Get Free from Sin in the Next 40 Minutes

Here is the plain truth. Unbeliever has got a sin nature. Their spirit is dead. They are controlled by the dictates and the desires of their flesh. The born again believer, the moment you're born again, what does God do? He puts his divine nature inside of you. Now you have a choice. Am I gonna obey my spirit or am I going to obey my flesh? So if you choose to obey sin as a believer, you become a slave and the slave doesn't abide in the house forever. I've seen moments where people are like, I'm trying, I'm trying. And I think it's so important that cleansing yourself is not supposed to just be done in your strength. It's done by grace. So one day I was praying about this art and I said, God, you gotta give me an illustration. Show me why are people being destroyed when they've received your grace? And the Lord showed me something. I'll never forget this as long as I live. Hey everybody, we'll get back to the episode in just a moment. But first, I wanna thank the patrons who make this podcast possible. I may be the one you hear, but as the Apostle Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians,

the unseen parts of the body are just as important, if not more important than the ones we see. Your support behind the scenes is critical to sharing these messages. So thank you. If this podcast has strengthened you and you're not a patron yet, we'd love for you to join the team. Your monthly contribution will help us reach more people with timeless truth. Plus, you get some great insider perks, including private Q&As with me, as well as other exclusive content. To become a patron, just click the link in the show description or go to johnbevere.com backslash patron. Now, let's get back to the show. So we are in 2 Peter. We're talking about false teachers and these false teachers are luring people into slavery of sin. Jesus makes the statement in John 8. This is what he says, verse 31 through 34. Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed in him, if you abide in my word, listen to that statement and don't forget it. If you abide, abide means I dwell there. If you dwell in my word, you are my disciples indeed. Now, why is that? Because the word disciple literally means pupil.

People say disciple means follower. Disciple means pupil, but it has another definition, one who closely adheres to the life of its teacher. So that's where the word follow comes from. So it's not like it's wrong to say a disciple is a follower of Jesus, but the accurate statement is a pupil, one who learns the ways of his master, okay? And he said, if you continue, abide, if you dwell in my word, you're my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth. Now, listen to this, the truth will make you free, not set you free, make you free. There's a big difference between set free and made free, I think. Yeah, I mean, I feel like most people say the truth will set you free. I know they do, but it's not really what he said. He said, it will make you free. If I'm set free, I can easily get back in. If I'm made free, it is complete, total freedom. I kind of look at it like this. I've got this cup of tea, right? And in this tea, let's just say the tea is sin, right? So I can do one of two things. I can just turn it over and pour it all out, but the cup is empty. Or I can take my fist and run it down in there and my fist will displace. Now, if the cup is just empty,

it can get filled up with seven more demons worse than it was before. Yeah. If my fist displaces it, I can't fill it up because it's already filled with the fist. So there's two ways of getting free from sin. There is the deliverance. I command that spirit to come out of that person. Okay, you just turned it over and now your cup's empty. Right? Or there's getting into the word and you get so filled with Jesus that he displaces the sin and that's, I believe, the highest form of deliverance. All right? So you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. You're gonna see him say set free and other things say set free in other places in scripture, but he's talking about being made free. I'm shoving my fist in the glass so much that it's made free because now it's filled with something else, okay? They answered him. Now, this is what people would say today. They answered him, we are Abraham's descendants and we've never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say you will be made free? You know what people say today? I prayed the sinner's prayer and I go to church. How can you tell me that I am a slave?

Well, I'm about to. There are a lot of people in churches that are slaves of sin and that's what we're gonna talk about today because Peter talks about it. Jesus talks about it. Paul talks about it and it's all. but you know, I'm just not hearing people talk about it from the pulpits for some reason. Well, it triggers some people. That's the thing. It is a trigger. Because sometimes people, not the slavery thing, but sometimes people like to live with their sin and still keep following God. And so hearing the revelation of you can be set free. You just said an oxymoron. I know. Like their sin, but keep following God. You can't do those. No. You can't do both of those. And that's why we don't want to confront people. Cause then it's like, well, you don't want to make them uncomfortable. It's like, no, we don't want to see them go to a place they don't want to go to. We don't want to see them go down bondage and all these things that are going to continue to keep holding them back.

But yet I think it's going back to that story you shared of the guy that was smoking cigarettes and he just continued to keep being like, I've been praying, I've been praying that I would get set free. And I watched one guy that was, you know, my friend who got healed and got completely set free of it. And he said, I can't figure out why I can't get set free of smoking cigarettes. And he said, he felt like- Let's go back to that story later. Okay. Because I am so glad you brought that up, but I don't want anybody getting the answer yet. All right. Okay. Because I want to set them up for the answer. Is that okay that I did that? That's okay. So I just, I just teased it. You teased it. There you go. Exactly right. Okay. But there's something there that people, they still want their sin and still want to continue to keep following God. So let's continue. Yep. They said, we've never been in bondage

to anyone or anything. How can you say that you will be made free? Then Jesus says, this is his response to them. Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin. Now the word commits means habitually commits. Yeah. Not falls into and then quickly repents. We're talking about habitually commits sin. Is a slave. I'm going to just stop right there and let slave sink in. Is a slave. Slave to what? Not slave to a plantation owner. Like the 1800s. You're a slave to sin. And sin's a lot worse taskmaster than any plantation owner was. You're a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever. Oh boy, that's a big statement. In other words, you're not going to dwell with me forever. A slave will not abide with me forever. I mean, just taking that right there is a slave someone who's in the house though. They're in the house. They're doing things in the house. They're accomplishing tasks in the house. But yeah, there's a difference. They don't abide forever. They don't abide forever.

That's scary. I know, because these guys were in the house of God. Yeah, it's not that there's someone that's completely, it's not like there's someone completely outside and it's just like, oh, you've never even experienced the goodness of God. It's no, you experienced the goodness of God. You're partaking in all these things. You're going to church, you're in the house, but you're not abiding forever. I know. That's scary. I know. This is why this podcast is so important. I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin and a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son or daughter abides forever. Therefore, if the son makes you free, you will be free indeed. Now we go to our second Peter, what we've been walking through, right? Talking about the false teachers, talking about the ones who were luring people back into sin, listen to this. They, false teachers, brag about themselves with empty, foolish boasting. Hey, I'm a great communicator. I've got 500,000 people on my Instagram account that are following me. I've got 2 million people following me on YouTube. Okay, that's great.

But the question is, are you leading people into freedom or slavery? Because there are people in the house, in the church, that are leading people into slavery and they're called false teachers who creep in unnoticed, all right? So with an appeal, I'm reading the scripture now, with an appeal to twisted sexual desires. What is twisted sexual desires? Let me just make it really clear. Sex is intended between a man and his wife, not a man and any woman, a man and his wife. That is two people that made a covenant in the eyes of God and said that we are one and we are going to be faithful to each other. Sex is twisted when it's done between a man and a man, a woman and a woman, when a person tries to change their gender and then have sex with the person of the same gender because they think they're a different gender because they changed their sex and medical can't change it because the Bible says God created the male and female. Now, why does God hate all this? Because it is what? but it is unmaking, it is demising the people he loves. For God so loved the world. He loves people so much. And he hates seeing sin become a mean, cruel taskmaster like the Egyptians were,

putting stripes on the Israel's, his people's backs, murdering their babies, all the stuff they were going through. And God goes, I hate this slavery. God hates slavery. He hates it, okay? But he looks through all those things and he loves the individual. And that's something that we as Christians, we always have to remember this. Because it is, and you've done this so beautifully. It's really easy to look at it and be like, man, God hates that, so I hate those things. But then you gotta be careful. God doesn't hate those people, right? Exactly, you gotta be careful that the sin that's unmaking him, that you say you hate, you don't begin to attach it to the person. You begin to see, I wanna see that person set free. I pray for that person. I believe that if I had a conversation with that person, that I would bring that, I wanna draw out the things that God has put into them and call them back to their original identity, not continue to see them go further and further into that sin. So we have to keep our hearts pure to that. Hey everyone, I wanna share the tool I use when I'm preparing messages, writing or studying the Bible. It's called Logos.

It is a powerful Bible study platform that lets you access commentaries, devotionals and Bible dictionaries all in one place. The latest version actually uses AI to provide answers from your trusted biblical resources. Plus, it's now easier to use with plans starting at $9.99 a month. Visit logos.com backslash Bevere to start your free extended trial today. Now, let's get back to the podcast. The most hideous person on the planet. God loves that person. Enough to die for them. That's why Paul said over and over, I murdered Christians in cold blood. I am an example of his mercy. Okay, so that to me is just like, God, you picked a murder. Give me eyes to see them. Like, give me eyes to see them. Let me see them the way you see them. I'm praying that constantly. That happens through prayer. That does not happen through a one time, oh, that'd be nice. No, that happens through continuing to keep praying for those people that are far. Continue to keep praying for people that are confused and all these things. You've got to have the heart of God to be able to speak into those situations

and call them out of it. Absolutely. All right. So, they false teachers brag about themselves with empty, foolish boasting. With an appeal to twisted sexual desires, they lure. Okay, we talked about this on the last podcast. You tie a lure onto a fishing line to lure the fish in and take the bait. They lure back into sin. So, they lure back into slavery. Those who have barely escaped from a lifestyle of deception. So, think about this. Barely escaped means they just got saved. They're a baby Christian. They're really not continuing in the word of God. They listen more to Instagram than they do the word of God. And so, now they're easy prey. Yeah. They're easy prey. Still maturing in their faith. Yep, they're babes. The false teachers, this is verse 19. I'm reading from the Bible. They promise freedom. So, this is what's really crazy. They're promising, hey, this grace that I'm teaching, that allows you to partake in an immoral life. Hey, God knows your flesh.

He knows you have needs. It's okay. Jesus sacrifices enough. It's all you need. Don't worry about your lifestyle. Okay, that little false teaching right there. Wow. It promises people freedom. Because I remember I was doing a nationwide conference, and there were four internationally known speakers in this green room. And the one international speaker, I'll just say his name, Jensen Franklin, had just preached a message on holiness that was absolutely beautiful. And I was in the green room with another international speaker who talks only about grace, but never ever talks about the fact that grace empowers us. I just said, you know, if you could just take 60 seconds, I love your message, I love it so much. If you could just take 60 seconds to just share how grace empowers us to live a godly life. He said, that'll put people in bondage. And boy, did we have a discussion right in front of everybody. And I love him, he loves me. We both love each other. But I'm deeply concerned about what is coming out of what he's teaching.

Because you see people that they think they're free. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves to sin and corruption. Here's the kicker. Peter writes, for you are a slave. to whatever controls you. Now, Jesus said, whoever habitually commits sin is a slave of sin in John 8, verse 34. Peter writes, you are a slave to whatever controls you. Now, I want to emphasize again, what are these teachers? What is their MO? What's their main motive? Jude 4, I want to go back to it again. Remember, Jude and 2 Peter 2 are very similar. I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches. They've crept in unnoticed, saying that God's marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. Now, they say it, they imply it, or they say it. One of the two. Implying it is probably a better way of saying it. So let's talk about grace. Grace, as it has been taught in the Western church, has been taught as merely a cover-up to our inability to walk godly. Yeah. OK? Which that's totally wrong, because we read in 1 Peter chapter 1, he put his divine nature in us,

and we're to employ every effort to walk in godliness. So here's the man of God, Peter, saying, hey, you don't employ effort to be saved. Salvation is a gift, but you employ effort to live godly. All right? These people come along and say, don't even worry about it. Hey, man, just enjoy this world, because you've been saved out of this world because of the blood of Jesus. Truth in that. That's a true statement. But it's what they don't tell you, that part two of that is, and by the way, the divine nature and the grace of God has been given to you, so you can live a godly life in a manner worthy of God. Yeah. So you leave that part out. This is why Paul said, if anybody suffers eternal death, it's not my fault, because I didn't withhold, I didn't withhold any part of the word of God. So it's what they're withholding, it's not what they're, because what they're saying is actually true. That's why I looked at that great, that teacher who's known all over the planet. I said, I love the freedom of what you're preaching, but can you just put the balance on it? Yeah. And just to clarify, it was a different preacher.

It wasn't Jensen. Jensen had preached at the holiness. No, Jensen had preached the message on holiness. I just want to make sure that was clear. I love Jensen. I mean, I love listening to Jensen in the gym. Jensen Franklin's a great preacher. All right, so grace is not merely a cover up. And if you look at the church that's most like the Western church today, if you look at the church, it's really Corinth. Wouldn't you agree? The Corinthians, all right, they're a church, but they have favorite preachers, which is ridiculous. They're quarreling. They are suing one another. They've got people in their church that is actually sleeping with their step-mom. I mean, I could go on and on. They go to the Lord's supper, which was a actual supper back in those days, and they eat all the food and the poor come in and get scraps. And Paul is just like, man, you guys. So he starts out, well, he doesn't really start out. I want to start out by quoting what he says to this Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 15, verse two. This is the New Living Translation. He said, it is this good news that saves you, unless, of course, you believe something

that was never true in the first place. So we've got people believing today. You don't need to worry about living a godly life. I don't even want to use the word worry. You don't need to even think about living a godly life. Don't even employ any effort. I mean, this is all grace, baby. You don't have to do a thing, okay? When in reality, the Bible says, employ every effort to add to your faith godliness. Okay. Can I even say, too, it's not so much that they're even saying those types of things. It's what they're not saying as well. It's like, going back to that conversation is, I don't want to put condemnation. I don't want to even talk on that because it's going to put condemnation. So you're completely avoiding something that is- He said, you're going to put people into bondage. Yeah. So you're completely avoiding something that is talked about within the Bible, but you're just like, I don't want to put people into that. So it's the same thing of everything we just talked about on hell. We just had a very intense conversation around hell. We went into detail, but it's like, hey, these people need to know about this. We have to talk about this.

I'm going to give an example of what you're saying. Yeah. Okay? I look at somebody and I say to them, I need you to go 500 miles and I need you to get there by today and deliver this to this person. It's 500 miles away. Okay? I just put somebody in bondage if they don't have an automobile. Yeah. Or if they don't- There's no way they're going 500 miles in 24 hours, even if they run. Okay? But if I hand them a car- Or a plane. Or a plane, and I say, I need you to go 500 miles and deliver this by today. I didn't put them in bondage. I gave them the tool they need to get to the 500. Yeah. And God sent them. The nature, the divine nature is the car. Yeah. The grace of God is the gas. Okay? That's what gives us the ability to do what the Old Testament saints couldn't do because they didn't have God's divine nature. They didn't have the grace of God. They could not please God in the way that they lived because they were still bound to their flesh. And that's why you see Jesus say, if you even look at a woman, it's like sometimes people do this whole correlation of there's the Old Testament

God, the New Testament God. What Jesus said in that moment was you have the spirit of God that is going to be living in you. So I'm telling you, I'm actually going to hold you to a higher standard and challenge you in a greater way. I gave you what you need. You need to lean into it. And I understand some people are like, but I've been trying. I've been trying. Look, here's the thing is I think what we're trying to understand is that God has more for you. And as you were talking about in the beginning is you're saying, oh, I've been trying, I've been trying. What are you continuing to fill yourself up with? Have you left yourself in this place where you're completely empty and you're like, I'm trying, I'm trying, or have you continued to allow the word of God to continue to fill you up and fill you up and allow yourself to be in this place where I'm filled up with the word of God and I am able to do these things? Yes, I might slip up. I mean, we all make mistakes. I get angry. I have frustrations. I have things where I'm like, man, that was not godly what I just did. Yeah. But I know that is not my spirit. That's not the spirit that God has given me. That's not the new nature that God has given me. And it's those moments of, oh man, I messed up. I repent. God, I'm so sorry. But I don't live from this place of, oh man, like the worry of, am I good enough? I messed up today. Does that mean I'm going to hell? No, no. It was a free gift. It was a free gift. It's a free gift. I'm not going to freely give it up. It was a called the grace of God. I love the grace of God. I am a grace of God junkie. I can't get enough of the grace of God. Now we go to second Corinthians chapter six, verse one. This is so neglected today. And I don't understand why Paul makes a statement. And, and I'm going to tell you, people will avoid this statement. Like the plague, like COVID-19, they will avoid this. Here's the statement. We then as workers together with him, I love that. We work together with God. Also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. Now, wait a minute. What does vain mean? Okay. It's the Greek word kinos, which means pertaining to being lacking in results. No results without result, without effect. Okay. Without effect. Okay. How can you receive the grace of

God in vain the way it's taught in the Western church? In other words, if you don't have to worry about a thing, you can live however you want. How are you receiving grace without effect? There's no, there's not an effect you're, you're striving to hit. So he goes on to say, let's just read the whole thing in context. Don't team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partaker with wickedness? How can light live with darkness? What harmony can there be between Christ and the devil? How can a believer be a partner with an unbeliever? And what union can there be with God's temple and idols? We are called, listen, to reach the world, serve the world, to be bedside the world. We're not called to be in bed with the world. There is a big difference. Go into the world, but not be of the world. Paul says, for we are the temple of the living God, as God has said. Now this promise is the most, oh gee, why don't we talk about this more? God, the creator of the heavens and the earth, the one that put the stars in the universe with his fingers says, I will live in them and I'll walk among them. I will be their God and they will be my people. Therefore come out from among unbelievers. This is God speaking and separate yourselves from them, says the Lord. Don't touch their filthy things. So not only separate yourself from them, but don't do what they do. Don't live for the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. And I, this is consequential, and I will welcome you. And I will be a father and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. Now the next verse is a new chapter. This is why people don't connect this. The very next statement, this is one long letter. Because we have these promises. What are the promises? I will live in you, walk among you. I will be your God. You will be my people. You will be my sons and my daughters. These promises. Dear friends, now listen to this. Let us cleanse ourselves. Now listen to this. Let us cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or our spirit. And let us work towards complete holiness because we fear God. Now wait a minute. cleanse ourselves. I want everybody to notice,

it doesn't say the blood of Jesus will cleanse us. You say, whoa, whoa, whoa, John, are you telling me the blood of Jesus doesn't cleanse me? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, a million times no. What I am saying is don't confuse the work of justification with the work of sanctification. Okay, you say, wait a minute, those are big words. Justification, that's the free gift of salvation. The moment I said, Jesus, I am a sinner, I repent of my sin and I receive you as my Lord. At that very moment, you were saved, you didn't do a thing to earn it, a thing to deserve it, it was a gift of God, that is justification. But the moment you are justified, that's when sanctification begins and that is what is done on the inside of me starts showing up on the outside, okay? That we have to participate with the Holy Spirit. We have to cleanse ourselves by the power of his word, by the power of his spirit, we have to cleanse ourselves. But you just said with the Holy Spirit, by the power of the spirit. I've seen comments where people are like, I'm trying, I'm trying. And I think it's so important. It's not, the cleansing yourself is not supposed to just be done in your strength. It's done by grace. It's done by grace. That's why he says,

don't receive the grace of God in vain. Yep, exactly. And that's what we always would tell you is like, look, I think that the messaging difference, it's not that you're, it's hyper grace. We actually think it's being undersold. It's like, here's just one aspect of grace and you're only doing that. Okay, you're getting on something really important here. No, no, go, go, go, no, no, no, no. But I want to, I want to, I want to put an exclamation point on what you just said. Yeah, the message that all, like grace discovers the multitude of sins and you don't have to do anything else, which that's true for salvation. But then what you're talking about sanctification, you are underselling grace. Yes. When you don't tell people that grace is also the empowerment that God has given you to be able to cleanse ourself from everything that defiles our body. So I grieve, grieve, grieve when I hear people say hyper grace, because I am hyper grace. You're hyper grace. I want all the grace I can get, right? I cry out to grace for God, for grace. I go, God, I humble myself.

I humble myself under your mighty hand. I humble myself in your sight. I put on the clothing of humility because I know God gives grace to the humble, right? And I know grace is added onto the humble, right? So it's not that I'm calling, I'm never going to call this hyper grace because I want the hyper grace. It's undersold grace. It's undersold when you leave these things out. Okay. When you don't tell people. Cleanse ourselves. How do we do it? By the power of God's grace. Remember, now unto him who's able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that you can ask or think, not according to the power that comes from heaven, this is Ephesians 3.20, but according to the power that works in us, in us, in us. That's the grace of God. Because God sees his grace as his divine power. Remember he said to Paul, okay? Second Corinthians 12, same book. Second Corinthians 12, verse nine. My grace is sufficient for you for my power. So God just called his grace his power. Peter says grace be multiplied to you as his divine power. Peter calls grace power, okay? Now, let us cleanse ourselves from everything

that can defile body or spirit and let us work toward complete holiness. Why? Because without holiness, no man sees the Lord. If you don't see the Lord, you don't change. We are changed from glory to glory as we behold him. Without holiness, you don't see him. In other words, you don't enter his presence. When you don't enter his presence, you don't get changed. Now you're just gonna make up excuses like grace is just the big coverup and I know I'm no different than the world. And then the world laughs at us and says, your God is not powerful. He doesn't change your life. When in reality, he does. Well, and there's something too that's within there that you're not saying of no one will see the Lord. Everyone will see the Lord. Revelations 1.7, behold, he comes in the clouds and every eye will see him, even those who have pierced him. At the judgment, every eye is gonna see him. What he's saying is, I have been under 13 United States presidents in my lifetime. I've never seen one of them. Never been in the presence of a United States president. Jesus said to him who has my words and keeps them, it is he who loves me and I will manifest myself. I will cause myself to be seen by him. What we realize is when we don't teach holiness

and don't teach people to pursue it, we are denying people the presence of God. To be able to see him in this lifetime. To experience his presence in this lifetime. And we wonder why people are walking away from God. It's because they have never gotten an opportunity to experience the presence of God. It's because we haven't taught them this. Right, because we're concerned we're gonna put them in bondage. When we're really not, we're actually liberating them in the presence of God. Now, God gave me an example. Because look what he says, cleanse ourselves from everything, not most of the things, not 97% of things that can defile. our body or spirit. So one day I was praying about this art and I said, God, you got to give me an illustration. Show me what is happening. Why are people being destroyed when they've received your grace? And the Lord showed me something. Back when I was in high school, there was a mountain called Mount St. Helens. I'll never forget this as long as I live. I lived in West Virginia. Mount St. Helens was in Oregon. It blew its top.

Literally 1,400 feet of the top of Mount St. Helens blew. It was a volcano. And the soot and the ashes made our sky in West Virginia dark. I mean, that's all the way across the United States, right? And I'll never ever forget it. So I started studying it because I was intrigued by it. I found out that when it blew, everything around it got destroyed, but it blew a path that was like, everything 200 miles on one direction was just literally annihilated by either the blow or by the ash. Not the ash, the lava, okay? Or, you know, hot molds and stuff, right? Yeah, and there were people that were killed. All right, now, God gave me this illustration. He said, you got a cabin and you're on Mount St. Helens. And the seismologists have determined it's gonna blow its top. And you are on that cabin. It's gonna blow its top within 24 hours, right? And you're in your cabin and you've got no vehicle. You have no way of saving yourself. I mean, if I start running right now, I'm not going 200 miles away from, I can't get that far away in 24 hours. But somebody comes and knocks at your door and they hold up a set of keys and they say,

I got a Ford Bronco out here. It's a four-wheel drive. The Bronco's yours. And they hand me the set of keys. I did nothing to earn that Bronco. It was a free gift. All right, so I take the keys and I go, I'm saved, I'm saved. Oh, I'm saved. Oh my gosh, I'm saved. Now I do this for 24 hours. And what happens? The top blows on the mountain. I am completely destroyed. What do the people down at the bottom say who knew that I was freely given that Bronco? Why didn't he use it? He received the Bronco in vain. He didn't use its full potential. There was no effect from him getting the Bronco. This is what Paul is saying to these believers. Now, if we take this over to the Apostle Paul who received the revelation of God's grace so powerfully, Paul's the entire chapter, the entire chapter of Romans six is on this very thing. Paul's made the statement, Paul's made the statement, well then, since God's grace has set us free from the law, which it has, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not exclamation point.

Don't you realize, listen to what Paul says, you become the slave. We're talking about signing up for slavery. We're talking about slavery still very much intact today. You become a slave of whatever you choose to obey. You can be a slave to sin, which leads you to death, or you can choose to obey God because now you have a nature. You can choose to obey God, which leads you to righteous living. Thank God once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obeyed this teaching we have given you. Now you are free from your slavery of sin. But now wait a minute. He says, if you go on sinning, you're going to become a slave to what you obey. So here is the plain truth. Unbeliever has got a sin nature in their flesh, okay? Their spirit is dead. Their spirit's separated from God. They don't have the divine nature. They are controlled by the dictates and the desires of their flesh. They can choose to train their flesh to be a nice person, but they still have death as a nature, okay? The born-again believer, the moment you're born again, what does God do? He puts his divine nature inside of you. Now you have a choice because you still have a flesh that has fallen, a flesh that can be tempted. Now I have to choose. Am I going to obey?

my spirit, because the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, right? Or am I going to obey my flesh? The works of the flesh are evident, which is adultery, fornication, right? The believer has a choice. The unbeliever has no choice. So if you choose to obey sin as a believer, you become a slave, and the slave doesn't abide in the house forever. So there's your difference. And people have not thought this through enough. They haven't read the scripture enough. And what does the scripture do? It feeds my spirit. So my spirit is strong enough to be able to say, hey, I'm not going to do this. If you look at Jesus, he looks at Peter, they're in the garden, and Peter says, couldn't you pray for an hour? The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. In other words, you're obeying your flesh and you're sleeping in this time that you should be going to war in prayer. Okay? And so why do we have so many believers? They're like, I can't get free from sin. Well, you're a slave to sin, because why? You spend 50 hours a week on social media and you read your Bible, 30 minutes a month, a month. And then you're sitting there going, why can't I just stop sinning? Well, you're a slave to sin, and slaves aren't free. Slaves are at the mercy of their masters, and sin is a terrible taskmaster. So whom the Son makes free is free indeed. How are you made free? If you abide in my word, you will be my disciples, and you'll know the truth, and the truth will make you free. I mean, Arden, this is so important. I've got so many more scriptures. Just if you read the whole book of Romans 6, I actually highlighted in my own Bible, there's five times that Paul says, you've been set free from sin. You're no longer a slave to sin, but you choose. What are you going to be a slave of? So now when you hear the scripture, we then as workers together with him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. I think we understand what Paul is saying. So now let me finish the cigarette story. All right. And I think it'll make more sense out now after what we talked about.

So in essence, I have a friend, his name is Tom, and he was on the Los Angeles Police Sheriff's Department, and he smoked four packs of cigarettes a day. Got saved, but he couldn't shake the smoking of the cigarettes at all. So he kept praying, praying, praying, fasting, went any time his pastor called for prayer, he went up. Yeah. Has to be prayed for. Any evangelist, any traveling teacher came to his church, he'd be the first one in the prayer line saying, I want out of the cigarette smoking, right? He said, then John, one day I took a friend of mine to our church service and my friend got saved. And my friend smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. And on that very night, he got delivered from smoking like that. He was free from cigarettes. He said, John, I got angry, really angry. And he said, I was angry at God. And he said, I was in my home, I was in my chair at home. And he said, I am talking to God because I'm not happy. And he said, I screamed out, God, why haven't you delivered me from this sin of destroying my body? And God, he said, John, I've never heard the audible voice of God, except for this one time. He said, I heard it come over this shoulder. We're sitting in the restaurant, he's telling me this, this shoulder. And when I said, God, why haven't you delivered me? God said, because you still like it. He had become a slave. And he said, John, I looked, I took one look at that Winston cigarette. And he said, I put it out. He said, I have never touched the cigarette since.

And he said, that was a couple decades ago. He made the decision right there, I'm gonna be set free. Now, he continued in the word of God. And I believe that gave him the power to not go back into it. So then he was made free. I think he was first set free, then he got filled up with the word and he was made free. And because I know his life, and I know he's a pastor now, and I know he is so full of the word of God, it just comes, when you touch Tom, it just comes oozing out of him, right? The word of God, because he spends so much time in the word of God. But a lot of people are slaves because they actually like their master of sin. They don't see the consequences of it. They don't see that sin never ends, because James says, each one is tempted when we're drawn away by our own desire and enticed. So there's the devil's part right there. But the devil can't entice you with what you don't desire. Okay, if you put a line of cocaine in front of me right here, I'm not gonna touch it. You're not, I got no desire. But you can entice. somebody with what they desire. I put a line of chocolate there, you're, you know. Yeah, I'm going for it. So this is why you got so many men bound to pornography, they can't get set free, because they still like it.

They still like it. I mean, they're on this place of self-gratification and self-destruction. You walk this continual balance of it, because they still like it. So whom son makes free is free indeed. But we have to choose to be free, because we have the choice. Are we going to be a slave of sin? Or are we going to be a servant of righteousness? Yeah. That's what Paul says in Romans chapter six. What's coming up in our next podcast, you absolutely do not want to miss, because we're going to see the terrifying results if what Peter is warning us here about, false teachers, is not heeded. And this is a podcast, and I have really longed to get to this part of this particular podcast, because we're going to address something that Peter says at the end of chapter two, that causes people to tremble, causes me to tremble. It should cause us to tremble. And it's a good tremble. It's a warning. So we'll talk about that in the next podcast.