Great Doctrines of Salvation

Was the law given to either the first Adam or the last Adam? Probably an easier question than that is who's the first Adam? Adam. Who's the last Adam? Christ. So was the law given to either one of those guys? Yeah. Which one? First Adam. No. The law. Oh, the law is a travesty. You know, the law capitalizes one law, but it wasn't the law. So now neither one of those guys got the law. What is the mosaic law? The mosaic system. So what's interesting is, is that the law entered in alongside What's the verse?

Is it 21? 521? 20. What's it say? That the offense might abound. What does it say about the law entering in? That's what it says, that the law entered in alongside. Okay. So, why does it come in? Sin might abound. So sin might abound. So the law wasn't given to either one of the Adams, but it came in alongside of what? If it didn't come in alongside of either one of those two, what did it come in alongside? Which is really question 10.

So we'll hold off on that. I'm sorry, what verse are we on? 20. We're on question 8. Yeah, question 8 verse 20. So here's the picture. The law comes in later, after there is this thing called the sin nature, and it comes in, and notice how it comes in, it comes in alongside of it, because that's what that word is. The word alongside is the word, like I can pronounce it, I can't, but it says the law entered in alongside. So I want you to always look at imposition on human beings.

Do you understand that? It's not internal, it's external. In what verse do you see this word alongside? I don't think it's in the English. In 20, or over the law entered, this word entered is alongside. The word is para That's something in that peril in the front and the long side.

So it's an external imposition of mankind on mankind. The law is not internal. Now it will be at some point in the future. It's written on the Millennial King Jesus heart, but it's an external. imposition on man. And so it comes in next to and says to man, you must obey. You must obey. If you obey, I will bless you. If you don't, I will curse you. Now, a question that seems to not be in context is nine.

What did Christ say his work was in this world? To do the Father's will. And what was the Father's will? Why did he come here? The one specific reason why Christ came here. Take care of sin? Yeah, which means he came to do what? Die. That's right. The Son of Man came to give his life for a ransom. It was to die. Where does fulfill the lock come into that? Through the eternal spirit he offered himself without blemish unto God. He's a spotless lamb. He's a sacrifice. Now, let's talk about the law. When the law was in, let's say the law, we were all Jews in 50 B.C. and we're living under the Mosaic law. We couldn't, could we ever fulfill the law? But we could be righteous under the law, right? We could.

Because the Paul said he was. Because you could get yourself a sacrifice and cover your sins and you would have a relationship. But if you were a Jew and the law was imposed on you, you recognized that you were in trouble on a long term basis. You weren't going to be righteous because it wasn't obedience to law that was going to get you salvation.

It was going to be faith in Christ. So Christ comes. And it clearly says that he fulfilled the law. How did he do that? Especially when you think about this. He goes to the cross and he is hanging up on the cross and he has made sin for us. So how does, if he has made sin for us, how does the law get fulfilled if he is up on the cross there He died. So he died. That's how it got fulfilled.

See that? Now, have you fulfilled the law? No. We died with Christ. You died, didn't you? And we died with him because we believed. Yeah, and so what's your relationship to the law? We're dead to the law. You don't have any. You have no relationship whatsoever. It's a really important thing. And the only reason you don't is because you died.

You know, you use the example of anybody famous died this week. Somebody that's condemned to death and he's got to go to the gas chamber or whatever. If he dies on the way to the gas chamber, do they still haul him in there and give him the gas? Because he's already dead, and when he's already dead, he's not subject to whatever condemnation of law breaking that he was under when he was alive. So when you die, all of the previous relationships go away. Which includes any relationship you have to the law system at all. Boy, that means anarchy reigns. Which is now anarchy reigns. Right? Well, if it shouldn't. I think I'm going to do this right down here again. I wonder we can't hear you. Glasses are in the way.

So what did the law come in alongside of coming to human being? But what about that human being that had come in to be in sin? Came in alongside sin. So here's here's here's man. the sin nature, right? And he's cruising along, and he doesn't really, he kind of knows good from evil, but boy he does not really have the Encyclopedia Britannica of behavior. And so here comes the Mosaic Law right in alongside the sin nature. So what did it do to the sin nature? It just revved it up. It revved it up. It gave specific violations for specific activities that wasn't there before.

When Cain slew Abel, did he break a law? They didn't have any law then. They didn't have any law then. So he didn't break a law. But he knew it was wrong. Didn't he? Didn't we know even then? He knew it was wrong. But it wasn't the violation of any statute.

You see that once you have statutes and specific things that you're not supposed to do and specific things you're supposed to do. It does two things. One of the things you're in nature and just take a two year old, put him in your living room, put a piece of candy on the table and say, don't touch it. Watch what happens in the flames in nature. That's how you prove your kids have to tell them to do something.

They won't do it. Not easily anyway. So. Here's the sin nature now, at least the sin nature of the Jewish nation, and alongside of it is this lost system that really is inflaming it. It's not helping it, it inflames it. And our brethren in the reformed churches are absolutely convinced that obedience to law keeps your sin nature under control. What does? That obedience to law keeps your sin nature under control. The Bible teaches just the opposite. It seemed that the law came alongside that sin might have bound. So what did it accomplish in question 11? What did it accomplish in regards to sin?

It revealed sin, that the Jews might discover the guiltiness by breaking the law. And here's the problem with law. Think for a minute. What is the biggest problem with law other than the fact that it causes the sin nature to be aroused? What's the biggest problem with the whole law system? That we can't keep any of it. Can't keep it? Why can't you keep it? Our sin nature doesn't let us.

Well, it's not so much that. What's the problem with the law? This is like our Congress passes laws, but they don't put in the laws your ability to keep them. You see that? The mosaic law had no provision to keep it. But that's the point, right? That's the purpose is to show that you can't keep it? Yeah, that's exactly right.

So here you are, a nice Jew, can't keep the law, you're in big trouble, spend all your money on buying the animals for the temple. What do you do? If you really come to the realization, I can't stop the sinning, it's getting really expensive. But I really do want, I don't want to sin anymore. What do I do? What does the law force you to do? What does it force you to do? I mean a logical next step is to do what? Give up. Give up and do what?

Go to God and say, you know this law thing, I can't do it. And you know what he says back to you? I know. I know he can. So you have to live by faith even under a lost system. You see that? You're forced. So how does grace supervise, read the last two verses of the chapter. Somebody.

That a sin hath, wait, moreover the law entereth at the but where the sin abounded, grace did much more abound. But as the sin has reigned unto death, even so might grace reign unto righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. How does grace superabound?

Here you have this scenario where you have sin abounding And increasing all the time because you have law stimulating it. Every time you try to be good it gets worse. Sin is growing, it's more aggressive, it's more out of control. So you read in the Bible where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.

So how does grace super abound over sin? Through the righteous work of Christ. What we discover is that what Christ did on the cross, grace is a greater strength than sin. The work of Christ on the cross is more powerful than your sin nature and the law stimulating your sin nature. And it has to be, because otherwise we'd take credit for being so good. If we could be good. If we could be. We might on the surface be good, but underneath we're dogs. Because as soon as you take credit, you're lost. You're a dog.

This word in Greek for sin abounding means to increase, to be augmented, While the second word means the superaboundingness, abound beyond measure, means to overflow. Those of you who are in the grace class, we spend a lot of time talking about how grace is superabounding.

In other words, you cannot out-sin grace. And I know this sounds like heresy, but I have told people and say, you know, I've got X sin, and I just can't deal with it. And we talk, and finally I say to him, look, help yourself. You cannot make God mad. You can't out-sin the grace that you're already living. And oh, by the way, you know, if you're looking for an excuse, and say, well, you know, the devil made me do it, or I can't stop, then go ahead, because grace will show up. Grace will superabound over sin. Well, I'm a heretic for saying that because you should never tell anybody to go ahead and sin. But the point is that grace does superabound over sin.

Really important point. So to say a prayer and to ask God to forgive you for your sin is ridiculous. Oh wow, did everybody hear what she just said? That's an awesome statement. To say a prayer to ask God to forgive you of your sins is ridiculous. Why? Because you're already forgiven and you live under grace. Right, so how can you tell your brain to stop thinking that way?

Next week we'll have an answer. So, the last thing I want to cover in this chapter is this little word, reigning. We don't like the word reigning because we're Americans and we don't think anybody reigns over us, but they do. Sin was a reigning, or is a reigning principle, which means that it's sovereign. Everybody, man is under sin. It controls them, they don't control it. And under the reigning principle of sin, God institutes the law to make sin even super abound. And what's the big lie? Satan convinces men of that they have free will and if they want to stop, they can. That's nonsense. You can't.

Sin is a reigning principle. So what's God going to do? He's going to supersede the reigning principle of sin and institute a greater reigning principle of grace. Grace is a reigning principle. Does everybody understand what I mean by reigning principle? Could you repeat what you said again? Satan tries to convince us that. What? I've already forgotten.

That we can choose not to do it. Oh, that we have free will. That we have free will. We think we have free will. We think we can make a decision not to sin. And we won't. Not true. Because sin is a reigning principle. You're under it. Or if you utilize law and your will to not sin, you're in trouble. You're going to sin. But what God tells us is that we're sin abounded, grace super abounded as a reigning principle.

We live under the reigning principle of grace. But it won't be effective for us unless we understand it. We've got to learn about it. And part of learning about it is learning about what Christ did in order to implement the grace reigning principle. Which means that your response to living under grace is much different than your response if you were living under a lost system.

Everybody have the notes for the next, what is it, six? No. What? We don't have any. No, no, no. Did I hand them out last week? Yes. I need to pay. Do we need more copies? Well, I might. This I always make enough. Somehow they disappear. Yeah. You need some copies. Who doesn't? I got I got a blank. OK. So we need one, two, three. Bruce, are you going to get this water? What? Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.

So in essence what we're doing now is we're moving from Romans chapter 5 into Romans chapter 6. What we're concentrating on are what we call the identification truths. And the identification truths, as you'll see, are really the doorway into living under grace as a reigning principle. But you have to have the information in order to have it effective in your life because you have to know what to believe. So somebody read Romans 6, 1, 2, and 3.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be. How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus, have been baptized into His death?

Okay, so here we are with a situation coming out of 5, where Paul says to the readers, well, where sin reigned, grace did superabound, and is now the reigning principle. So here we are with our wonderful sin nature minds. saying, oh wow, that's pretty cool, but what does that mean to me? It means that the more I sin, the more grace there is.

Isn't that what the question is? Gee, I wonder who came up with that brilliant idea. Now what's cool about this is that this is a thing that Paul uses in his teaching. He anticipates questions that people are going to ask, and so he asks it before they ask it. and he answers it, and he does it all through his epistles, you'll see it a lot if you're kind of aware of it. So, he says, the question arises constantly both in uninstructed believers and in blind unbelievers. If you sat down with a non-believer today and you talked to them about this grace reign principle thing that we just discussed, what would their reaction be? It would be exactly what this says. They would think it's great. They would think it's wonderful. They would think the only reason that they wouldn't, and that's where our society has evolved to. Here's the evolution.

As long as what I do doesn't bother you, I can do what I want. OK, in a way, there's a blockage, though, isn't it? For the ones that do believe because they say, oh, well, the heck with it. I'm going to do it anyways because grace is flowing all around me. Yes, it does.

And that's an uninformed believer. And Paul's about to give the answer to why that question is ridiculous. But there's also the point that no matter what our arrogance is, or no matter what sin we bring to the table, that the work of the cross is not sufficient to address it. Anybody hear that? That's a very good point.

That the work of the cross is not sufficient to cover the sins that you bring to the table. Now, the message of simple grace apart from all works to the poor natural heart of man seems fully inconsistent and impossible. How come? If sin abounds, grace overflows, then the more sin, the more grace, so the unbeliever rejects the whole grace plan. And this is one reason why you never talk about these kinds of subjects. with a non-believer. The only thing a non-believer and you should engage in is what? The Gospels.

The fact that they're lost and they need to be saved. That's it. Because they don't understand the concepts of identification. I made that mistake with a lawyer for one time. Boy, I really thought I had him going. I had me going. And at the end of two breakfasts he said, I was just impeccably logical.

So the uninstructed Christian also is afraid, for he says, if we are in a reign of pure grace, what will control my conscience and my evil tendencies? Everybody get that sunk in? You sit down with a believer who is uninformed about identification and his attitude is going to be, well I think the grace thing is really cool, but what is going to control my conscience and what is going to control my evil tendencies? Right?

I can't stop sinning, I've tried. My faith and grace, but it didn't work. If I'm honest. You will side more with God than you will with the bad stuff. We might or we might not. What we have a tendency to do is to side with God in terms of God give me some rules for holy living. But that's in the book then. But that's not grace. Once you bring in the word rules you're outside the realm of grace. Because grace doesn't have rules.

That's what makes it so hard. And that's what makes it so scary. Don't you think in your mind, God, if you would just tell me what to do, I'd do it. All I need are the Burma shape signs. That's what keeps all these churches open. Just the fact that they give out the rules. Sure. We've had people leave this church because we wouldn't give them the rules. We would not give them the rules to live by. Other than grace and faith. Well, if you gave me a rule to live by, I would be upset. Well, it's the truth though, isn't it?

You wouldn't want some building to tell you what to do. But it's interesting, you know, when you think about it, if you're in a box dealing with a sin issue, what you're really asking God is to say, I don't know what to do with it. Tell me what to do. Show me what to do. Okay, but what in the world happened to your conscience? Well, my conscience is just accusing me all over the place. Because I'm sinning. I'm angry and I can't get over it. Somebody did me wrong. I'm really hot about it and I'm not letting it go.

I was watching a couple that was walking down by Coors Field one day and some guy hit them. and they interviewed all of their relatives, and well we forgive the guy, we're not forgetting, we want that guy. See? And it's fine until it's your son or daughter gets hit by the drunk driver, then it's a whole different dance. But you go to God and you say, look, I know inside my heart I want to get this guy around the throat, whoever, and that's not what I'm supposed to be. How do I get free? What did I just ask God? I asked him for the how-tos.

But here's what Paul says. So you say, I'm anticipating your question, and your question is, is it where sin abounded, grace did superabound. Well that means that the more I sin, the more there's grace. What's his answer to that? He says, no way. This thing is called a deliberate subjunctive, which means it's absolutely insanity to think that way. It is not consistent with who you are in Christ to even entertain such a thought. That's what it means. And what do your versions say? Certainly not. Definitely not. What's yours say? Certainly not. Certainly not. Anybody else? Go ahead and have her go. God forbid. See? Contemporary lingo would be no way.

But for Paul to think that, we wouldn't think that way in insanity. Well, as we're coming down the road in our spiritual growth, and we got to this point, this is how we would think. For a fleeting moment, we would think, oh, wow, we live under this grace?

Yeah. Sure. This grace stuff is pretty cool. So by what logic would grace increase if we continued in sin? We've kind of already covered it. That grace abounding over sin warrants and enables one believing that doctrine to go right on and live in the old life. Now, there's a denomination that believes this.

You know who it is? I don't know. It's the Nazarenes. You know what the Nazarenes believe? That they don't sin anymore. I think the Quakers believe that too. That they don't sin anymore, they now live under grace so they can kind of do what they want but they don't tag it as sin. I bet they didn't recognize Christ as the Savior. The Nazarenes? How come they still have some altar calls then? Because they were looking for the lost. How come they're not all in jail? That's a great point because I remember I was in a real estate transaction with a Nazarene one time and he's halfway through the transaction and he gives me this quote, you know I'm a Nazarene, I'm a Christian, I don't sin anymore.

And before the transaction was done, trust me, he was sinning. He was mad? What? He was mad. No, I was mad, he was sinning. Okay, but that's really misguided. These people are misguided big time. Sure, it is. It's a misunderstanding of what's right here in Romans 6.

So, in question 3 I said, what's the expanded answer to the question in verse 1? Such ones as we who died to sin, how shall we any longer live in it? He characterizes all Christians as what? What happened to all Christians? We've been baptized. No. What's the verse? We died. How shall we, who died to sin, live any longer in it? You see the logic there? It's just like the law. If I'm dead to the law, why would I put myself under it again?

Would I? It is so dramatic. The best way to characterize this is if someone in your life that you knew that died, have you ever had contact with them since then? No. Have they ever shown up at your house and demanded anything of you? No. Why not? What does death mean? It means separation. When my parents died, they left the planet. They're not here anymore and they have I shouldn't say they don't have any influence, my brothers and sisters, they have a lot of influence on them.

But, if I died, the law didn't die, I died to sin, did I or didn't I? This is the first mention of it. And notice it's the mention of the sin principle. It's not sins, it's my sin nature. Paul says, if you died to your sin nature, That true? How shall such ones as we, believers, who died to sin, a definite state, how shall we any longer be living in it?

Perfectly logical. Do you see that? Do you see the logic? I think for me, and maybe other people, is that it doesn't mean that it stops right away. It's a process. It is a process of growing faith. First, there's the fact. He died to sin. That's a growing understanding. And to be honest with you, there's doubt there.

How dead was I? Sin is doing this, and the music starts, and my feet start to move, and I think, how dead am I? Dead. We die. This is aorist tense. Completed action in the past. I already died. I don't go down to the funeral home and visit my mother's body and start shuffling the cards and tell her it's her deal. Why? She's not here. She's separate.

It's just as dramatic as my dying to sin. You see that? It's what he says. So how do you respond to a fact like this? It's so simple. You just believe it. Your sin nature doesn't leave you. Your sin nature can bind you for a minute. As a matter of fact, once your mind figures this out or gets this information, your sin nature is going to try to prove that information not to be true.

So it was in regard to their relationship to sin that all believers died. You have no relationship to sin anymore. None. He's asserting concerning Christians that they died. We did not die for sin, but we died unto sin. See that? And we'll expand on that as we go through. So why is living any longer in sin just not the norm for a believer? Now notice something in this second verse.

Paul is not making a plea to Christians not to live unto sin. He's not asking them to do that. He's not telling them, you know, I'm pleading with you not to live in sin anymore. But he's asking the question, how can you who die to sin go on living in it any longer?

That's his question. Do you see that? That's a whole different viewpoint than what you're going to see in normal Well, go into a Christian bookstore and see if you can find any books that tell you this principle. You won't. You will not see them. Because it's too scary to live like this. It's too scary for a person's faith to enter into the fact that they died to sin. That it's already done. There are plenty of books that say that you do. That you do what? That you died to sin. But they tell you that you've got to work it out.

No. Really? Because I went and got some of the books that are in the green letters. Oh, well. So don't scare people. We are out there. Are they being purchased as well? I don't know. The better thing is me being selected. Living in union with Sam? Yeah. See, that's the point.

It's not who we are to keep on living in union with sin. That's not who we are. It's like saying, all those who died in New York City, why are they still walking around on 5th Avenue? They're not. How shall we, who died to sin, live any longer in it?

Another thing I read too is that it says, the cage is open. Stay in the cage. That's a good point. Or you've already been taken out of the cage. Why are you trying to get back in? Yeah. So, OK, wait a minute. It's not who we are. Say that again, Joanne. Well, we're that's not who we are. We're in Christ. We're new creations in the Lord Jesus Christ. We're not to be living in union with sin. Yeah. Thank you. verse 2 of chapter 6, just look at it and just take it for what it is. Don't dance around with it and put mayonnaise on it. Just take it for what it is. And the question is really simple.

How shall we who died to sin be living any longer in it? It's like, okay, I get it. I get it. And so my next question for you smart guys, do we have the freedom to plead with God The power of a tendency to sin over which there is no control. It would be brutal. I jumped ahead. Sorry. I'm sorry.

Who controls the sin nature in the believer? Whoever you let control it. Who controls it? The devil. We'll do it. Who controls the sin nature? Because we have two. Oh, the sin nature. The sin nature. Who controls it? First of all, it's still there, right? Who controls it? Satan.

In the believer. Who controls the sin nature in the believer? How about the Holy Spirit? It's the Holy Spirit. That's who controls it. If you think about it, why would the Holy Spirit control us in nature? Oh, what a good question. Under what principle does he control it? There's a principle in play here and he controls it based on something that's happened. And what has happened?

What has happened about you and your relationship with the sea nature? Yeah, but if we're dead to it, then why is it still controlling us? Because it's still in you and still active. It's one thing to be separated from it and have it still alive, still functioning, and that's because you don't believe what God told you.

You know, watch me, anybody read the Normal Christian Life? Yeah, awesome. Did you read the thing about the ship captain? Probably. The ship captain on a sailing ship, and he was a terrible captain, and so they had a mutiny, and they replaced him, and they lashed him to the mast, and they had a big storm come up, and in the middle of the storm he's yelling out orders to everybody, and the sailors on the ship are listening to him. Why?

You're so used to responding to your sin nature that when you get a statement like this that you died to your sin nature, your sin nature says, no way, let me show you. But then you'd say the Holy Spirit controls it. And how does he do it? On what basis does he do it? That's my question. He does it based on the facts of the cross. You see that? He implements your separation from sin nature based on the work of Christ.

His reality is what's true, not what I think about, and not what my experience is. Because if I know this principle and still am struggling with sin, is my struggling with sin the reality, or is the fact that I died to sin the reality? It's the fact that I died to sin. Well, the word struggling implies that we have some kind of strength in ourselves that controls us. That's right.

Do you hear me say this all the time? Do you know that it's absolute insanity for Christians to sin? It's totally inconsistent with who they are. Totally inconsistent with who they are. You know? It'd be like a dog flying. It's totally inconsistent with what a dog is to fly.

But luckily, if you do continue this and the Holy Spirit uses it as an opportunity for growth, spiritual growth. Let's talk about growth. How do you perceive spiritual growth? How do you perceive it to be like a plant getting bigger? A child growing bigger and stronger? No, more information. More information. It's really growing into what you already are? Do you see that? What the Spirit of God does is He reveals these truths to you, and then what does He do? He looks at you like this, and what does He want you to do? He just wants you to believe Him.

Because the fact that you died to sin, and this information he gave to you, you look at him and say, well I can't be nasty to you, and tell you I don't believe you, but that's really what I do. Because I'm sinning all the time, what do you mean I died to sin? If I died to sin, it's the same question as before, how can we who are dead to sin live any longer in it?

Well we are, and boy we're testing the limits of grace. We're finding out that grace super abounds no matter what sin we do, that grace is super abounding. I know people that purposely sin to make God mad to try to get him to change his mind about them. through several verses there, it's basically answering that question.

Don't jump ahead. The reason I'm going so slow right here is because this right here is a really important issue about sin and how it's dealt with. Well just to stop where I was saying it, So he was basically saying that he was baptized into Christ Jesus, therefore baptized into his death. Sure. So run this logic down with me.

Do you have the freedom to plead with God, the power of a tendency to sin over which there is no control? So can I go to God and say, you know what, I'd really like to gamble. And you know, I just can't control this game. Is that the kind of plea that you would make with God?

Yes. No way. Well you would, but it might not be the right way. Because suppose you can't stop, suppose you really need help, and maybe he can help you. Alright, let's run down the watch. We still have the tendency, right? And that's the first principle. The second principle is that it's more than we can control. I really like Jack Daniels. I'm drinking too much of it.

Oh Lord, won't you help me? He says, no, I'm not going to help you. And here's the reason why. It would not become the child of God to live any longer in sin. Because it's not who he is. Why is it not necessary to live any longer in sin? To go on sinning? Why is it necessary that we don't live? Because we're now dead to sin. That's God's answer. I'm not helping you do anything. I took care of it. So if you have this craving, it's absolutely futile to say a prayer about it? Alright, let's see. My question back to you is, who has the craving? Me. I mean, pretend.

And who are you? Are you talking about your position in Christ, or your position in the sin nature? In other words, your position in Christ, Are you still a sinner? Yes. No, you're not. Okay. But I still have the craving. No, you don't. You have a sin nature that resides in you that's convincing you that that's who you are. What the Word of God is telling you is that you are not that person anymore. Do you understand what I mean? Okay, stand up. I'm going to give you a demonstration. Here I am before I'm saved.

I'm Mike with a sin nature. When the Spirit of God saves me, I now have two natures. I have a nature of a resurrected, glorified Christ, no sin, but I still have old Mike's nature in me. Now, until I grow enough and understand enough, I still think of myself as over in the over here in the sin nature. And sin is controlling me, and I can I and I and I. Over time, I begin to see myself in Him, in Christ. And I now look back at my sin nature and say, wait a minute, I don't have to respond to that anymore because that's not me.

Does that make sense? Does that make sense to you? Because most believers still see themselves in Adam, But when the Word of God says that you died to sin, and we're going to find out you died to Adam, and you are now in Christ. In Christ does not have the tendency to sin.

Two natures. I feel like that awareness of suddenly you recognize, gee, I used to handle this situation that way, and now I'm hearing it a little bit different, and I wonder what happened. And you do know what happened. By the time you get to Corinthians, there's this conversation about those in Christ have His very mind. That you begin to see things as He sees them. So you begin to live over here in Christ. And you begin to think, I am in Christ. That's who I am. I am not an Adam trying to be a good Christian anymore. So therefore I'm not gambling anymore. Does Christ gamble? Does Christ drink Jack Daniels? Is it even an issue with him? No. It's so opposite of our society like behavior management and psychology and everything. It's the total opposite. What is college designed to do?

Discipline and train the sin nature. What is psychology? You know what psychology is? It's the study of the sin nature and how to make it work. That's all it is. That's what a Christian psychologist does. A Freudian psychologist is really good at working on the sin nature. And that focus on the sin nature is also what produces a lack of security in the believer. Because it's all about that action.

Good discussion today. We'll pick up with question six next week. So keep thinking. It's like Miles used to say, think position. See yourself in Christ only because that's who you are. All right, let's pause. Dear Father, how we thank you for your grace. Boy, we thank you so much for what you've already done by positioning us in your son, praying his prayer.