Natural Born Sinners

Real life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints and impact our culture. The law of God, the Ten Commandments are awesome, but they can't save you. And then, in the Old Testament, there are 613 rules that you are to keep. They can't save you. None of them claim to save you! Not a one! You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com slash podcast. Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying, amen or yes, then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now, open your hearts to what God's Word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs. So when we declared independence, who were we declaring independence from? Freedom! You're so well taught as a people. Don't let anyone ever question your history. And so you've got names in your heart and in your head like John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin and all of these guys, and so you should. But those guys said, we got our understanding of liberty and freedom from the Black Rogue Regiment. Did you know that? The Black Rogue Regiment were the pastors of the colonial era. The churches in the colonies taught the Word of God chapter by chapter, verse by verse, exactly what we do here. But listen, they preached that Christ set you free and that any subject of Christ, anyone who has submitted to Christ, listen, anyone who is a slave of Jesus Christ, that's the only way you can truly be free. Why? Because His Lordship liberates. It flies in the face of what I'm going to say, organized religion. Stand up, sit down, do this, pay that, read this, check this box, now you're accepted. No, no, no, no, not the Bible. That's not God's gospel. That's not the way it goes. Not at all. In fact, listen to this. Because those pastors were so faithful to proclaim the Word of God and I own hundreds of their sermons. And you ought to read them sometimes from about 1720, all the way out to about 1780, incredible sermons. But there was one young man who sat under the most powerful preacher in the day. And I'm going to, you'll figure out who this guy is in a moment. He actually began to imitate the pastor's ability to speak. He was known as one of the greatest orders in American history. And so was this young man who sat in his church. But let me give you a little bit of background. It was the second Virginia convention at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia. I mentioned that because I took many of you on our heritage tour to that very church. And they do a profound reenactment of what you're about to hear. The Word was going out. We're getting our teeth kicked in. There's no way that we can defeat what's coming to us. The powers of Great Britain are the biggest military on earth, and we're doomed. We're all going to be enslaved. And everybody's whining on and going on. And then one guy, and I'll read this, as the 13 state delegates gathered to discuss the looming prospects of war with Great Britain, most wavered and even suggested even greater submission to the tyrant King George III. But one man stood up and delivered one of history's most famous speeches. And I'll read it to you now, we'll put it on the board. Gentlemen, may cry, peace, peace, but there is no peace. The war has actually begun. The gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand we here idle? Is life so dear or peace so sweet so to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid at Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me so shouted, Patrick Henry, which so stirred them up that they began to rise up and they began to consult and pray to God. And from that moment on, you read about American history and it is absolutely epic because we had a profound dependence upon God. It's the dependence upon God that led to independence. You get that? It's our dependence upon God that liberates our family. It liberates our husbands, our wives, our kids, our parents, our culture, our society. What American needs to do to get back under the graces of God is not... Listen, an election is not going to fix it. We need to repent as a nation and get back to God and seek His favor again so that we might be submitted to Him. And if we submit to God, then God is invited back into our schools and in their courtrooms and tragically even into our churches. He might even come back. Roman chapter 7, verse 24, Oh, wretched man that I am, you can hear the apostle almost rending his garments. I'm sick of myself who will deliver me from this body of death. Here comes the flood of joy. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind, myself, I serve the law of God. I know what I want to do. I want to bless God. But with the flesh, the law of sin. I know in my heart I want to follow God, but my flesh is always screaming at me to do something else. And with that, he takes off and he writes, the apostle Paul, one of the greatest treaties of a chapter ever written to mankind. Roman chapter 8. So we look at this church. Second argument, verses 2 to 3 is this, that there is therefore now sins, condemnation. What we started with this announcement, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Everybody look at your Bibles, don't look on the screen. Look at your Bibles, I'm going to show you something that you need to know. When the King James translators put together the Bible for the English under King James's decree, the translators took verse 4 in your Bible and took verse 4 and copied it and put it up under the last part of verse 1. That's why if you look in your Bibles, listen, if you come to this church, bring a Bible. You're even allowed to steal a Bible to come to this church. You got to come with a Bible. So when you look at this, some of your Bibles say that there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, period. Some of your Bibles, like my King James Bible, says, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. That's not in the original Greek language. It was added in 1611. Why? Because the translators wanted you to know that verse 4 says it, so we're going to put it in verse 1 as well. It's not an alteration, it's an unnecessary move or a copy and a pace that ought not to be there. Hear me out. Every scholar will agree. In fact, ancient manuscripts from 3rd and 4th century says this. There is, are you listening? Watch, there is now, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ, okay? Period. Watch this. The word in the language that God has given the Apostle to speak, remember the Bible says that God is the one who wrote the Bible. You know, it's a pull, wrote it, God used Paul's hand. That's why I listen, I love saying this, it gets people all upset. Study, Genesis to Revelation, find mistakes, publish a book, and become a billionaire. Because you'll be the first one to ever find a mistake in the Bible. In the original languages, there are none. And God said the exact thing. I will breathe out the scriptures and I used the hand of man to pen that to you. Here we are in the 21st century. And the greatest authority on earth is still the Bible, drive some people nuts, but it's a fact out of all the things that we've been able to achieve as a industrialized educated people. There's the Bible. There's the Bible telling you that there's hope and life after death. There's the Bible that's telling you that God loved you so much that he gave his only begotten son. That it's the Bible still announcing that there's a heaven and a hell and God wants you and heaven with him. There's a Bible that says that there's those who are rebellious against God and wicked toward other people and they're murderous and they're dangerous. The Bible is so honest and in all of our achievements, the Bible is still standing there. And by the way, you can burn every Bible on the planet, it doesn't change the thing. See, eternal truth. But here's what we're looking at. The declaration of dependence is looking at this, that there is therefore now sin's condemnation. This is good news. We read a moment ago, sin has been condemned by God through the Lord Jesus Christ. So wait a minute, Jack, remind me of condemnation. Condemnation is being judged with no hope of ever getting out. Can you imagine getting a life sentence? You're condemned. The Bible says all of us without Christ are condemned. Did you know that? It doesn't matter if you believe it or not. The Bible says all people without Christ are condemned. We're born into this world as condemned creatures. We are naturally born sinners. And when we hear the word of God and we are to respond to it, listen, I pray it happens today, that something happens in your heart. You don't even realize it. But maybe 5, 10, 20 minutes from right now, something's going to happen to you where you say, and it's not going to be easy, I'm going to tell you right now, it might be a revelation where God speaks to you on the inside and it's going to hurt. Because God is going to say, or he's going to have you feel like you're the only one in this room, like he's calling you out and he's saying, listen, I love you and how you're living is wrong. I don't want you to reform yourself. I don't want you to change yourself. I want you to agree with me that how you're living is wrong and I want you to give me your life right now. He's going to say it to some of you today, just hand it over to me. And you're going to start having a struggle inside of you. You look normal, you'll sit here today and you'll be like totally normal and inside there will be a storm raging and you'll hear God speak to you. He'll use your voice but he'll use language that you've never heard before and you'll know it's him because you would never say such a thing to you. So listen, God in Christ Jesus condemned sin at the cross. That's what the cross is all about. Listen, Jesus went to the cross and as he was there crucified, what was really going on was the absolute destruction of the power of the condemnation of sin and death in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the word is called atonement. Jesus died in my place and in your place. And when he did that, he broke the power of sin and death. I love to say this, listen, Jesus busted the grave. That's why he walked out of the tomb. It couldn't hold him. And that's why it had to be him. It had to be the son of God. It had to be the one that came from heaven to earth. Not comes out of earth and lives a good life and goes to heaven. No, no, no. There's no hope in that. The fact of the matter is Christ came from heaven. He's God the Son and he came into this world bored into human skin. All according to the ancient prophecies, by the way, it's no surprise. If you know your Hebrew scriptures, the Messiah must come by way of a virgin, said the prophet Isaiah. He must be born in Bethlehem, says the prophet Micah. He must write on a donkey and be announced as king, but rejected by the nation of Israel. So says Zechariah. All of these things recorded in the Bible. The Bible says on Isaiah 35 that the Messiah would open the eyes of the blind and raise the dead. Who do you know that's done that? And our world looks around at people, oh, we'll pick that guy. We'll pick that one. We'll pick them. We'll pick that crew over there. They can save us. They can help us. You know what? Men can implement anything he wants. It's not going to change a thing about your internal soul. Only Jesus can do that. And please know, we're not asking you to join this church. It's not that. We're not talking about religion. There's no club to join. We don't want your money. We don't want you to sign up. We don't want none of that. We don't need to meet him. We need to stay out of the way. What we're here doing right now is pointing you to him. We want you to have a declaration of dependence upon God. Why should I? Well, for this reason, verse two teaches us that there's a new law in effect. There's a new law in effect here in verse two. The Bible tells us for the law of the Spirit, notice that's capitalist, the Holy Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, that is the new law. There's a new law in town if I could put it that way. You see that little word for at the opening of verse two? Look at the meaning of this little tiny word. By the way, look at it in Greek. It's G-A-R. It means to express cause to give explanation the way of a matter or because. So look at the verse again. Because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus will go on to learn that is our lives because as a matter of fact, that little word is a strong word. Everything about Romans chapter 8 is so incredibly strong. Listen, the word because I know as parents, right, we say to our kids, sit out. They say why? Because we shouldn't do that. I know we all do it. We shouldn't do that. Here's a reason why. When kids ask a question, they're built, they're designed to receive an answer. As parents, we need to slow down and give them the answer. Don't do that. Why? Because I said so is not an answer. Hopefully your kids are hearing the same message in their room right now and they'll play it on you later and good for them. You can't say because. Only God can say because because then when He says because He's going to give you the answer. Because here's the answer. Boom. When God gives the answer, it's yes. So when that little one says, how come I can't microwave the cat? Because we don't do that. That's not an answer. You need to say cats. That's not how you treat a cat and we'd never want to mess up the microwave and all that. There's a new law in effect and it's very emphatic by the way. The verbage is very strong. There's no contradiction by the way in the word law here for the law of the spirit. So wait a minute. You've been talking for seven chapters about how the law can't save me. That's true. Friends, listen. The law of God, the Ten Commandments are awesome, but they can't save you. And then in the Old Testament, there's 613 rules that you are to keep. They can't save you. None of them claim to save you. Not a one. I said, wait, I thought if I was really good, I'd go to heaven. Where did you get that from? Honestly, where did you ever think that up? That is nowhere, not only is that not in the Bible. Somehow that was whispered to you. Just be good and it will, you know what, at the end your good will outweigh your bad and the scalable tip and you would just slip right on into heaven. No. The Bible says the scalable tip and you slip right on into hell. Because you can't go, listen, God doesn't have that kind of currency. What I wrote in my book called the Bible is that if you want to get up here, you've got to be as good or better than Jesus. So do everything perfect, raise the dead, cleanse the leper and never violate the law of God. Get yourself crucified for the sins of the entire world and then on the third day be resurrected from the dead and then I'll ask my son to scoot over and there'll be two of you up here. That ain't going to happen. That's not going to happen. The fact of the matter is there's a thank God there's a new law in effect and that law that's in effect is the law of the spirit of God and it's all about look at your Bible. It's about you being in Christ. That's the key. God does it. What's the new law? Are you in Christ? In Christ. In Christ. What is that? Look, I'm wearing a pants. I got a shirt. I have a suit on. I'm in these clothes. You're very grateful for that. I'm in these clothes and to be in Christ is to be in him meaning that it's not his jacket you're seeing. It's his righteousness that you're seeing. Where are you, Jack? Hey, the real Jack who cries out with Paul, a wretched man that I am is the one who puts this trust in what Jesus did at the cross for me. I believe he died there for me. I believe he rose again from the dead exactly as the Bible says for me. And then all he says to me is, Jack, well, you agree that what I did in the cross for you was that you might receive the forgiveness of sins and be given a new life by my Holy Spirit's power and that it rose again from the dead. Do you believe the word of God, Jack? Yes. Then listen, I'm writing my name on you as it were. I love that. He also says you'll write our name down in his book of life and the Lamb's book of life. I love that. This Jack Hibbs podcast as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to jackhibbs.com to learn more and stay connected. You're listening to this podcast so I know you've got a curious mind. 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