And having been set free from sin? You became slaves of righteousness.
What do you think for when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
But now having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness.
And in the end, everlasting life and all God’s people said amen awesome.
You may be seated church, we have looked and now in our third installment of this, these two previous arguments that come out of this portion of scripture and an argument that the apostle begins and starts in verse 12 and as I said in our introduction a few weeks ago, cannot be broken up.
It’s a flowing thought. It’s something that when you and I, if we were able to be speaking personally to the apostle paul, he would have taken a breath and he would have started speaking and in verse 12, it started that and he would have then ended his breath right there at the end of verse 23 paul would have been delivering under the inspiration of the holy spirit speaking to the believers in Rome what God wanted to communicate to us regarding this very key issue of the christian life.
And I understand this morning what I’m about to say, it’s kind of a hard sell if you think about it, what the apostle is saying is absolute truth.
You understand that this is the bible that’s on your lap, this is God’s word.
It is not happy thoughts. It’s not cheerleading thoughts. It’s not motivational thoughts.
It’s the actual word of God, what God is saying he means And it’s good news for you if you hang on and listen all the way through powerful truth, we saw that verses 12-14, is that having a life worth living is having a life that’s powered by God.

You are not to do Christianity on your own. You don’t have the power, you don’t have the strength.
It can only happen by the power of God in the word of God as you yield yourself to God.
And we learned that in verses 12, 13 and 14 secondly, last time together having a life worth living, we learned this in verses 15 to 19 and that is having the awareness of God’s grace.
Do you remember I opened up by saying to you that Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great german theologian, if you get a chance either read about him, eric Metaxas probably wrote the biggest treaty on his life.
I mean, it’s like that thick, It’s massive. Uh it’s a big read.
But Dietrich Bonhoeffer, interestingly enough, was a man who would not bow to Hitler’s manipulation of the Church prior to World War Two in its full development, I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but Adolf Hitler as he was rising to power.
Do you know what he saw as a big problem in Germany the church.
So then he began to send his guys out to infiltrate every church that he could in Germany to detect or to figure out which churches would be or quite possibly posed a threat to him.
Starting up his Yes, it’s a megalomaniac thought, but he didn’t think so.
Did you know you know what the third Reich means, anybody know?
Reich what the third Reich means, Reich and German is the 3rd 3rd, Reich, the third millennium Hitler believed that he was going to establish a world without problems, a world under his rule and domain and oh yeah, the first thing that you do is kill all jews because what Hitler said is you gotta kill all the jews because they’re the ones that killed jesus, So you’ve got to wash the earth of jews.
And so he began this campaign and he began, listen up, this is, I don’t even know why I’m doing this, has nothing with my notes, but let’s let’s trust God’s working in this, Hitler used something that some of you are aware of and it’s making its surface again today, Hitler used the doctrines taught in some churches of replacement theology that God has done with the jews, the church took its place.
And if you understand that, then Hitler was saying, I’ll lead you into a new millennium and so many churches signed up and oh, by the way, oh, by the way, as he was coming into power, he told the pastors, you know what, you don’t need to be subject to the fragile tithing of your flock any longer because you don’t know if you’re gonna eat next week or not being a pastor, you shouldn’t have to put up with that, you know what we’re gonna do?

We’re gonna pay your wages.
The government will send you money as a pastor and you won’t have to do anything.
But what we tell you to do beware when the government sends money to churches because there’s gonna be a calling card to that giving of money and it’s gonna be a calling card that’s gonna say someday, maybe very soon.
Or remember when you collected the money from us during Covid?
Well, this is what you’re going to say and not going to say or give us the money back.
Pastors around the nation ought to read the fine print to the money.
They accepted how many, how many pastors signed up for that money that they did.
You are you guys, you look at me like a blank face.
Did you know that churches churches didn’t even ask for money and money was sent to them.
The government sent us a whopper of a ginormous humongous seven figure check.
I wrote them a dirty letter in the in the Lord.
I mean, no, I’ll sum it up.
I said, if we need your money to preach the word, we got the wrong God, here’s your money back.
We need to walk in the awareness of God’s grace.
God provides God guides chuck smith always taught us if you don’t know who chuck smith is.
He’s the founder of calvary chapel movement and chuck smith.
In fact we used to joke around it was called chuck 11 and that is when God guides God provides.
Never will you see the righteous David said begging bread, God will provide and he does that by his grace.
And so this section, as we come to this portion of scripture that I’m really excited about this, because I don’t know how many of you started with us in romans, chapter one verse one, but if you’re here today, congratulations.
You survived. Because with the ending of chapter six, it gets really exciting in chapter seven. From here on out.
All the way to the end from chapters 1 to 6, paul is just beating you up one side down the other, smacking you around.
And why was he doing that? To see if you’re a real believer.
Now, after he’s kind of cleared out the room next week, we’ll start on chapter seven verse one and it’s thrilling.
The Bible tells us, as we’ve learned in Romans three verse 23 and forces for all of sinned and fall short of the glory of God being justified freely by his grace through the redemption.
That is in christ jesus. What what an amazing two verses that is.
It sets us up for the conclusion of these six chapters for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God translation.
Nobody can ever be good enough, no matter what your morality is.
Oh, but I’ve been a great citizen doesn’t count.
I’ve kept all the rules doesn’t count. Especially this one.
I’ve kept the 10 commandments. You’re a liar.
Let me see where’s that one out that shall not lie. Okay, boom. Right there.
We can listen. When we come to the 10 commandments, when we read them, we realize we fail at the first one.
We didn’t grow up from birth, loving God with all of our heart, did we?
We grew up loving us or more specifically, I grew up loving me. You grew up loving you.
No, you can’t get to heaven in in morality. You can’t get to heaven by being good enough.
We know this. The Book of romans is such a great treaty to announce this.
And then in verse 24 he makes this incredible statement because you can hear everybody cry right?
Everybody’s crying in verse 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God Pastor, You’re insulting me.
Oh, that hurts. Ouch, that stings. Oh, there’s no hope.
Just read verse 24 being justified freely. It means it didn’t cost you anything.
Dietrich, Bonhoeffer said that Grace don’t call it cheap because it’s free.
Remember I said this last week, he said don’t call it cheap because it’s free.
It costs God his life being justified freely by his grace through this is the by the means of the redemption.
That is in christ, jesus. Everybody got that.
The only reason why you’re gonna be going to heaven is because you trust fully in christ and what he did at the cross for you imagine that that truth transforms but the fact remains the thief on the cross had no time to be able to show the world a transformed lifestyle.
He was gonna be dying in a matter of minutes or in an hour.
But according to God, his life was transformed by his faith that he placed in the Lord jesus, christ and jesus said today, you’ll be with me in paradise.
Absolutely amazing. I want to remind you of this too.
As we conclude this chapter, if you remember way back, Socrates was writing to plato and discussed with discussing man’s sinfulness and Socrates pondered the obvious when he said it may be that the divinity can forgive sins, but I don’t see how remarkable statement christ comes and fulfills the old testament scriptures that Socrates had available had available to him to read.
Christ is the one who came and fulfilled. Third and final argument church versus 22 23.
It’s this, having a life worth living, is having the freedom of God, will you write that down?
The freedom of God, We need to hear this today. My goodness.
So having the freedom of God, I don’t want to upset anybody, but when you have the freedom of God, you have your your liberated when you have the freedom of God, you’re liberated from from doubts.
You’re liberated from fears, you’re liberated from tyranny from intimidation, be it physical or spiritual.
Are you hearing me broke my heart last night lisa and I got in very late last night from Idaho.
I was speaking up in Coeur d’alene Idaho and so many young people on the plane and walking in fear they were messed up.
They were terrified. Somebody coughed on the plane and I watched this one guy, this one guy, he was he was physically bothered by someone coughing by the way the guy coughed, he wasn’t coughing, he went and the guy and he pulled made his mass tighter look look I’m not gonna get into the science of how masks do not work.
I’m not gonna talk about that right now.
I’m gonna talk about please don’t allow yourself to be gripped by such a fear but I could die.
That’s the point. That’s the point to the gospel. Hello, you’re going to die.
Everybody cheer up say it with me, you’re going to die. Listen, that’s why jesus came, we’re all gonna die.
What? Listen, what we’re in the business of heaven is for this where you going after you die because you could be fully vax fully masked step outside of the airport and get hit by a taxi.
Where you going when you die? Do you trust christ?
And are you walking in that freedom, the freedom of God.
And so we see it this way we have freedom from our sentence, our sentence or what has been our sin in life?
It’s hard for us to face this, This, this the Bible is all about truth.
And so we must be all about truth.
It says in verse 20 for when you were slaves of sin, that means that you were bound and you had to do what sin said to do.
And you said, well Jack, what does that mean?
You know the when the temptation came into your heart or in your mind and you thought about it, you went for it, he had no power to resist it.
In fact, you even approved of it.
You even said to others, hey, you want to come with me as I go do this sin.
And I know you didn’t say it that way and I didn’t say it that way.
But hey, you guys wanna come, we’re gonna go, oh yeah, sure let’s go.
And the more the merrier because of this reason.
If you did it by yourself, you feel a little bit uh the sting of conviction.
But if you can get 345, 10 people to do it with you, uh takes the edge off, right?
The more people you can get to pile on that thing that you’re doing, then it takes the edge off.
You say, well, how do you know? Because you know and I know this, everybody’s doing it.
You ever heard that before. That’s where it comes from, piling on somebody.
Get some hair brained idea, Hey, let’s do this, Let’s go vandalize things? No, that’s not a good idea.
Come on, everybody’s doing it. And what they think is liberty leads to bondage.
Sin will do that to you. We’ve talked about that at length.
He says, though, listen, this is interesting, amazing logic by the apostle paul for when you were slaves of sin.
So you’re tied to send your shackled to sin. You have no freedom to get away from it.
He says you were free in regard to righteousness. It means this, you couldn’t do anything right.
So first he insults you and the front end of the verse and then he stabbed you at the latter end of the verse.
You were bound to sin. You’re tied to it chained to it.
That’s without jesus. And then on top of it, you had absolutely no power or no regard or you had no uh freedom to exercise righteousness because everything that you and I did without jesus was wrong.
This is tough stuff, people, but it’s absolutely true and necessary for us to understand salvation and to live a life that’s worth having.
Verse 21 says, what fruit did you have then in these things are in the things of which you are now ashamed.
Can you guys all circle the word ashamed. This is important. Do not raise your hand.
When I asked this question, Don’t raise your hand. We don’t need to see it.
But you would ask yourself today, am I a follower of jesus christ.
So heaven is open the doors open to those who are followers of christ question to you, are you a follower of christ?
Only you answer that to yourself inside internally and then ask yourself this, regarding your past life and the things of your past life.
Are you ashamed of them? Don’t answer. Are you ashamed of them ashamed?
Meaning you turn it’s to turn away.
Have you ever seen those cute videos or instagrams where the dog tore up the kitchen or the pillows?
Right? And the dad, the mom or the dad comes home, the mom or the dad, the owner comes home and says Rosco did you do this?
And the dog goes, have you seen that by the way?
Have you noticed when a cat does something Lucifer, did you do this?
Right? There’s lessons in this.
So the dog can’t even look at you, that’s the meaning of this word to be ashamed.
You just turn your face away.
Can you imagine when jesus shows up and if you’re not covered by the blood of christ and salvation, God’s gonna look at you in your face, you’re gonna try to put your face somewhere the bible says watch out, walk with them for it’s God’s will that you not be ashamed at his coming.
Is that amazing when you’re walking with jesus, you’re not ashamed, we’re not perfect, we mess up all the time, but we hate it, but we’re looking forward to his coming.
When people say, oh Lord, jesus come back, it doesn’t mean that they have deluded themselves into thinking they’re perfect.
It means they know how big of a wretched sinner they are.
Even in the thought life that they have. Oh God, forgive me of that. I got home, I think.
I don’t know, I get up at 2 30 on sunday morning, you already know that.
But I, but I usually go to bed before eight o’clock at night.
Well, I got home last night from the airport is close to 11 o’clock and I’m trying to do the math and it’s like it ain’t good.
So by the time we get out of the airport, I’m thinking truly, Lord if this truck can go, 80 I know you can’t to Jesus now that’s wrong thinking.
But our situations in our lives, we seek to justify those moments and it’s wrong.
We can do or attempt to do something.
But if we are not a child of the living God and we have a heart on fire for jesus than even what we do, Act in decide or say, it can be wrong.
It’s a tremendous thing, I’m gonna I’m gonna give you this, I’m gonna ask you to write these things down uh when it says that we are free in regard to righteousness, it means that we had no ability whatsoever to do anything good Enough to please or to satisfy God, absolutely zero.
And I know that’s offensive to the person who’s bound in religion. Hang on to your seats.
You guys ready? All seven of you are ready. This is great.
We’re gonna go to the screen on this, number one, watch this.
And and I got to give you this because it’s gonna it’s gonna make you wanna hug verse 22 when we get to it, first thing is this sin in us is the incurable root cause to or of our nature.
You need to know that Jeremiah 13 says, can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?
Then may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil?
The heart look at Jeremiah 17 9 says the heart is deceitfully uh, above all things and desperately wicked.
Who can know it? This is what the Bible says about our hearts.
And he says right now, right from the get go, your nature cannot change under your own power.
Can an Ethiopian change his skin color? And can a leopard change its spots?
The answer, the bible says is no.
Well, the bible also says, our hearts are desperately wicked and that’s I mean, that’s a strong cup of coffee, right?
But you know it’s true. Just look at little kids watch them. They’re cute.
That’s why God made them cute because they’re wicked little stinkers stealing from one another pillaging each other’s toy box and stuff.
I remember dr James Dobson said, which by the way? We were very honored.
Doctor bumped into dr James Dobson and he said, Jack, I watch every sunday morning from Palm Springs.
Isn’t that precious? What a sweet, precious man.
And back in the day when we were raising kids we had the we had 10 commandments back then, it was we actually had them in stone.
It was so far back then and there was something called homeschooling that people thought was illegal back then.
At least it was homeschooling. I’d come home and do some science with the kids and we had no parent, no parent up books or manuals to help us.
But dr James Dobson, it was like, wow and dr Dobson pointed out, he said, you should be very grateful that your two year old has very poor motor skills because they’re so bound by their emotional development, that the body skill, thank God doesn’t match their emotional passion because in one moment they love you and the next moment they would kill you if they had the opportunity if they could and then the next moment they would love you.
And so he points out it’s a great thing, they don’t have control of their motor skills because they would be like little Tasmanian devils running around all over the place.
Why? It’s in the heart, that’s our nature, our nature needs to be changed secondly, Sin in us is the root cause of Rebellion.
Did you know that? Where does rebellion come from?
Where with all the stuff you’re seeing in our world today of evil and danger and ugliness and illogic and wrong and loveless Nous.
Where does it come from? The bible says rebellion for Samuel 15 verse 23 says for rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, wow, nobody would ever say I’m practicing witchcraft, that’s no way that’s wrong.
But the bible says rebellion to God is the same as witchcraft. Isn’t that amazing?
And stubbornness is as iniquity as idolatry because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king.
That was the word given to saul next sin and us is the root cause of wickedness.
This is where it comes from.
By the way those of you are in college in school, you ought to be writing this stuff down because if you ever have a debate class or if somebody ever asks you, hey, so you’re a christian, Well, why do bad things happen?
Well, I’m giving you some of the answers right here right now, our nature has fallen.
We are natural rebels against God. It’s within our hearts.
And when we exercise that, it’s called wickedness genesis chapter six verse five says then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth.
That’s Genesis six, that’s not today, wow.
And that every intent of the thoughts of the of his heart was only evil continually?
And the Lord was sorry, the word, sorry, doesn’t mean oh boy, did I make a mistake?
The word means grieved to the core.
It means, it technically means that God’s head hung down now.
Did he know that they were going to sin? Yes, he did.
But he went through it all the bible says because when it’s all over in eternity, God will receive the glory of having to redeem those who we’re lost, condemned.
The bible goes onto their say in genesis six verse six and the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart.
How sad next sin in us is the root cause of defilement, defilement, uh, defilement in all kinds of ways morally?
Uh, certainly. But there’s a manifestation, I hate to bring this up people, but it is a truth thing today.
You can witness it, uh, anywhere.
When a person gives up on having a relationship with God, they often sink down into a place of defilement.
It starts out relatively uh, nondescript. Not easy to detect if they continue on that path.
God listen, God lets them go if they’re knocking on the fence right there, just pounding on the fence, You know what God does.
God basically, without asking them, opens up, knocks the fence down for them because that’s what they want.
They want, the fence down. Are you hearing me?
Imagine the people when Noah’s preaching The Bible says, he preached the gospel for 120 years.
Noah get in the boat, get in the book and the bible says they’re all laughing at him.
There had to be amazing moment. They’re all laughing carrying on.
It was a horrific defilement in the land. Human sacrifice, They celebrated it.
All of these things were going on. Men’s hearts and minds and their intent were constantly evil.
Noah’s preaching the gospel, get in the art, get in the ark and then God tells Noah get your family and get in the boat and they get in and this is the most awesome thing of all the bible says that God not Noah, God shut the door, can you imagine?
No, watch, watch this and this massive can you imagine on the outside?
Hey, Noah quit goofing around, we were just kidding.
And then clouds start to form because the bible says it had not yet rained on the earth in those days.
Can you imagine? What’s that stuff? What is that? What is that hanging in the sky?
So did it rain? The ground began to quake and split open and water came out by the way, you know, it’s fun about this hydrology.
Those of you who studied hydrology, there’s more water under earth that’s not visible than water that is above the earth visible.
How cool is that?
I just wish we had some of it here, although it did rain.
I heard that’s awesome while I was away it rains but we’ll take it right thank God for every drop Defilement.
Sin is a root cause of defilement titus. Chapter one verse 15 says to the pure. All things are pure.
Think this through everybody. Listen up, wake up to the pure. All things are pure.
When God’s got a hold of your heart, you can see the most horrific situation and God will speak to you go be a minister of opportunity to these people for this situation.
This little kids being abused in this family.
God speaks to you, go rescue them and that situation you become a rescuer to them, whatever it might be.
Somebody sees, somebody sees something and they go, isn’t that beautiful?
A couple of days ago when it was actually some puffy clouds in the sky.
I was in the backyard and I knocked on the window and I said to lisa come out here and she comes out and shows what I go what is that?
I knew what it was. I go what is that? She goes, it’s a poodle.
It was a cloud going by and it’s a perfect poodle.
And it was and she was correct because I knew it was a poodle before I even asked her.
So when I asked her she said it’s a poodle, I said you were correct, but what’s it doing?
And then we watched in a matter of a minute that poodle turned into look like a greyhound race dog.
You know, we didn’t look at the cloud and say what does that look like?
Oh man, it looks like, you know what I’m saying?
There’s some people that look at stuff and they have a filthy response. Did you hear that?
Well, that reminds me, oh gosh, please put a lid on it. You know, people like that.
Everything to them. Look look at the next part of that verse in titus 1 15.
But to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure.
But even their mind and their conscience are defiled, filthy thinkers, dirty jokes, everything is nasty.
A heart and a mind that is evidence that God is not in it.
They profess to know God, but in their works, they deny him by how they live.
Being abominable, disobedient and disqualified from every good or approved work lifestyle, remarkable you guys, okay, just hang on.
It gets better. In the end it gets in the end I said, it gets better.
Sin in us is the root of all cause or root cause of our demise as humanity romans.
Chapter one verse 28. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind.
He gave them the mind that they had nurtured. They put this in their mind.
They loved it and God kept saying you need to get your mind clean, you need to get your mind washed And they said no.
And like pharaoh, They said no so often that God said, okay, alright, you want it, you can have it to do those things which are not fitting verse 29 being filled with all on righteousness, sexual and morality.
Wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil mindedness, they are whispers.
This is tough reading back biters, haters of God, violent, proud bolsters inventor of evil things disobedient to parents, un discerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, Unmerciful.
Who knowing the righteous judgment of God that those who practice such things are deserving of death.
Not only do the same, but also repost retweet, approve of those who practice them strong stuff right?
All true sin is in us.
The root cause of our enslavement Ephesians chapter two verse one And you he made alive.
He’s speaking to the believer. You today, my friend. If you’re a follower of christ, he’s made you alive.
But look at this who were who were dead or who were once dead.
Speaking of our previous life and trespasses and sins in which you once walked according to the course of this world.
Everybody’s doing that according to the prince of the power of the air.
That’s a reference title to none other than satan did you know that, wow!
So I’m not serving satan, are you serving the Lord no, but then you’re serving satan, that’s what God’s bible says the spirit who now works in the Sons of disobedience, wow.
Sin is the root cause of a cursed life.
first Corinthians five, Okay, hang on to your seats.
This is listen, it’s hard to find a good church. It’s never that problem has always existed.
Because let me tell you if you and I lived in Greece and if we lived in the city of Corinth, the church that paul wrote this letter to you and I wouldn’t go there.
He said, well, it’s a church in the bible. Yeah, Yeah, it is.
It’s a church in the bible getting rebuked. You don’t want to be. Where do you go?
I’m a member of the 1st, 1st Corinthian. Back to Costal. listen to this.
This is 2000 years ago, Paul writing.
It’s gonna sound like in a moment like I’m reading something like, I don’t know, judge judy or or I don’t know.
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind of sort that is not tolerated even among pagans.
What is it for a man?
He’s talking to church for a man that’s a man in the church has his father’s wife stepmother.
There’s a there’s a there’s a young man with his stepmother. You know what I mean?
Wrestling And you are arrogant?
I’ll tell you why in a second And you are arrogant aren’t You ought not to mourn.
Do you know what they were saying? The Corinthians were saying. Yeah, we know about it. Isn’t God’s grace.
Amazing we are. Listen, I kid you not. Everybody listen up. Their word was we are the most gracious church.
Listen, listen, come as you are all are welcome. Sounds good.
Right by the way in this church, come as you are all are welcome.
Listen to find out that we all need to be changed by jesus.
But when you say come on in all are welcome, we love you just as you are and you leave people just where they’re at.
That’s a false gospel. That ain’t church. That’s listen, Jesus died on the cross to change us.
So they boasted about it were the most gracious church in all of Greece.
That wasn’t a badge of honor. They were tolerant of evil things.
He says, I’m not you to mourn.
Let him who has done this be removed from among you boot him out of the church.
For the listen for though absent in body, I am present in spirit, says paul, as if president, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such thing verse four.
This is a shocker. We’re talking to christians now and this is a heavy when you are assembled in the name of the Lord jesus and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord jesus verse five, You are to deliver this man to satan for the destruction of his flesh, his body so that his spirit may be saving the day of the Lord that’s called church discipline.
You’re sleeping around, you’re doing things, then you claim to be a believer pulses.
The apostle paul says to this church today, paul, that truth is God’s truth. That’s not paul’s truth.
It’s God’s truth. And God’s truth says this. Listen, you’re a believer, but you’re not living for me.
In fact, you’re in sexual immorality and you’re out. We love you, we’re weeping. Get out.
Why would you do that? He said so. So satan would destroy your body.
So listen everybody, how safe can somebody be?
The bible says this guy’s living in sin, kick him out of the church.
So satan kills him so that his soul may be delivered in the day of the Lord, jesus christ.
You haven’t read that passage in a long time, have you?
But I want to emphasis this, emphasize this, that you can live a life as a believer.
That’s not pleasing to God in such a way and it can be a cursed life and you don’t want to do that.
There’s some, there’s some christians that are going to heaven and they’re they’re allowing sin to control them and they’re miserable.
You are miserable. You know why you’re miserable because you’re saved.
If you weren’t saved, you’d be happy about what you’re doing, right? Does this make sense?
I’m gonna get letters now from people who are saying how could you say such a thing.
They’re all going to hell, Jack, you should have told them you’re gonna burn.
I can’t say that paul, the apostle said, Let satan tear that guy’s body up by disease. Murder.
Didn’t run over by a donkey. I don’t know what was gonna happen somehow.
The guy’s life was going to be cursed without God’s protection anymore and the outcome was so that his soul is saved.
When christ comes, that’s what the bible says. I’m not condoning sin. I’m just telling you this.
Apparently you can be so saved.
That when you step out of line, God removes his hand of blessing from you and your life is cursed.
That’s powerful stuff.
One more sin in us is the root cause of man’s damnation revelation chapter 20 verse 15.
Anyone whose name was not found written in the Book of Life was thrown into the Lake of Fire is your name written in the lamb’s Book of Life.
Have you accepted christ as Lord and Savior is your name there, the bible says, if you’re trusting christ to have died on the cross for your sins and that he rose again from the dead exactly as it happened.
And as it was prophesying you lean on him, you trust him.
That truth transforms your life from the outside, that word hits your ears goes inside of you.
The holy spirit goes to work and he transforms you from the inside out.
When that happens, you can be rest assured of this, Your name is written down in heaven.
But what if your name is not in heaven?
The bible says, you’ll be cast into the lake of fire. The bible announces in revelation 21 verse eight.
Who’s there? Who’s in that spot? The cowards are there? Think of that for a moment, cowardly.
Number one on the list. Don’t you think number one on the list in hell would be what?
Like rapist or child molesters? I don’t know.
Isen’t it bizarre that the Bible has at the top of the list 1st for those who inherit hell are cowards, wow!
The unbelieving, the vile, the murders, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts. That’s um, sorcery.
Um dark demonic. I know this sounds silly to some people, but don’t think for a moment, Ouija boards or toys, it may, it may be, it may be who I don’t know Milton Bradley.
Whoever builds the thing and sells it. That’s not, that’s not the point. There’s certain things.
There’s, there’s certain types of things. Some of them are figurines, icons, statues.
There’s certain things I don’t know, man, if I had the time to share with you guys today.
The stuff that we as pastors have seen happen in these last 30 years. Number one, you wouldn’t believe us.
Number two, you’d probably say, I don’t know if I signed up for that things where there’s no human explanation when you get called to a home and something like this or that.
The other things going on, it’s like what in the world?
Dark arts idolaters and liars, They will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning of burning sulfur.
This is called the Second Death.
and verse 21 says, what fruit did you have then in these things of which you are now ashamed for the end of those things is death.
Because the truth is this, my friend, listen, we’re almost done.
No, we’re not sort of maybe the human were designed to were designed to be mastered.
You say, I don’t like the way that that sounds well. It depends on who your master is.
But you all know, we don’t do well on our own were designed to have someone over us.
That’s God’s structure. And he’s built a model.
I’m not asking you to get a warm, fuzzy feeling about it or judge it up against this culture as a standard.
I’m gonna tell you what the bible says, God is the head and the church is his body.
Think about it. The body can’t go anywhere without a head.
But the head can’t accomplish anything without a body.
God has chosen to link himself with us.
And then paul turns around and says, yeah, you know what?
Just like a husband is head of the wife.
She’s the body and he’s the head that’s supposed to be a good thing when there’s Biblical masculinity leading that woman says, honey, you can do whatever you want to do, babe.
I know you love me with all your heart. You want to go there.
You wanna do wanna fly, You wanna sit, want to ride the bike, You want to eat liver and onions, You want what?
Mhm. That was lisa. Nice, big thing. I love it. I love it.
I know, but she loves me.
So, um but you hear what I’m saying when christian men decided to obey God in this model that God created, that he lives out with the church and himself, then the world is going to have to take notice of us men and the homes that we create by no means, what I’m saying is chauvinistic whatsoever.
I think chauvinism as it is understood is sickening, macho ism is insane. Biblical masculinity is missing.
And when a man leads the way, jesus would have us to lead, then we lay down our lives first for our wives and our family, we die first.
Can you imagine somebody’s at the door, we’re gonna break down this door and we’re gonna kill all of you inside there?
Can you imagine the man saying, can you just hang on and he runs out the back sliding door, leaves the house to his wife and kids.
Are you kidding? When the world comes knocking on the door, it’s the man that’s supposed to answer the door.
We’ve been designed that way.
God has given us supernatural powers.
I I’ve got to share this verse, romans. Chapter 12 verse one. You know it well.
And so dear Brothers and Sisters.
I plead with you that you give your bodies to God because of all that he has done for you.
Let them be a living and holy sacrifice, the kind he will find acceptable.
This is truly the way to worship him verse two and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what uh is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God um Running out of time.
But I want you to see this um DARPA. Some of you know DARPA.
If you don’t know DARPA, you don’t if you do. It’s it’s insane. Uh But your microwave, your internet.
So much of what you have in life came out of DARPA.
And so this is this is currently you can go to Youtube, not now after service.
You can go to Youtube and watch this.
This is uh DARPA’s development for the US army of the Exoskeleton soldier. The 21st century soldier.
He puts himself, he straps that up part area over his shoulder, straps it onto his legs.
The technology technology of this is top top secret You you strapped it onto your body.
Talk about being transformed. They have an £800, £800 block. £800. And you try to pick it up.
Can you pick up an £800 block.
The guy puts that suit on, puts that skeleton on, walks over to it, picks it up, starts to walk with it.
They put £100 backpack on him with his rifle and gear with this and he runs up a mountain runs, What do they do?
They have developed a skeleton for us that’s on the outside of our body.
But it is built with materials and it’s geared at every movable joint in such a way that when it goes down it loads up, it generates strength and when it moves, the other way it releases that power.
It’s almost like a super battery inside these joints. Okay, you say, well, that’s cool.
My point is, if man can do that, can’t God do that to you on the inside.
The answer to that is absolutely yes, Yes. He can verse 22 says.
But now having been listen to this, but now having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness.
And in the end, everlasting life, I want to just study the rest of this because we’re at a time.
Let’s just go to the screens. You guys on this, Go to the next slide and so watch this.
This is what you’re reading number one. But now having been set free from sin, you heard that right?
True or false. It’s true.
The question is, is it true in my life as a church?
We need to do everything by yielding to the spirit of God to make sure that you and I are living in that freedom.
Number two notice having become so number one, is having been set free.
Number two is having become slaves of God.
Number three, you have your fruit to holiness.
It means wherever you go, christian, listen, wherever you go, people should be affected by mercy, Grace, right, gentleness, kindness, All of us, no matter even though we look different, all of us look different, there should be a manifestation of reality that when the world looks at us, they say what they said 2000 years ago and it was this, we could tell that they had been with jesus number four.
And in the end, everlasting life. Watch 12 and three. Do not equal four.
You don’t do 12 and three and get four. Does that make sense? You don’t earn it.
This is the reality of the believer. It’s very simple, very, very simple.
And then finally, we end in verse 23 and the fact that we are free from debt.
The wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life in christ jesus.
Our Lord man, we all know this is true. This is amazing. The wages of sin is death.
It’s that’s true. It’s just flat out true. You do the wrong thing.
It’s gonna catch up to you. Well, nobody’s got me yet. You haven’t been caught yet, you will get caught.
Well how can how is that possible? Nobody sees anything. You know what?
Nobody has to say anything. God says this and numbers I think forgive me I’m going from memory.
It’s either numbers 32, or 23, I get my I can’t remember what it was but it means that the scripture says this.
Be sure of this. It implies if you don’t repent by the way, watch this. Can you imagine?
Hypothetically so Rocky is sleeping with bubbles. They both claim to be believers, but they’re not.
They’re fornicating or Rocky is married to susie and bubbles is married to fred they’re together and they’re having an adulterous relationship.
Okay, God speaks to them and convicts them.
They yield their lives to christ they say to one another.
What we have done is wrong and sin against God, goodbye.
Listen, that scenario is kept contained by God.
If somebody persists in living like that. Watch where I’m going.
That scripture in the Book of numbers says this, be sure of this.
If you don’t repent, be sure of this, your sin will find you out.
You know what that word means, jesus said in the new testament.
Whatever you’ve thought or done without his blood, covering your sin.
Whatever you thought or done, it’s going to be shouted from the rooftops.
Hey bubbles and Rocky busted, God wants you to repent.
He doesn’t want the world to know.
But if you keep holding back, if you keep holding out God just blows the whistle eventually because you’re not listening.
I want to end this message today with a really weird illustration. I confess it’s really weird.
You guys can stand by the way. It’s really weird.
So our flight was delayed and there’s all kinds of crazy stuff going on.
So we’re camping at the airport yesterday and so I’m looking out the window and the first picture is just, that’s my junk.
I got my bible there writing down notes for today and I saw this beagle by it caught my attention, not inside the airport outside the airport and you know me, I’m distracted by myself.
And so I’m studying the bible as you can see there’s my bible that’s not my purse, that’s lisa’s first.
And I see this Beagle by and go to the next.
Do you see him moving? Look at him.
He’s trying to get out, sit down below, way down below. That’s another b but it’s dead.
That’s exactly what I did.
I went, oh and I thought, and here’s what I wanted to, I wanted to figure out how to get through that glass and I’m thinking there’s just no way for me to get through that glass.
So I don’t know, I’m sorry if I offend you with this.
But I’m saying Lord help that guy. He’s trying to get out.
He’s trying to get out, look at him, you know what?
Then go to the next slide exactly what happened.
Listen, he thought he was flying around minding his own business.
He had no idea that what he was about to get into was a web a couple of times he fell and almost got out, But he didn’t.
In fact, the more he struggled, the more he got bound up in it.
And what I was shocked is what I thought would take hours for him to die or get free.
That whole event took place less than 10 minutes and he was dead and I said Lord, that is such a perfect example of the way this world is.
It’s got we’re flying around everything’s fine, it’s all great and dandy and and it’s cool and and all of a sudden you get a little bit caught up in this and then trying to get it off your hand and then now it’s on your hand, you get off your foot, now it’s on your foot and now you try to just spin your way out of it and you just spun himself right into it.
No, this christian, it’s time for you today to get up and to walk in and to do the freedom that God has given you.
You never again need to be entangled by any web ever again.
You need to look at these verses and say I’m free and I’m gonna live like it now in the name of jesus, christ and all God’s people said, Amen God bless you.