Episode 139: Enslaved to sin?

In the name of the glorious Trinity, Father and Son and Holy

Spirit, forever Amen. Glory be to the everlasting

mercies which sent you to us, O Christ, the light of the world

and the life of all. Give us wisdom by Your law and

enlighten our impulses by Your knowledge.

Sanctify our souls by Your truth and grant that we may be

obedient to Your words and may fulfil Your commandments at

every hour. O You who enlightens the

rational with the knowledge of Your greatness, do enlight, O my

Lord, our thoughts, that we may meditate upon Your holy and

divine Scriptures at all times. O Lord of all, Father and Son

and Holy Spirit, forever. So we discussed in somewhat

detail the question, why would God punish sin if he made some

to sin in order to punish them and show his righteousness or

his righteous judgement? And this is the message Saint

Paul is trying to convey to the Jews and the Gentiles who had

believed in Rome. When we say Saint Paul's letter

or epistles to the Romans, it's not pertaining the Italians.

It's the Jews and the Gentiles in Rome at that time who

received Jesus Christ and believed and they were called

the people of the way. The word Christian wasn't,

hadn't was not used at that time.

But let's you know hindsight now.

They were they became Christians.

And Saint Paul's argument is this so why do you think that

God would punish us for punish sin if he will create some to be

sinners, some to be condemned to hell or could to damnation just

so he can show his righteous judgement.

You know, that's it's it's it's mind boggling.

As I said last episode, and it's a little annoying for Christians

to preach this that you've been predestined.

God predestined a few people to go to hell.

What an unloving God. It's like, as we gave the

example, children or parents contemplating having children so

that one day they will grow up to be drug addicts and end up in

jails or end up being murdered in a gutter or, or just be lost

in the world homeless. And you know, you've seen some

of these brothers and sisters in in these cities, Los Angeles,

San Francisco, New York, and, and you know, on the North, as

they say, right, they've taken their shot and they're, they're

half bent and they're just barely standing on their feet.

No. So just imagine, you know, a

mother and a father or parents wanting to have children so that

one day they will end up there. It doesn't make sense.

And Jesus says, you who are evil, that means parents, you

who are evil and what the best for your children.

How much for your family? Father in heaven, You know, as I

said, this was a, a, a, a platonic understanding and

Augustine understanding. I don't know where they got it

from. These are renowned fathers, but

you know, in my ignorance and in my lowliness of knowledge of the

word of God, it just doesn't make sense sometimes it's, you

know, it, it doesn't fit right in the conscience, right?

And Paul in verse 7 says this. He says that for if if the truth

of God is made abundant through my falsehood to his glory, why

then am I to be judged as a Sinner?

If God is glorified through me sinning because he's showing his

righteousness, why am I being judged then I'm only doing what

what's good for God has to say. I'm only that's why he says I

speak as a man like this is this is nonsense, right?

But what Paul wants to talk to us is about free will and he's

going to mention that free will, which some churches struggle to

receive and accept. Is there free?

My question do you have free will?

Prove to me that people do not have free will.

Prove to me you can't. But let me prove to you that

people have free will. Yeah.

Go out in the street and look at the lifestyle people have chosen

for themselves. The homeless, the the the drug

addicts, the murderers. Go to jails, go to the go to the

the grave size, go to the cemeteries and you see people

that out of their own free will have had basically, you know,

'cause themselves to and to be 6 feet under.

But we know God is merciful. We pray that the mercies of God

is always upon those because we don't know the circumstances,

right. I'll prove to you there is free

will for a a demon possessed to pick up a gun and go into a

school and shoot innocent children.

Did God 'cause this person to do this?

What a war, loving, cruel. What's the word?

I forgot God. We have costly to say that.

But no, it was free will. Jesus says in John 717.

Whoever is willing, you know, willing means wills because

we've give. Free will is because it's been

given to us freely. God gave us the will to choose.

He helps us to choose right through the conscience, through

the scriptures, through the teachings of the Church, through

the teachings of the Fathers and the lives of the holy Saints of

the of the Church, right. Whoever is willing to do his

will understands my teaching, whether it is from God or

whether I speak from my own pleasure.

Do the will of God. If you want do the will of God,

then you'll know that my teachings are from God.

Paul goes on verse 9. What then do we uphold that is

superior? We have already decided

concerning both Jews and Aramians for they are all on the

scene and this is what we're going to talk about Khacha in

depth. Khacha means a little in depth.

Verse 9, Paul is saying, what do you think I'm telling?

I'm saying that we Jews are greater or, you know, more

superior than the Gentiles because he talked about law and

what have you in Romans chapter 1, chapter 2, right.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

Do you think I, I'm, I'm hinting or I'm can't you know, I'm, I'm,

I'm trying to get the message that we Jews are better than the

Gentiles. Of course not.

Are you better than them? Will they go to eternal

damnation only and not you? Not at all.

He says, because he says that we have determined previously in

the previous chapters that both the Jews and the Gentiles, the

Jews and the Gentiles are were all under sin.

Mark those two words under sin. That's what Paul says.

They were all under sin. We're going to talk about this,

not they were sinners. He doesn't use that.

They were all under sin pre Jesus Christ, pre crucifixion,

pre resurrection and pre ascension of our Lord and Savior

Jesus Christ. The Jews while they appear to be

living under God's law and defend that they have privilege

by merits of the ancestors. God spoke to our ancestors, God

spoke to our fathers. One father we have Abraham is

our father. Jesus said, sorry, the, the, the

scribes and the Pharisees said and Jesus replies, if you knew

who Abraham was and before Abraham, I am right, He is God

praising glory be to his name, right?

So they were basking in their forefathers in their ancestors

glory and that's what they were thinking, right?

But they in fact brought the grace of God, the love of God,

the work of God. Grace means what God had done

through them, through the law, through their direction, through

their prophets, through his leadership.

They brought that grace. They brought that act of God

into disrepute, disgrace, disrespect, and because they

thought that they just because that their ancestors, God worked

through them, they were it as they say, but they rejected the

promise that is Jesus Christ that was made to their

ancestors. Yes, God spoke through you,

God's word through you, through your prophets, gave you the law,

gave you the law, gave you the law of Moses.

Yes, you were the the chosen people.

Yes, God spoke about you so highly right.

But then now you rejected God's promise, which was Jesus Christ.

So you are or were under sin to the Gentiles.

Paul is saying and said that you are also guilty according to the

law of nature. You didn't have the law, but you

had the law of nature written on your heart.

You had the breath of life. God created you in His image and

His likeness. You had the breath of life.

You had the law of nature. And because you did not accept

the law of Moses as well, you are in a dire straits.

You're even in more terrible situation and you are in more

need to realize, to understand that you only have salvation and

you only have hope in Jesus Christ, which you have received

already. You don't need to go back to

your old understanding of the worship of God.

No, only through Jesus Christ. Why Romans 214?

Look at what he writes or we've read this in the past programs.

They're all on YouTube. For if the Gentiles who had not

the written law would perform those things of the written law

by their nature, while they have not the written law, they would

be the written law to themselves.

So you are condemning yourselves by doing what is in the law,

even though you don't have the law.

You know that murder naturally is evil.

You know that when when you spoke of murder or when you, you

know, when you witnessed murder, you knew that that was evil.

Why? There was no law.

You didn't have the law. Thy shall not kill.

You didn't have that, but it was in your heart.

It was written on your heart because it was the law of

nature. And notice what Saint Paul

writes is that they are all the Jews and the Gentiles are all

under sin. Notice it's not they all sinned

or they are sinning or they have sinned.

Why does he use that term under sin, which means basically

empowered by sin, enslaved by sin?

Uncle AI, I put in AI where or in Google?

Where in the Bible does the word sin first appear?

Lo and behold, not in the Garden of Eden.

God doesn't say to Adam and Eve you have sinned.

No, he actually says where are you Adam?

What have you done in where are you not playing hide and seek?

I can't see you. No, no, Adam, where have you

brought yourself to? Why have you brought yourself to

this situation now? Now God knew beforehand.

God knows this. See this is the pre

predestination that God said if you eat surely you will die.

There it is. So if you eat, you're

predestined to die. Not God did not say, Adam, I'm

going to cause you to eat so that I can bring death into you,

so that I can come down and die for you.

No, but I know this is going to happen because this is the

repercussion of disobedience. Am I clear about that?

Do we still have doubts? Do we still think that?

No. God creates people and he

chooses them. Heaven, Hell.

Hell. Heaven.

Blonde blue eyes. Heaven.

Well, right. It's ridiculous.

You're probably saying to me, you know, this, this, this

priest makes a mockery of the word of God.

No, I'm not. I'm not.

God forbid for me to to use the word of God.

You know, that's the ambulance, right?

When my, when my wife listens to these podcasts, she said for the

first time she was listening to them after 2 1/2 years.

She said when I she's probably listening.

She said when I was driving and I heard the ambulance, the

sirens, I pulled aside. Then I realized, no, no, it's in

the so don't pull aside. It's not a, it's not a, a

ambulance or a fire engine. No, no, no, that's just a, a

recording in my office at Mother Day church in Turlock.

So let's go back. These are the understandings as

some people say, but the first time the word sin appears is

Genesis chapter 4 verse 7. And before I tell you and read

Genesis 4:7

you the verse, think about little 5 second trivia.

Who did God use the term sin? Tick tock, tick tock.

Bring. Did you get it?

Yeah, you probably looked it up, right?

Genesis 47, Sin lies in wait before the door is talking to

Cain, who murdered Abel because Cain was a little bit aggro.

He was, he was spitting the dummy because God didn't accept

his sacrifice, but he accepted Abel's sacrifice, so he killed.

But look before he did this. Look at what God says.

Sin lies in wait before the door.

You are going to be converted to it and it will have authority

over you. Now does God say I'm going to

allow sin to convert you and to have power over you?

Now that's that's a different siren sin.

Let's have a guessing competition.

That's the fire truck, OK, we call it fire engine in

Australia. Go the Aussies.

So let's go back. You know, that's that's you

know, the enemy tries to sometimes also take us off

track, but it's OK. We have strengthened the Lord

Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit.

Sin lies in right before the door.

You are going to you're going to white because you're going to

use your free will. I can see in your mind you're

going to do this. But look, God's reaching out to

him again, just like Jesus reached out to Judas.

God's reaching out. You're going to do you're going

to be converted, but I'm not going to determine your this is

not going to determine your footsteps.

He still did it. He still murdered his his

brother Abel. You are going to be converted to

it and it will have authority over you.

So being under sin, that means sin has authority.

Giving, giving into sin, given into sin, enslaved by sin.

Sin becomes then an addiction. Sin becomes a habit because we

give in to it, just like the Alcoholics, my beloved brothers

and sisters who are going to turn 21 this year.

We have two months left. Yeah, one month.

Relax. When you turn 21, it's not about

just having your first drink. Like I I'm baffled out, you

know, I I'm mind boggled. 21, my first drink.

And then you have those memes, you know, the glasses going back

and forth. OK, fine.

God bless you. Yeah.

All right. Congratulations.

Happy birthday, Right. But just be sure that drinking

doesn't mean getting drunk. You got to be careful that that

first glass is only to celebrate.

Fine. I you know, we all do that.

I drink. I love my beer cause light.

All right, I love my beer. One that that drink, it does not

mean that when you drink, you have to continue to drink, then

continue to drink, then become ill, then start vomiting and

then start stumbling and then then start slurring and cussing.

Be very careful because there have been brothers and sisters

that first drink at the age of 21.

Now they cannot control their drinking.

Why? Because let's say alcohol was

lurking. You know, Satan was trying to

use this medium, this, this tool, lurking at the front door,

knocking at the door and you were converted to alcohol.

It becomes an addiction. Drugs, cigarettes, you know, we

are told not to smoke. There are always these ads.

You know, I remember in Australia there were ads and

they would bring a sponge and show that the, that, you know,

that the sponge represented the lungs of one who's been smoking

and they would squeeze the, the, the sponge for those in

Australia may remember this and all these tiring gunk was coming

out of the sponge, teaching people that smoking can cause

illness, terminal illness, cancer, what have you.

But people still smoked. I smoked for seven years, right?

Then that smoke goes into dope and then doping is not enjoyable

anymore. It doesn't do anything for you.

You start the ecstasies, then after ecstasy's don't do much to

you, you start with all these other other pills where you see

that they are rolling on the streets and tumbling and falling

and and crouching. And why?

Because I don't know what the and I don't want to know what

the pill is called. They take those pills and then

it becomes the needles. See from the point get go

enslavement to this addiction was at the door.

But because we have free will and after watching all these

advertisements and all these warnings and all these

disclaimers, we chose to continue.

Now we are where we are at pornographic or addiction,

pornographic or addiction. And yes, I'm going to use the

terms I said I wouldn't in the Assyrian language, masturbation

and, and you know, watching all these porn films, which my

brothers and not only young men, let's not only blame the youth,

just the youth. No, we have fathers,

grandfathers that have addiction and problems with porn and

masturbation, both male and female.

Gosh, you know, it's going to be not only excommunicated, he's

going to be crucified because he's using words that shouldn't

come out of his word mouth. They're in the Bible.

Sexual immorality. Is this beloved?

It begins with one. It begins with Satan lurking and

those who have a problem and they who have struggles with

this addiction. It begins when you put in your

password for your desktop or your your phone or your laptop

and then you start surfing the net.

Is that term still used, Steven? Surfing the net.

Yeah, you. Thank you.

My producer said, yes, I can use it surfing the net, right?

And today you're looking at, you're reading a story.

It's something interesting, political, religious, whatever,

whatever it is. And then all of a sudden

something pops up and you think, Oh my God, where did this come

up from? Right.

It's that moment where you say no, in the name of Jesus.

I don't need this. I don't want to be enslaved.

I don't want to be under sin because I still haven't sinned.

To be tempted to be under sin doesn't mean you've sinned.

That's why he didn't say they have sinned to be under sin.

You haven't seen, but it's when you transgress the law.

That's why we have transgression.

Forgive our faults and transgressions, which becomes

sin because sin has empowered us.

Beloved, we need to be very careful.

We are all under sin when and when we transgress, when we give

in to that addiction, to that desire, when we give in to that

law, when Christ's do not is I have done no, is yes, walk away,

is I'm coming there, then we transgress the law.

That's what Saint Paul is saying, that they were all under

sin and they transgressed the law, whether written law, Mosaic

law, or the law of the nature, you did.

You worshipped pagans, Pagan gods, you duped one another.

You were extortionist, you were blasphemous.

You were in immorality, in sodomite, in in homosexuality,

evil murderers, thieves. You were why?

Because you didn't pay attention that you were enslaved to sin

and you gave in to sin. You put down your shield and you

transgressed the law that then makes you a Sinner because you

weren't careful and you weren't a lot alert in the 1st place.

You know, you may say OK, what do we do?

How do I but relieve myself? How do I free myself from the

enslavement of sin? That's next episode.

That's what Jesus did. Jesus Christ enslaved himself.

Now be very careful. Let's be very careful.

We've got to use our terminology very carefully, not jump into

conclusion. He took on sin.

He didn't sin, he didn't sin. He didn't transgress the law.

He didn't he actually fulfilled, you know, when he was, and I've

mentioned this when he was always in battle with the

scribes and the Pharisees and the and the the Jewish

priesthood. He didn't say you're wrong, your

law is wrong, your precepts are wrong.

No, they were of God. He said you are a hypocrite.

You're not fulfilling them, You're preaching them.

You're not practicing them here. I am.

I'm preaching them. I'm fulfilling them, filling

them fully. I'm doing it.

I'm obedient. I've done everything that the

law has said. I've, I've been circumcised.

I go to the synagogue. I, I, I pray, Jesus prayed.

I show love and mercy. I showed love to the the

Samaritan. I did all of that.

I fulfilled it. I ate what I was supposed to

eat. I celebrated this feast.

I was supposed to not supposed to not Jesus wasn't supposed to.

Man was supposed to fulfill because I took on your flesh.

I did all of that, but I then became Israel.

I sinned. I new sin, I took on sin and I

died, and then I took the old Israel with me.

And when I was resurrected, I gave new life, I renewed

everything. And then with me was resurrected

the new Israel, which is the church.

That's what Jesus did to all of us for you and I, beloved, he's

done it. He's he's released from the

power of sin. Will he now Saint Paul will say

sin does not have power over you.

Yes, yes, it will enslave us still because we give in free

will, but we have forgiveness now.

We have redempt redemption has been fulfilled.

You know what redemptions means? The debt has been paid.

Jesus paid the debt that you and I had to death and sin and

death. He paid it through his blood and

he redeemed us. That means he paid it all out.

He he came and said, what's the payout figure?

Give me the payout figure, the payout figure.

I want to, I want to pay it all out.

And they said death blood and he did.

And we've been freed from Satan from sin, not by him taking away

Satan and taken away the, the, the you know, the potential of

sin. No, no, it's still there because

we still have free will. He didn't take away our free

will. We still have free will.

For those who are struggling with free will, the Platonic

understanding, the Augustine under free will, I just read the

scriptures. He who wills, he who wants to

come after me. What did Jesus, what did God say

to Adam and Eve? The the day that you eat, you

surely shall die. He didn't say, listen, the day

that you stretch out your hand, I'm going to break your hand and

break your necks. Don't do that or look at that

tree, but I'm not going to allow you to do that.

No, no, he didn't. He just said, listen, there's

predestination here. It is.

You do it, you die. That's it.

That's predestination. Not I've created you to go and

take it to die so that I can come down and die for you.

No, you do it, you die. And he did it because he had

free will, because will was given to him freely by the grace

of God, the act of God. So Saint Paul is saying to them,

listen, no one is better than the other.

No. Yes, the Jews had the law.

Maybe they should have been under more punishment because

they had the law. They knew fine, but the Gentiles

had it. It was in their heart.

It was written in their heart. The Jews had the law written on

tablets and on on scrolls, right?

But they had it in their heart as well.

So when they both were sinning, it was because they were under

sin. When they gave in to sin, they

transgressed the law, the written law, and the natural

law, and then they sinned and became sinners.

But Jesus prays, and glory be to his name.

While the world was under that damnation of sin, Jesus died for

us and redeemed us. Praise and glory be to His name

now and at all times and forever.

Amen. We hope you enjoyed this week's

message. Please don't forget to rate and

review this podcast and share with your friends and family.

For any future topic suggestions or to give us detailed feedback,

please visit our link in the show notes.

Linktr dot EE forward slash double edged sword.

Until next time, God bless you all.