know.
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But that's a question I've thought about myself. Sometimes I've said that baby Jesus behaved differently than other babies.
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I mean, obviously this is speculation, and I try not to say something definitive if the
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Scripture is silent on it. Calvin says something along the lines of where Scripture is silent, so I must be silent.
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So I would lean towards that. But since we're speculating, I think there must have been some kind of difference in how
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Jesus as a baby behaved. What all that entails, I'm not going to even remotely attempt to define it.
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But yeah, to answer the question, I think, if I had to guess, right, this is not scriptural, so don't take my word for it, but I think that without a sin nature, babies might behave differently.
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I think that was a safe answer. Very good answer. I'm going with what's safe.
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I will not speak where God has not spoken. Amen. You can't help but agree with you that an individual with a sin nature is going to affect an individual.
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I mean, that's just the way it is. That is scriptural. That is evident from Scripture and in life.
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I mean, you visually witness it. Someone with a sin nature behaves a certain way.
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So you can't help but think, you know, the thoughts that you were thinking, you know, how did
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Jesus behave? Or how would someone without a sin nature, a baby without a sin nature, what would that look like?
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Interesting. Maybe they wouldn't wake up their parents at 3 a .m.
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because they're hungry. I'll just say one thing
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I think Jay touched on that I think would be interesting from a personal perspective, using the term original sin,
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I think probably even, like I said for myself, even probably up until a couple years ago when
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I heard that, not that I probably heard it that much, but you,
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I think my mind tended to go just to the sin of Adam.
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Just speaking of that first sin, and obviously that's part of it, but I don't remember where I got this by like this definition.
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It said that original sin can be defined as the moral corruption we possess as a consequence of Adam's sin resulting in a sinful disposition manifesting itself in a habitually sinful behavior.
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So again, it goes back to what you're saying. It's tied to Adam's sin. The term original sin is really speaking of that condition that we inherit as a consequence of what took place prior.
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So I think for a lot of people, that term can be a little confusing and they look at it too simplistic and don't bring it full course, which again,
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I would say I saw it that way as well.
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Would we tie this in? I mean, I know I would, but I'm just curious, would everybody else tie this into the doctrine of total depravity or would you guys have some different views on that?
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I think there's definitely a connection there.
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Because I guess what I'm, there is that question of,
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I'm sorry, Rob, I don't mean to take over, but I'm just having some thoughts. I'm curious what you guys think of this.
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There is that thought of like, okay, well, total depravity, I might imagine somebody pushing back and saying, if you believe in total depravity, then how do you explain people who do good things?
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Then clearly they're not totally depraved. I don't know. What do you guys think of that?
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I think that, again, I think some people are getting away from that term of total depravity because I think anybody that's honest would say that we're not all as depraved as we could be.
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What we're really getting at with that term is that our sin, our depravity, whatever level that manifests itself, it affects all parts of us.
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Us in total, not that it's as bad as it could be, but that's the total of our person.
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Like all our faculties, like our mind, our heart, our soul.
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Yeah, our body, all of that. Again, because we can look at, not that we want to be necessarily comparing ourselves to anybody, but we can obviously find other people that have done worse and more depraved things than we have.
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We're not as bad as we could be, but that doesn't mean, like you said, all of our faculties, all of our being is not affected by that depravity to some degree.
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Do you remember the new term? Because I think you're exactly right, Matt. I think R .C. Sproul used the term radical depravity.
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Radical, okay. Yes, you're right. When you were explaining all of that, I was like, I've heard this stuff before.
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I was like, I think he may have gotten that from R .C. Sproul. I mean, I don't know if you did or not, but I was like, okay.
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That's where most of my stuff's coming from on any topic. Well, I like R .C.,
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so I'm inclined to agree with you there. I do remember he kind of, in that series, he kind of messes up the tulip because he doesn't like anything.
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Yeah, he pretty much changes all of them. There's another one that we talk about that we use different terminology, and we've done it recently, and I can't remember what it was.
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Perseverance. Yeah, perseverance, yeah. Preservation. Preservation, yeah, exactly.
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Well, Jay, you and I were on the, we were thinking on the same wavelength because that's some of the other thoughts that I had on the questionnaire.
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How is it related to the doctrine of total depravity or radical depravity, as we just discussed, and how much of man does a sin nature affect, which is related to that question.
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I was trying to think about how to word it, but it almost seems like we are radically depraved because of the sin nature.
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The sin nature is what gives birth to radical or total depravity.
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That's why we are the way we are. It's because of the original sin, because of sin nature, and therefore, maybe it's just another way, another term that we use to describe having a sin nature, or the result or the effect of having a sin nature is our radical depravity.
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Yeah, I think it's, oh, oh no. Oh, there we go. The fact that it is our nature, it has to affect all of our total being.
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If there was one part that was affected by the sin nature and another part that wasn't, we would, by logic,
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I would think have to have two different natures. Yeah. Well, I think that we have a certain, it's kind of interesting, because in a sense,
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I guess you could say that people are not completely and utterly depraved in every aspect, right, like what we're talking about.
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But I still think that we can't say, well, it's a mix of good and bad, right?
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Because it's like the rich man that comes to Jesus and says, good teacher.
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And Jesus says, why do you call me good? No one is good but God, right? If we define what is good by God's standards, to be good is to be 100 % good.
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It's not, well, sometimes you're good, and sometimes you're not. I mean, that's that, from a human perspective, we would put it that way,
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I suppose. But when the reality is that either you're all good, or you're not good at all, right?
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You're only less bad or more bad, I guess you could say. Go ahead,
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Matt. Yeah, I think when you're talking about not being as bad as you could, that's,
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I think, from a human perspective, obviously, because, yeah, like you say, you're either in right standing with God, or you're not.
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You're not. You're separated from God. You're not just a little separated or a lot separated.
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Yeah, so I think that kind of fleshing that out is, like I say, just from a human perspective, kind of the levels of depravity.
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And I think the word scroll used was radical corruption. He even got away from the gravity word.
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Yeah, you know, I pulled up the confession, the 1689 confession.
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I know that we don't all necessarily—oh, Matt, are you 1689? Oh, yeah.
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The church I attend, that's not our confession, but I'm good with the 1689 for sure.
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Okay, well, this is not scripture, but I think the 1689 does shed some light into what we are talking about here.
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So, this is from chapter 4, starting in paragraph 2. It's talking about Adam and Eve.
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I'm not going to read the whole thing, but in the, what is this, like the third or fourth sentence, it says, they,
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Adam and Eve, had the law of God written in their hearts and the power to fulfill it. Even so, they could still transgress the law, because they were left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject to change.
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And then in paragraph 3, it says this, in addition to the law written in their hearts, they received a command not to eat from the tree of knowledge and good and evil.
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So, you know, even after Adam and Eve fell,
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I think there's something to be said about the fact that we have, in a sense, the law of God written in our hearts and in our consciences, right?
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And so Romans 1, I think, talks about this as well. So, when people ask the question, like, well, why do people do good things if they don't, you know, believe in God?
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Well, ultimately, they're not good, right? Like we talked about, because they're not for the right reason. But everybody does have a sense of morality.
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The problem is that it's corrupted. So, it's kind of like a computer that has a virus, right?
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It functions sometimes, right? Sometimes my computer that is infected with a virus will actually do what
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I want it to do. It may not do it perfectly, but sometimes it will do it.
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And ultimately, it will always crash and do something that will make me say something I shouldn't say because I am a
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Christian. But I think that's kind of how it works, right?
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And I think that's kind of how I've made sense of it. Like, we have this virus called sin, and it has affected everything within us, right?
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Like Matt was saying, you know, our mind, our body, right?
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Like death came in through sin, you know, into the world through sin, right? The fact that we get sick, the fact that we die, all of that is because of sin, ultimately.
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It's a total corruption. So, I think that's probably, at least for me, the best way to kind of like make sense of it all.
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Would you guys disagree or agree? I don't know. Yeah. It's so hard to define.
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And I'm sitting here trying to think about how to, analogies that I can make and how I can define it, even help myself understand it.
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Because we're, in one aspect, we're talking about different levels of bad. And on the other side, we're saying that we can't do anything that's good, ultimately.
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But we do realize that, from a certain perspective, those things can look good, like be good actions, you know, helping someone out.
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So, there's an array or levels of good and there's levels of bad.
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But the thing about the sin nature and our radical corruption, radical depravity that we have within us, being dead spiritually inside, we have to stay within that circle of our nature, that even those things that perspectively look good, they're ultimately evil because they're from a dead sin nature, a sinful sin nature or a sinful nature, excuse me.
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And so, what I'm trying to, I'm trying to get to the other side, after we are born again, after the
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Holy Spirit has made us alive, our circle changes.
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We're still, we still have the ability to do those things that we did before, either good or bad, but what changes is the ability to please
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God in those good things. And the other thing that is going through my mind is the fact that we're,
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I guess scripture calls it a flesh, still have a flesh that we're drawn to, we're tempted to.
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Are you referring to like the remaining corruption of sin in the flesh? Yes, yes.
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So, it's not totally gone. I didn't want to get,
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I didn't want to get myself backed into a corner where I was saying that we have a sinful nature and then after we're saved, now we somehow have two natures that compete with one another.
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It's, that aspect of this conversation is so hard to define and understand. Do any of you have any more clarity than what
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I could give just now? Post -salvation and what that looks like, what our sin nature, what is done with that sin nature?
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I think Romans 7, right? Romans 7, I think, makes it abundantly clear, right?
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I'm going to look it up, but basically I'm going to lay it out like what Paul says in Romans 7. He says that what he wants to do is what he doesn't do, right?
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But what he doesn't want to want to do is what he keeps on doing. And so he goes on to say that if he is doing what he does not want to do, then he agrees with the law that it is good, right?
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So, he's saying there's already a change in me, right? Which is eternal, excuse me, not eternal, internal.
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Because when we are apart from Christ, what happens is we are actually, not only do we sin, but we love it, right?
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We love to sin. We don't love God. Like we were talking about earlier, whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.
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When you don't have faith in God, well, guess what? It's clearly sin and you love to do it. It's what you want to do.
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But now, when your nature, your core, right? At the heart, you are changed.
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Now, all of a sudden, you don't like doing the things that you used to do. Now, there's in the flesh, right?
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Your flesh may enjoy it and you are, we are body, soul, spirit.
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There's a component of us, I guess you could say, that gives into sin because, hey, we like it, right?
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We do. But in our core, in our inner being, as Paul puts it, we are grieved by this sin that we still sometimes fall to.
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And it's kind of, it really is kind of a duality because I, you know, the
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Bible says that we are sanctified, but also that we are being sanctified, right? We're being made holy.
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It's that already not yet kind of idea, right? Like we're a work in progress, right?
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And so it's not that, it's not that we're always going to do things the right way, but you know how we, you know,
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I had used that example of Odie Bockham who said that, you know, for something to be good, it has to be the right thing done the right way for the right reason.
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Before we are changed, before we put our faith in Christ, we may do it the right way or we might do the right thing in even the right way, but not for the right reason.
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All of a sudden now, that last component, the right reason is there. And so that I would say is what changes.
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It's like, yes, we become capable to do the right thing the right way for the right reason.
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Do we do it perfectly all the time? No, because again, we still have remaining corruption in the flesh.
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But I do believe, let me actually, why don't you guys, why don't you guys jump in? I'm going to look up Romans 7 because I don't want to butcher it.
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I want to make sure that I say exactly what Paul said there. I think, yeah, to go along with that,
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I'd say once we are regenerated and we have been changed, that again, we're still going to sin, but when we do that through God's grace,
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He convicts us of that. And as you said, we are grieved over our sin, whereas our old sin nature, not only were we not grieved, we actually loved our sin, as you said.
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So I think even though we're still, we should be sinning less and progressing in our sanctification.
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When we, I think it was, I don't remember when I heard, I think it was John MacArthur, somebody was asking about that.
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And he said, as I've gotten older, he said, as a trajectory in my life,
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I have sinned less, but the sins I do commit grieve me more.
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So it's a lessening of sin, but a grieving more over those sins because of that new nature.
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And I'm also curious about the balance between, because I'm sitting here looking at Galatians, and I'm curious about the balance between what
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Jay's getting ready to read in Romans 7 and where Paul's at, and then where Paul is in Galatians 5, 19 through 2021, he says, these are the deeds of the flesh.
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And then 21, 22 through 23, this is the fruit of the
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Spirit. And then 24, he says, now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
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If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. And so I'm curious about that tension there between here and Romans 7, that balance.
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Do you want to jump into that right now, or do you want me to read? Yeah, go ahead with 7. Okay. So this is what
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I was referring to that Paul says, starting in verse 21 of Romans 7, he says, so I find it to be a law that when
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I want to do right, evil lies close at hand, for I delight in the law of God in my inner being.
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But I see in my members, another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
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Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our
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Lord. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh,
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I serve the law of sin. And so again, that just kind of falls back to this war that we have internally, excuse me, where on the one hand, we want to do what is right.
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And in some cases, we do, right? And we do progressively get better at doing what is right and fighting against sin.
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But we're still going to sin from time to time. Sometimes, you know, I think we even have to make clarification because I don't want somebody listening to be discouraged, who might think, well,
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I don't feel like I'm progressing right now. Right? What do I do? What does that mean? Am I not saved?
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Well, no, not necessarily. You might not be saved if you're not trusting in Jesus Christ for salvation.
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But at the same time, I don't want to terrify you either, because sometimes, sadly, even a
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Christian can fall into a very grievous sin. Progressive sanctification is not something that happens where you just get better and better and better.
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And like, you know, the roller coaster doesn't stop going up. It's more like, you know, a line graph, right?
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Like, you know, business projections for the next year, right? Like, you have improvement over time.
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Maybe I should do it this way. So you have improvement over time, and then sometimes you're going to fall. But guess what?
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Over time, you're going to come back a little bit stronger, a little bit stronger. But you might not notice it in a few days or a few months.
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I think when we look at our sanctification and how it progresses, sometimes it takes months and years to sometimes see a difference, right?
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I think of a friend of mine who was heavily into drugs before he came to Christ. And, you know, when he first came to Christ, he was on fire for God.
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I mean, he was, you know, he left everything. He didn't need any, you know,
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Narcotics Anonymous or any of that stuff. Like, he just left it cold turkey, and he was fine, and he was preaching the gospel, and he was on fire.
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And then, you know what? Life happened. And he got tempted because of situations in his life with problems with his marriage and things like that.
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And he fell, and he fell hard. And this was after years of being a faithful Christian who had not touched anything.
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It's the same thing, you know, he had to get into recovery this time around. It wasn't like the first time.
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By the grace of God, he's no longer doing that. He's walking with the Lord once again. But it's kind of like David, right?
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A man after God's own heart. And what did David do? He fell hard. I mean, he committed adultery, and then he tried to cover it up with murder.
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You know, was David not saved? I mean, I don't think he wasn't. I think he was saved.
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But, you know, this serves as a warning. This is not an excuse, right?
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Like, we should never use the fact that, oh, well, we're just sinners. We're going to sin once in a while. It's okay. No, you should be upset at the fact that you sometimes fall into sin.
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That should upset you. If it doesn't upset you, I have to wonder why doesn't it upset you?
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But at the same time, I don't want people, right? Like, there's two sides where we can go to the extreme.
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We can go to free grace. It doesn't matter what I do, right? Like, I can sin all I want.
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Jesus saved me. No problem. No, that's one extreme. The other extreme is every time I do any little sin or even a grievous sin, that's for sure the fact that the
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Holy Spirit has abandoned me. God doesn't love me. And, you know, we have to find the balance, which is in Scripture.
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Sorry, I went on a very long rant, so I apologize. No, it's all good. Good stuff.
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Just going back to the question that I had, you know, where's the balance? How do we reconcile the tension between Romans 7 and Galatians 5?
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And I don't think Paul necessarily answers my question here. I want to do some more research and see if I can get a more definitive answer to my question.
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But if you read on, so you heard from J, Romans 7, and then Galatians 5, like I said, he said,
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Paul says, hear the deeds of the flesh and then hear the fruit of the Spirit. And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
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If we live by the Spirit, then we should also walk by the Spirit. To me, that sounds so definitive.
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Like, you're not here anymore. You're there. It's been crucified. It's dead. Those passions and desires, that way of living, it's dead.
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But then he goes on to say in the very next verse and in the very next chapter, verse 26 of 5, it says, let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.
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So there he's leaving the room open for Romans 7 to me, not necessarily specifically answering my question.
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He's just leaving Romans 7 open. So if it was that definitive that it's dead, we've crucified it, we no longer struggle with it, then why would he be telling them, encouraging them not to become boastful, if it wasn't a possibility?
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So he's leaving the room open for Romans 7. And then chapter 6, verse 1, brethren, even if anyone is called in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such one.
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So if all that was definitive, you didn't have to struggle with anymore, there wouldn't be brethren who struggle and are called in trespass and need to be restored.
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Each one looking to yourself so that you too will not be tempted. So yeah, there's balance there, that we live in Romans 7, and that section there is not as definitive.
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We're still not out of the woods yet. We're not glorified, I think, as Paul reminds us in that section that I read.
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All right, let's see where we are on the questions. We should probably get back to the questions.
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Well, we've done really good so far. One of the questions is scriptural evidence for sin nature, and we've talked a lot about that, and we maybe can refer to some others.
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I've got Romans 7 here. Paul refers to the sin nature as sin living in me and evil,
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Romans 8, 6 through 36. So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death, for the sinful nature is always hostile to God.
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That's why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God. We talked about that.
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And then Colossians 3, 5 says the sin nature is called the earthly nature. And here's a famous one that we've not brought up yet,
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Psalm 51, 5. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
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Do you guys have any other passages, proof texts for this, Dr.?
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One that I like, and honestly this was, I wouldn't in a more typical sense say it's a favorite verse of mine, but probably one that had a huge impact on the way
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I think that Ephesians 2, 3, just the phrase in there, were by nature children of wrath.
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I don't remember when it was, what I was studying, but just a couple years ago,
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I read that phrase, and that was just like, I don't know, kind of, as I say, knocked my socks off.
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It's like, man, that's some strong language right there to think that, again, and like Jay was saying before, there's not really levels of badness.
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It's like, from a human perspective, that person may seem pretty good, but if they're outside of Christ, they are a child of wrath.
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They are an enemy of God, and I mean, when
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I just kind of really understand, I mean, obviously,
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I don't understand it to its fullest, but that phrase right there has been a hugely important one to me in kind of understanding who
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I was and my standing before God outside of Christ. Yeah, yeah, and a lot of people don't like this idea of like, oh, we're children of wrath, you know, total depravity, because it makes us uncomfortable, right?
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It does. It's like you're saying, like, it can terrify you, but I think we shouldn't be so afraid of sometimes being a little scared, right?
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The Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So, you know, it's kind of like going to a doctor and saying, doc,
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I don't know if I have cancer or not, but don't tell me if I do, because it scares me too much.
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It's like, are you crazy? Like, you need to know the problem in order to know what to do about it.
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But we have a tendency, right, to, and that's what I've noticed with a lot of people when they resist, like, for example, the gospel, right?
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To give them the gospel, to give them the good news, well, how do you know, how is that good news if you don't know the bad news?
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The bad news is you're sinful, right? You are a child of wrath. People want to justify themselves and say,
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God's going to be okay with me because I've done pretty good. Yeah, no one's perfect, but I've done pretty good.
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It's like, man, you don't understand the standard by which he's asking you to justify yourself, which is perfect, right?
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James says, if you're guilty of breaking one commandment, you're guilty of breaking them all. Like, oh,
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I've never cheated on my wife. Okay, well, guess what? You might as well have because you've lied, right?
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Or you've done this or you've done that. Like, the standard is so high. I think of, like, my son, you know, he's playing basketball and he thinks this one kid is pretty good at basketball.
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And I'm watching the kid and I'm like, he's not that good. He's just better than the other kids. Because if I were to, like, put him to play against an
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NBA player, that kid would get smoked. You know, like, it's not even close. But that's kind of like how we try to see if we're good, right?
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We look at other people. Oh, hey, you know, like, I'm pretty close to that guy. And he's the best guy
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I know. So I must be doing pretty good. It's because you haven't seen the standards that God has.
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That's how blind we are, you know? And we want to be blind, don't we? Right?
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Because we don't want to, like I said, you know, you don't want to have any fear. You don't want to be scared of the coming judgment.
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So I think we need to face that head on. But it is, it's hard.
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But it's what will ultimately help somebody. Yeah.
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Brother Elias, the Reformerian, asked us a question. And to me, it thinks about how another aspect of what the
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Holy Spirit does in us when he makes us alive and calls us to be born again. He takes our perspective on things and draws it closer to the reality of things.
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And so we have a better perspective on reality, a true understanding of reality through the
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Holy Spirit. And so I'm thinking about this question as we grow in Christ and we fall.
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So having a more biblical perspective because of the Holy Spirit, I'm thinking, okay, now that I know this thing about my sin nature,
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I know this thing about my radical depravity. I know who I am apart from Christ. And I know the
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Holy Spirit is teaching me who Christ is. And we like to categorize, like, you know, we've talked about the different, there's different levels of badness.
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So I'm going to use those categories again. But even a small fall because of my perspective change now becomes this grievous thing that I never imagined it would be before because of the holiness of God that I now know of.
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And that's, I think about all those things as I'm reading this question. But his question ultimately boils down to, could it affect our assurance if we, once we, that perspective changes and we realize how grievous our sin is before Holy God and then we do it again, like Romans says, 7 says, we do it again.
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Do you think it has an effect on folks' assurance? Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
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And I don't think that's necessarily 100 % bad. I know a lot of people think that might be bad, but I don't think that there's anything wrong with a little healthy introspection once in a while.
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I think the problem is when you get stuck there, right? Like Philippians 2 says, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, right?
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Like Paul says in, I think it's 1 Corinthians where he says, examine yourselves to see if you are within, if you are in the faith, right?
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There's, we're supposed to have assurance, but I think that sometimes it's okay to not be 100 % sure.
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I think the problem comes in where you just get stuck on looking to yourself and instead of Christ and start thinking that it works based, right?
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So, if you have faith in Christ, generally speaking, you should be moving further and further away from sin.
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Now it's not going to be perfect. So that means that sometimes when you examine yourself, you're going to have moments where you're not 100 % sure if you're saved or not.
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And that's okay. That's okay. But at that point, repent of your sin and start looking to Christ, and then you will have assurance again.
55:53
Yeah. I think that verse that you quoted brings the balance to us because if you swing on that one side of, you know, looking to yourself, you get back into the words, relying on yourself, and you're going to keep swirling down a hole that you, you know, mentally and you can't get out of.
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But that verse that you quoted brings the balance. Examine yourself.
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Okay. Let me see who I am, where I am, where I stand, what I've done to see if you're in the faith.
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Now examine Christ. Yes. Examine Christ and you'll have that balance and realize my assurance is in Him.
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It's always been in Him because salvation is through Him. Amen. And Him alone.
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Amen. Any other thoughts on that, Matt? I think the issue of assurance, it touches on a lot of things, but I think it, for me, again, this is something
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I heard from Sproul. It kind of starts with, do we understand our sin nature and where we stand before God?
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But in those times where we're questioning assurance, he gave a series of questions, but the last one he always asked was, like I ask people, do you love the biblical
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Christ? And he made sure that he was talking about the biblical Christ, not just the
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Christ you create in your mind. And if the answer to that is yes, then you kind of work your way back.
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Like, why do I love Christ? Because He first loved me. Amen. And it's kind of work your way back to the cross and know, again, start back with the sin nature.
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If nothing I did, Christ had to draw me to the Father. He had to completely save me.
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He did the work on the cross. Because of all of that, I am able to love
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Him. Yes, I may have fallen in sin, but ultimately if I have that love for Christ, then
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I can look back to the cross and know that that was taken care of. Amen.
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Amen. One of my favorite verses is Romans 5 .8. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
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Amen. Let's wrap things up, guys. I appreciate so much your help in teaching me and helping me learn and navigate through this topic.
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And I pray that it's going to be encouragement to other people when and if they watch it.
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So praise God, and I thank Him for His goodness. Matt, I want to ask you to take us to the
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University of Tennessee and out on the streets. And I'll come up to you, and I'm going to incorporate this other question that I put in here.
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Why is this doctrine so important for us to rightly understand and then lead us into the gospel and the good news of Jesus Christ?
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And when he finishes, Jay, if you'll close us in prayer, it would be great. Sure. I think this topic is hugely important, and it's where I try to start my conversations with people, because understanding our sin nature and, ultimately, our standing before God is where we have to start.
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And as we talk tonight, I believe Scripture clearly shows us that we do have a sin nature, and because of that, we sin.
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And because of our sin, we are separated from God, because He is holy and righteous and good and all that He is.
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So our sinfulness separates us from Him. And the
01:00:00
Bible also tells us that, unfortunately, there's nothing that we can do in our own ability to reconcile that relationship that has been broken.
01:00:12
The Bible tells us even our most righteous deeds are like filthy rags before God. So nothing we can do to help ourselves in that situation.
01:00:24
But thankfully, God is merciful and loving and gracious.
01:00:31
And in that, He provided the only way to reconcile that broken relationship, and that was through His Son, Jesus Christ, who
01:00:41
He sent, was born of a virgin, was truly
01:00:46
God, truly man, lived a perfect, sinless life.
01:00:52
And because of that, He was able to be our substitute. Because of our sin, we deserve
01:01:00
God's wrath, His punishment, eternal damnation. When Christ went to the cross, took that punishment that we deserve, and in return, we, those who trust in Him, put their faith in Him, receive
01:01:18
His righteousness. And when Christ was on the cross,
01:01:23
He said, it is finished. He was the one that did all the work. Nothing else was required.
01:01:32
He died, but He was buried. Three days later, He rose again again to affirm what
01:01:40
He had said, who He was, and what He was going to do. Eventually, He ascended back to heaven to the right hand of the
01:01:48
Father, where He sits today, ruling over all things.
01:01:54
Again, for those who put their faith and trust, again, understanding what we've talked about tonight, that we have a sin nature.
01:02:02
We are sinners. We're separated from Him. No other way can we experience salvation, but through Christ alone.
01:02:11
We trust in who He was, that He was the Son of God. Trust in what
01:02:17
He did, that He was our substitute. He lived that perfect life. And submit our lives to Him.
01:02:25
We're told that those who will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. So that's our plea to you tonight, if you're listening, if you have never trusted in Christ, if you've never surrendered everything to Him, to heed the commands of Christ Himself, to repent and believe the gospel today.
01:02:48
Amen. Amen. Well, let's bow our head, guys. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank
01:02:58
You for the opportunity to get together as brothers and discuss the truth of Your Word.
01:03:04
We thank You for revealing this truth to us, Lord, that we have a sin nature, that we are corrupted.
01:03:13
It's like we were discussing earlier, sometimes we don't want to hear bad things,
01:03:20
Lord, but it's hearing the bad thing that will lead us to finding the solution,
01:03:26
Lord. And You have been so gracious, Lord. And You delight so much in being merciful.
01:03:37
So much so that You gave Your only Son, Jesus Christ, to die on that cross for sinners like myself, like Rob, like Matt, like any listeners that are listening right now.
01:03:56
And Lord, I pray that this truth will shine into the hearts of anyone that might be listening.
01:04:05
I pray, Lord, that You open that heart of stone and that they might receive the good news of Your gospel that Matt just shared.
01:04:16
Lord, use this podcast, use this platform to save the lost, Lord. Bring glory to Your name,
01:04:23
Lord. Fill the whole earth with Your glory. Lord, we're nobodies.
01:04:33
We are nobodies. But Your Word says that we are more than conquerors because of who we serve,
01:04:41
Your Son, Jesus Christ. Let us conquer in Your name, Lord, not for our glory, but for Your glory and for the salvation of many.
01:04:50
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Hallelujah. Praise the
01:04:55
Lord. That was awesome. Thank you so much. And if you're so inclined, we'd appreciate that you would share these episodes with people that you feel may get some encouragement out of it, like and share what we're doing.
01:05:08
And go and visit the laborersconference .com. Please consider taking some time and visiting us in Knoxville, Tennessee, visiting the area and learning and worshiping with us there.
01:05:20
Laborersconference .com. Go register today. Thank you again for watching. We hope to see you soon.
01:05:26
Welcome to the Laborers Podcast. Thank you for joining the
01:05:31
Laborers Podcast. Remember, Jesus is King. Live in the victory of Christ, speak with the authority of Christ, and go share the gospel of Christ.