Slavery Explained: full transcript and answers

▶ 0:00 Okay, in Deuteronomy 28:15 God told them that if you do not obey the voice of God, to observe carefully all his commandments and all his statutes which I command you today, that all of these curses will come upon you and overtake you. All right: curses, misfortunes, calamities, things that are not pleasing to go through. And then he lists them. Famines: we call it an economical turndown. Plagues: that’s not just your common cold, that’s your bubonic plague, that’s your Asian influenza that kills just hundreds of thousands, millions of people. AIDS today is killing millions of people. War: you know, Jesus said you will always have wars and rumors of war, and everybody connects that as a sign of the end time, but it doesn’t say that. It says the end is not yet. You see, there are going to be wars because, when you violate God’s word, there’s going to be, like there was in the Old Testament, armies rising up against nations.

▶ 1:22 Okay. And slavery. Slavery, in fact slavery where they would be taken from their homeland and into another nation. Now, today we have communism and we have Islam that want to enslave the world. It’s in the Communist Manifesto that they want to conquer the world, they want to make the world follow them, enslave the people. The Muslims are the same way. In their Quran they’re out by force to enslave the rest of the world, and you got to be aware of these things. And humanism is just as dangerous, because humanism is out to enslave the world by capturing your mind. You see, and so we got to be aware of these things, and this is why Christian education is so important. This is why Christian schools are so important. We need to get our kids out of public schools where they’re indoctrinated with humanism, atheism and all these other things, and get them in where their minds are not captured by the philosophies of the world today.

▶ 2:38 Could that be true? And I was very impressed over in China that they start Christian schools. In Africa they’re not so [unclear] on that, and in South America they’re not so [unclear] on that, but the education level in China is way above Africa on the percentage. And so, you know, education really helps. See, knowledge really helps. And I saw a lot of just beautiful Christian schools over there that they took me to. It was just beautiful, and China’s being blessed with that movement, and we need that spread throughout the world and in America.

▶ 3:25 So we find, as you know by reading the Bible, that these things were accomplished in Judges. Israel went into captivity several times, from seven years to forty years, in their own homeland. In their own homeland they went into captivity to Mesopotamia, Moab, Canaan, Midian and the Philistines, but they stayed in their homeland. It’s just God brought another nation to enslave them in their own homeland. But his promise was, his correction was, “I’m going to take you out of your homeland.” All right. And so we find that the Assyrian Empire, in about 720 AD, or BC, came and took Israel into captivity. Two captivities, all right. It actually happened. They took them out, and there’s no Bible that these ever came back, unless they came back in the captivity of Babylon. But then in about 604 or 605 we have the Babylonian captivity, you see, coming, taking the Jews and the remaining people there into Babylonian captivity.

▶ 4:54 Now, Rome and Greece both enslaved the Jews while they were still in their own nation, all right, for four hundred years before Christ came. These nations came and enslaved the Jews in their own nation again, just like Judges. But in 70 AD the Roman army came, destroyed the temple in Jerusalem like Jesus said it would be. And I don’t know why they want to build it again, that’s nonsense. It’s totally against the Bible. But these end-time people have this temple being built again, and that’s foolish. God doesn’t live in temples made with hands. He is building a church, a spiritual house. Amen. That’s the building that we’re building today. But anyway, they took hundreds of thousands of Jews captive and made them slaves, all right, just like God said he would do. And the Jews still didn’t get it, many of them.

▶ 6:03 Now, a lot of Jews came to Christ, you know. In fact, the first people that came to Christ were Jews. All right. And so in that, second, before the Second World War, Germany enslaved the Jews, killed six million of them, enslaved the rest, forcing them into slave labor, all because they were Jews, just like God said he would do. Are you there?

▶ 6:34 Now, what’s that got to do with the Christmas message? Glad you asked. Ah, now we get into the divine nature. Ah, I love these clouds forming a heart here, to remind you. 2 Peter 1:3-4: “As Jesus’ divine power has given us all things... whereby are given unto us exceedingly great and precious promises.” Why did he give us these great promises? He answers the question: that through these you may be a partaker of the divine nature, a participator of the divine nature. Wow. When I got saved, everybody was so focused on the second coming they never even thought about the divine nature. They thought Jesus was coming any minute, coming in 1960, coming in 1972, coming, coming, coming, coming, come, come, come, come, come, and he hadn’t come yet. And, say, we were so looking and so focused on who had the right chart for the second coming that we lost sight of the divine nature.

▶ 7:59 We forgot all about that Jesus was born of a virgin, and he came into the world for a purpose, not only to die on the cross but to give us his divine nature. Hallelujah. We got so focused on prosperity. There are so many groups that teach that prosperity is Christianity, it’s righteousness, and the Bible plainly says that’s wrong. Now, he wants to bless you, but remember, heathens are rich. But we focus on prosperity, and they do it today especially on TV and radio. It’s embarrassing. They focus on purpose, positive thinking, purpose-driven, positive thinking. Prophecy, especially in Pentecostal groups, they so focus on prophecy, giving everybody a private prophecy. It’s horrible, and I can talk about us tongue talkers because I am one. And when you make mistakes, you got to clear it up. Could that be an amen?

▶ 9:25 Prophesying about the White House going to be blown up, the God going to blown up last year, and it didn’t happen, and all these false prophets. Just when a prophet doesn’t come to pass, they are what? False prophets. I got nothing to do with you. You need to get saved, you need to get with it. I don’t care how nice you are, I don’t care how well you can speak. When you say something’s going to happen and it doesn’t, then you’re a false prophet. Amen. Now, how many of you know there’s only one prophet the Bible tells us to listen to? God will send a prophet like unto me, Moses said, and to him you must listen. Who is that? Jesus. Jesus is the one I listen to. Muhammad is not the prophet of God.

▶ 10:16 Jesus is. Amen. And these self-appointed prophets are not the prophets of God. Jesus says, and I must follow, follow Jesus, and if they prophesy according to Jesus and all that, that’s fine, but when they’re wrong, I got to follow Jesus. How about you? Yes.

▶ 10:39 And so we got all these distractions. Helping the poor is so big in the American church that they really think they’re great Christians because they help the addict and the poor and the homeless and all that the American government is giving money to and enabling them to be poor, and the church just gloats over and brags about how they’re helping the poor. And we need to help the poor in spirit. Are you there? “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Why are they poor? They don’t know Jesus, they don’t know wisdom, they don’t have knowledge. That’s the riches they need. See, we’re distracted, and so we don’t see this nature of God. You don’t even hear it preached on hardly anywhere, that we can be partakers, and his purpose to come was for us to be partakers of his divine nature.

▶ 11:33 Phenomena again in the Pentecostal Spirit-filled areas, man, they’re all into miracles. A miracle a day keeps unbelief away, or something like that, and if you don’t have a miracle every day, there’s something wrong. Well, how many of you know Jesus went to the pool of Bethesda and only healed one person? Walked right over all of them and healed one person, ain’t that right? He didn’t heal them all. And we love the healings. God healed me of, uh, valley fever. They told me I was going to die in thirty, sixty days, and God healed me, and it’s great. My wife loved me staying alive. She didn’t want me dying, she had kids to raise. And the doctor said, “You have a miracle.” The doctor right there in his office said it twice: “You got a miracle, man, you should be dead.”

▶ 12:30 Are you there? But he, you know, it’s like he does it every day, but it’s nice when it happens. Amen. Gifts of the Spirit in America: you can take a little sheet to see what gifts you can have or something. There’s nothing like that in the Bible. “Let me fill out this form and see what gift I got.” If you got a gift, you got a gift. A gift is an ability. If you got an ability, you can use it. If you don’t have it, you can’t use it. I don’t care what kind of form you fill out. And we’re so focused on gifts that we miss the promise of the divine nature.

▶ 13:16 Hallelujah. So we’re going to get into the second promise. We hit the first promise last week, the second promise this week. The second promise is directed to the Israelites when they were in slavery. Okay, the second pro-, it’s important that you know this: the second promise to bring them to the divine nature is directed to Israel when they were in slavery. Leviticus 20:33: “I will scatter you among the nations.” You’re going to be in slavery to other nations. Verse 40: “If” (what’s that magic word?), “if,” don’t forget that, you have a responsibility. If you do something, God will do something. When you do something, God will do something. “If they confess, they admit their iniquities and the iniquities of their fathers, that they have walked contrary to me and I have walked contrary to them.”

▶ 14:43 If you admit you were wrong, that’s the first thing. We got to admit we’re wrong. Americans have a really hard time admitting they’re wrong. I know over in China you guys don’t have that, you guys are special, but in America, us Americans have a hard time admitting we’re wrong, and that’s the first thing you got to do. You got to admit you’re wrong. Wrong according to the Bible, not your friend’s opinion, not your opinion. You’re wrong because you’re violating what God said is right. He says if you admit you’re wrong, if you confess your iniquities and the iniquities of your fathers. It’s important that you recognize the generation before you was wrong too, and Daniel brings that out very clearly. “And I have brought them unto the land of their enemies.” Say, God is involved in this.

▶ 15:53 “If” (what’s that magic word?), if you do something, God said, I will do something. “If then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity.” And Americans just can’t get it that economic turndowns come because God’s trying to get their attention. Plagues come because God’s trying to get their attention. America just don’t get it. They won’t admit it. They won’t admit that they’re having mental depression and anguish because they’ve turned from God. But if they will admit it, “if their uncircumcised hearts be humbled and they accept the punishment of their iniquity, then will I remember my covenant.” Ooh! Then he will remember. You see, see, it’s not my baptism certificate, it’s not my being filled with the Holy Ghost, it’s not my sinner’s prayer when I first got saved. It’s if I will admit I’m wrong today, God will remember his covenant, and his covenant is great.

▶ 17:25 Are you there? Hallelujah.

▶ 17:28 Now again, in Deuteronomy 4:27: “The Lord shall scatter you among the nations.” See, he repeats it. It’s going to happen. I’m going to scatter you among the nations when you disobey me, and they did. “But if” (what’s the magic word?), if, if you do something, I will do something. “If from there you seek the Lord, you will find him, if you seek him with all your heart and soul.” Who do we need active in our life? The Lord Jesus. See, and if I will seek him, how do I seek him? I’ve taught you this for years. Prayer is seeking God. Fasting is seeking God. Praise and worship is seeking God. Going to church is seeking God. You should be coming to church for Jesus, not for social interaction. Are you there? Where two or three are gathered together, who’s in the midst?

▶ 18:40 Jesus. Forget about the pretty girl, Jesus is better. I need Jesus in my life. Amen. See, seeking, and see, Americans won’t praise him, they won’t pray. Oh, they say a little two-minute prayer, you know, “Lord, bless my finances, bless my...” but they don’t get down on their knees and seek God for an hour, thirty minutes, twenty minutes at a time. They don’t seek him until they find him. But that’s what seeking him is, and there’s no magical answer. There’s no mega church that can solve your problem. Only Jesus can. And in mega churches you hardly have any time for prayer. Worship: real worship. There’s a difference between a song service and a worship service. In a worship service, in a praise service, you touch Jesus. In a song service, you touch the song. It’s all about the music.

▶ 19:51 Jesus said, “The hour is coming and now is when they that worship me will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” See, the Spirit is God’s presence. He comes, and when he comes, see, we take on his nature. You can’t have a meeting with God without taking on his nature. I can’t be around Howard here without his nature having an effect on me. And the Bible says in the Old Testament that when you give yourself to idols, you become like the idol. See, what you spend time with, you become like. So when I spend time with Jesus, I become like Jesus. See, I need Jesus. Could that be an amen? Amen.

▶ 20:38 So number, you know, if you seek him, we find him: not some great minister that’s going to solve my problems, not a financial windfall that’s going to solve my financial problems. I find him, “and all these things that come upon you in the latter days.” So here it is: the latter days is speaking of the time when Christ came till he comes again. Are you there? So this promise isn’t just to the Jews. This promise is for all of us in the latter days, that we can find him when we seek him. He goes on to say, number three, “If you turn,” or return, or repent (we call it repent), “turn to the Lord your God and obey his voice, the Lord is merciful, he will not forsake you, he will not destroy you, he will not forget the covenant” (there it is again) “of your fathers which he swore to them.”

▶ 21:50 I’ve told you many times, when I ask people what the new covenant is, they cannot tell me. They have no idea what the new covenant is. And how can you possess something and reap the rewards of it if you don’t know what he’s promised to you, what his covenant to you is? And I won’t ask this morning how many of you can get up and tell me the new covenant, but you need to go memorize it. It is powerful in your life, because God said he would remember his covenant, and that is important to us. Deuteronomy 30:1-4: “When all these things come upon you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God drives you” (that’s slavery), “when you return,” (it’s just like, see, when you do something, God will do something) “when you return, you repent to the Lord and obey his voice, you and your children.”

▶ 23:07 You see, we got to have a vision for our children, and that’s why this vision of a Christian school is so important. Our kids need to be taught and raised up in the things of God. You see, our children need to be raised up in the ways of God. “With all your heart and soul, the Lord will bring you back from captivity.” So what is the key to my being free from slavery? I admit I’m wrong. I seek Jesus, and I repent from my wrongs. I turn from my wrongs to right. Then God not only remembers his covenant, not only he won’t destroy me, but he will deliver me from my slavery. Did you get that? He will deliver you from slavery. You say, “Well, what’s that got to do with me?” You’re going to find out.

▶ 24:27 “And I’ll have compassion on you and gather you from all the nations where I have scattered you.”

▶ 24:35 Now, how does that relate to us? Well, it’s simple: there are two tyrants of spiritual slavery. Okay, all the Old Testament is given as allegories and stories so that we in this end time can understand things spiritually, from the temple to the diet to the slavery. All these were for example, so we could understand spiritual things. So the first tyrant of spiritual slavery: 1 John 8:34, “Whoever commits sin is a” what? “Slave of sin.” But if I confess, if I seek Jesus, if I repent, he will what? Deliver me from the slavery of sin. Church, that’s powerful. I got this guy here telling this guy, “Be free, enjoy life, don’t let anybody tell you what to do, man,” and he is in slavery to sin. Now, water baptism frees us from the slavery of sin.

▶ 26:05 Water baptism is not an outward sign of an inward work. Man phrased that statement; it is not in the Bible. Prayer is not an outward sign of an inward work. Worship is not an outward sign of an inward work. There is a work going on. God honors his principles, and he gets involved and does things, and he does something in water baptism. Romans 6:3: “As many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his” what? “Death.” Okay, “knowing this, that we were baptized into his death, that our old man was crucified with him, our old man of sin, that the body of sin might be done away with.” Wow. See, baptism has a spiritual work going on. And look what he says: “that we should no longer be” what? “Slaves of sin.”

▶ 27:21 So when I get into the water, when I did get into the water as a young twenty-year-old believer, and I went down into that water, I went down into the grave with Christ. I died with Christ, and when I came out of that water, I come out in resurrection of life. My old man of sin died, and my new man of righteousness came alive. Are you there? See, water baptism needs to be taught right. And I experienced the power of God in water baptism. It wasn’t formality at all. The power of his presence came all over me there. I didn’t understand it all, but I experienced the power of God in water baptism. When you’re young, you can experience things that you don’t understand yet, and it’s our job as teachers to explain what’s happened to you, and it’s also our job as teachers to explain what can happen to you.

▶ 28:27 Hallelujah. Romans 6:18: “Having been set free from sin, you became slaves of” what? “Righteousness.” See, that’s water baptism. I identify with the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. That’s why we go into the water. We don’t sprinkle, we go into the water, we go into the grave, you see, and we come out a slave of righteousness. I am delivered from the captivity of sin in water baptism. That’s why it pays to get baptized quick. Get taught it, get baptized, bam, get moving on in God.

▶ 29:20 Now, we dealt with Satan last week, but I got to deal with you again, because I got to show you something important that you got to know so we can conclude this. All right, Ephesians 2:1-3: “You who were dead.” Okay, how do we die? “In trespasses and sin.” When we sin, we’re dead. “In which you once walked according to the course of this world,” the way everybody else walked, all right, “according to the prince of the power of the air.” Who’s the prince of the power of the air? Satan. “The spirit.” See, Satan is a spirit. He doesn’t have horns and a long tail and all that garbage. He is a spirit, just like angels are spirits. He is a spirit. God created the waster to destroy. God created Satan. Satan does God’s dirty work because God can’t do wrong.

▶ 30:16 “The spirit now working in the sons of disobedience,” that same spirit’s working in them. Okay, “among whom we once conducted ourselves.” Isn’t that true? How many can raise your hand? That’s me. I once was like them. Only me? You guys are lying. “In the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.” It’s the mind and the flesh that get you all mixed up and into sin. “And were” what? “By nature children of wrath, just as others.” It was our nature to disobey God. All right, and so we were dead. When we sin, we are dead. We died a spiritual death, and we’re delivered from Satan’s power by Jesus’s death, as we covered last week. John 12:31: “Now is the judgment of this world. Now is the judgment of mankind.

▶ 31:16 Now shall the prince of this world be cast out.” Called the prince of the air over in Ephesians, calls the prince of the world here. And who is it? Satan. You see, we can become slaves of Satan. How did Jesus cast out the prince of this world? He goes on to say, same verse, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men to me.” You see, we found in the second step that we need to seek him: not the pastor, not the evangelist, not the pope, not the priest, not Muhammad. We need to seek Jesus. So “if I be lifted up, I’ll draw them to me.” Jesus is trying to draw people to him. Why? He’s the Savior. No man can be saved without Jesus. Your church can’t get you saved. Jesus can only save you.

▶ 32:18 Jesus can only forgive you. Jesus can only cleanse you of sin. Jesus can only make you wise. Jesus can only open your understanding to the Scriptures. Me preaching here today won’t do it. It takes Jesus coming to you and doing it, isn’t that right? “If I be lifted up, I’ll draw them to me.” That’s why in our church services we need everything focused on Jesus: the word, the worship, the prayer. Jesus is the one. And then he tells us, “This, signifying what death he would die,” that he would die on the cross. He would be lifted up on a cross and he would die that way, and he would cast out the prince of this world, and we covered that thoroughly last week.

▶ 33:16 So if we confess, we seek and we repent, we can be delivered from the slavery of Satan. And remember this, church: last week we learned that Jesus destroyed Satan, who had the power through death. Jesus destroyed him. He is powerless today. Demons cannot possess a Christian. Satan can only accuse you and tempt you. He cannot touch you. So you’re his biggest problem: it’s you. Deliverance from the power of Satan by the spoken word. All right, and that’s why we need to be out making disciples, speaking everything that Jesus spoke, not our opinions. He said, “Teach everything I commanded you,” not your opinion. I don’t care about your opinions. Just teach what I taught. And he verified it through the apostles and said, “Continue in the apostles’ doctrine.” The apostles were taught by Jesus, the apostles taught what Jesus taught, and we follow the apostles and we follow Jesus and we’re safe.

▶ 34:38 We start following our opinions and other people’s opinions, we’re going to get messed up. Could that be an amen? Jesus comes to Paul and says, “I send you, Paul, to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light.” How’s Paul going to do that? Through the preaching of the word, “to turn them from the power of Satan unto God.” See, the preaching of the word, if we will really preach the word, will set people free from the slavery of Satan and the slavery of sin. Could that be an amen? If we preach philosophy and psychiatry and our own opinions, we free nobody. We make them slaves of our opinion. And there’s people in this room slave of their own opinion, “that they may receive forgiveness of sin and an inheritance.” Oh, I don’t just have forgiveness of sin, I have an inheritance, and part of that inheritance is the divine nature.

▶ 36:03 He promised that we could be participators of the divine nature.

▶ 36:11 So Jesus came to Paul on the road to Damascus and said, the Lord said, “Stand up, Paul, cast away your fear. You must preach my gospel for the rest of your years. So go into Damascus, to the street that’s called Straight. There you’ll meet [unclear], and there you must wait.” So three days did go by, and Paul now can see. [unclear] the [unclear] preaching diligently, and he said, “Brother Paul, the Lord in the sky has sent me to open your spiritual eye, for I counted on Adam, and I counted on Cain, I counted on Jonah, but he ran away, and I counted on Judah, he betrayed me. It’s true. So go tell the world, Paul, I’m counting on you. I’ll send you to the Gentiles, I’ll send you to Rome. Many things you will suffer before you’re called home.

▶ 38:01 You’ll sleep in the desert, be stoned and shipwrecked at sea, but keep right on preaching the gospel for me. For I counted on Solomon, but his heart he did turn, and I counted on [unclear], but the Scriptures he burned, and I counted on [unclear], but he loved the world. It is true. So go preach my gospel. Church, I’m counting on you.” See, you didn’t know he sung that. Huh? That is God’s message to us. A lot of people start out and fall and fail. We need to take the gospel to the nations, and, amen, we need to cast away our fears. We need to get with a program, and the Bible says you can sing Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, and new songs unto God. So there, that’s Scripture.

▶ 39:25 Hallelujah. Now, let’s look at the divine nature. If I’m to be a partaker of the divine nature, in closing here, what is the divine nature? And I wouldn’t dare to ask you to raise your hand and tell me, because most of us haven’t even thought about it. I know I didn’t for years. It had to take God to come and hit me over the head with a spiritual two-by-four to wake me up to things. The nature, the word nature, is growth by germination or expansion. You see, a seed germinates and it begins to expand and grow. You see, uh, yeast, as Jesus gave the parable of: you put a little yeast in a dough and it what? Spreads and infects the whole dough. So the nature of God, God’s divine nature, is that divine character of God that gets in us and grows.

▶ 40:34 See, when you’re first saved, you’re just a babe in Christ, you don’t know your head from your toe, but that thing in you begins to grow. Divine nature number one, 1 John 3:5: “You know that he was manifest to take away our sin.” You see, Jesus came, born of a virgin, in this Christmas season that we celebrate all over the world. Everywhere I go they celebrate Christmas, and they like their Christmas trees, and they don’t even have pine trees where I go, they get some kind of tree. And so this Christmas season is important to us. Our forefathers gave us this holiday, gave us Easter, and gave us Thanksgiving, and we need to protect the freedom of keeping these holidays. Could that be an amen? See, they want to take it away from us. Why?

▶ 41:36 Because these holidays point to an important thing in God, and the atheists and humanists don’t like it, so they fight against it. He came to take away our sins, and in him there is what? So what’s his divine character? No sin. And I am to be a partaker of the divine nature: no sin, not sinning. How many, we know we all sinners. Okay, so let’s watch how this works. Divine nature number two, John 10:17: “I laid down my life,” Jesus said. I die. I choose to die “that I might live again, that I might take my life up again. No man takes my life from me.” Satan can’t do it, the Roman Empire can’t do it, the Sanhedrin of the Jewish temple could not do it. No one could destroy Jesus. He laid down his life.

▶ 42:41 And this is where the Muslims are wrong. They say God cannot die. God can do anything. He chose to die in that fleshly body and rise again. So when we say the Jews killed Jesus, that’s not total truth. We say the Roman Empire killed Jesus, that’s not total truth. None of them could kill Jesus. He laid down his life, and he picked it back up again. How many know that’s power? Amen. And we get to partake of this divine nature. That is the divine nature. Let me show you: “I have power to take it, and I have power to lay it down. This commandment I received of my Father.” See, this is the law that God gave to Jesus: “I give you power to lay down your life for the sins of the world and pick up your life again, rise from the dead and ascend into the heaven.

▶ 43:51 I give you this power. That’s my commandment to you.” Well, if that’s God’s commandment to him, and we’re partakers of the divine nature, what is God’s commandment to us who believe on him? That sound fair? We have the same natural power, only we choose to die through sin. See, no man can make us sin. We choose to die through sin, and we can choose to come alive again by confessing, seeking and repenting from our sins, and we can live. Watch how this works: sin kills the spirit, [unclear] makes alive. Here’s the commandment we received of our Father. Unlike Jesus, who had no sin (I’m sure you all agree with that), we messed up, didn’t we? In fact, you probably messed up yesterday. You might have messed up this morning with a bad attitude, saying things you shouldn’t have said.

▶ 45:13 We are, we are good at this thing. Jesus had no sin. Unlike Jesus who had no sin, we become slaves of sin, Satan and spiritual death. But like Jesus, we have power to die by choosing to sin. “You are dead in trespasses and sin. Arise, you that sleepeth, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you life.” Arise from that sin. We also have power to live by choosing to be slaves of Jesus and righteousness. You see, I have the ability to go out here and sin today if I want to. I can go out and sin. I can choose that road, and I did as a young man. I didn’t follow God. I sinned really bad stuff. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a deep sinner or whether you’re a lightweight sinner, the punishment’s all the same, you know.

▶ 46:13 So if you’re going to be a sinner, it might as well just be a heavyweight sinner. You know, you’re going to burn in hell forever, it might as well be a heavyweight sinner. But I chose that. But when I was twenty years old, I chose Christ. I chose to admit I was wrong, I chose to seek Christ, I chose to return, turn from my sin, renounce sin and live for him, and Christ came to me and gave me life.

▶ 46:49 So our divine nature is to live free from the slavery of sin, the slavery of Satan and spiritual death, by Jesus’s death, by his resurrection, and obeying his word. Satan cannot make me sin. He can accuse me, he can tempt me, but he cannot make me sin. The sinners of this world can’t make me sin. It’s a choice I make. But if I confess my sin, and I seek Jesus, and repent, our divine nature is to do this anytime we find ourself a slave of sin. See, that is the Christian’s divine nature. If we do mess up, and 1 John 1 says, chapter 2, 1 John 2:1: “Beloved, I would that you not sin, but if you do sin, you have an advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ the righteous.” See, I can go and I can be free from that slavery of sin by admitting I’m wrong, seeking Jesus, and repenting, and that’s the Christian nature.

▶ 48:12 That’s what makes us different from the world. Yeah, we make mistakes, we do things we shouldn’t do, but the nature God’s given us through his commandment is: I admit I’m wrong, I seek Jesus for the cleansing, the forgiveness and the deliverance from sin, and I turn from that sin. That’s the nature of the Christian. So the Christian keeps growing upward. Amen. Are you there? See, we keep taking on the nature of God. God had no sin, we do, but we keep gaining ground, because the nature he’s put within us is to admit we’re wrong, seek Jesus, and repent from that wrong.