Getting Out

[Garland-Green]

Getting Out  

[cristobela]

There's instability all throughout his sermon.

1. He's mixing up two groups of people as if they were one in the same, when in reality they are not: those who say, "you have to have faith/ you have to believe" with those who say, "you have to have a certain quality of faith/belief" to get saved. Very different statements. They're not at all alike. You need to have the faith of a mustard seed, but at least that is a faith/belief/trust in God you must have. So, his illustration with the Red Sea crossing is twisted / a lie:

@34:39 - "Oh somebody says, 'yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah, but um, yes of course, alright, you're saved by grace apart from your good works, you're saved by grace apart from your moral efforts, but you gotta believe, don't you? you gotta believe and you really gotta believe with all your heart, isn't that right? because salvation is by faith'. Don't do that. You know what you're doing? Hey look, even this text tells us something about that. I love the fact that it tells us that when they walked through, it says, 'the waters were divided and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground with a wall of water on their right and a wall on their left. Now I can tell you some people, some of the Israelites walked through like this: look at this! God's on our side! Eat your heart out Egyptians! We're the - you know - the Lord is fighting for us' and they walk through like that. I know there was a bunch of others that were walking through like this: 'I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die! Ah, look at it.' And you know what they all walked through, with completely different, completely different qualities of faith, they were all equally saved. They were equally saved. Why? Because you're not saved because of the quality of your faith. You're saved because of the object of your faith".

... he totally evaded the fact that they all HAD to have faith, regardless of quality (quality was never the argument: it's whether you have faith or not—great faith or mustard seed-sized faith is irrelevant, they're both "faith"; lack any at all, you won't be saved). They had to trust that God was going to maintain the waters divided long enough for them to walk across. Had they not had faith at all, not a foot would've touched that dry ground.

Also note: they weren't teleported by God either. They had to WALK. Do something. Just because they had to walk does not make it any less an expression of grace (favor) shown on their behalf. I'm doing you a favor by opening up these waters: go walk. Likewise, I'm giving you the Holy Spirit to crucify the misdeeds of the body: go walk in the Spirit. Still grace. The Holy Spirit was a gift. Use it.


2. "Be still / stand firm" does not mean "do nothing", it means "be calm / pacify your heart / stand firm in your trust of God" because clearly, they had to walk across (do something, instead of "do nothing"), they had to flee the enemy. They had to cooperate with God. He's blocking the enemy with the cloud, he's parting the water: your part, go walk.

• Exodus 14:13-14 (NIV)
  
  13 Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

He conveniently ignored verse 15.

• Exodus 14:15 (NIV)
  
  15 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.
  

Moving is not "be still" in the sense that he (and all those authors) tried to define it by.

So he's wrong @26:04:

In verse 13 and 14, when Moses hears them crying out, this is what Moses said, and boy is this classic, "Do not be afraid, stand firm and you will see—you know, my text—the deliverance of the Lord, the salvation of the Lord". Course, Charlton Heston says, "Behold and see". Well, it's a—he takes it right out, "Behold and see the salvation of the Lord" and of course he says here, "Be still, the Lord will fight for you". And actually he says, see the deliverance of the Lord will bring you". Now, on the one hand, the principle of grace could not—it couldn't be as clearer. Stand still, God's going to do your fighting. Watch, you can't do it. You can't perform it. You can't contribute to it. Stand still you're not going to do a doggone thing about this deliverance. God's going to do the whole thing. And when he says, "be still and trust the God who fights for you, boy does that come close to Romans 4:5 that says "and now to him that worketh not", that's being still".

If God did the whole thing, then they should've just sat down. And waited. Not moved on. The Israelites had a part to do. Their trust in God is the "be still". "Being still" does not mean physically doing nothing.

They're not going to come up with a way to cross the Sea on their own (trusting in their own works). They need to trust whatever God has planned to get them across and actually do what he says. They do contribute action / works.


3. It goes without saying but he's taking the "grace alone" argument to an extreme, like most people twist Paul's epistles to say, and negate what the rest of scripture says in the process.

• James 2:22-24 (NIV)
  
  22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,”[a] and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.
  
  Footnotes:
  
  a. James 2:23 Gen. 15:6
  
  
  
• 1 John 3:7 (NIV)
  
  7 Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.

4. @28:08 - "the minute they crossed over, they crossed over from death to life; they crossed over from being under condemnation and being under the sentence of death and they were no longer under the sentence of death"

This statement is true, but he's saying it like it's something permanent, never changing, which contradicts what he says later when he brings up Isaiah. Isaiah suggests the people who crossed the Red Sea were redeemed; but note that this generation didn't make it into the promised land at all despite being redeemed at one point. So @29:23 when he says,

"one minute you're not regenerate, another minute you are; one minute you're not adopted, another minute you are. What does it mean to be adopted? You either are or you aren't. There's no process. You're either in the kingdom of darkness or you've been transferred into the kingdom of his Son [...] and I wonder, here you have, you know John 5:24 "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned he has crossed over from death to life." Now maybe John didn't have the exodus in mind, but listen, this is Isaiah 51:10, and Isaiah 51:10, Isaiah says, 'were you not the God who dried up the sea so that the redeemed could cross over'."

Evidence that once redeemed, you don't necessarily stay redeemed. You can fall out of favor / grace like the Israelites who came out of Egypt and crossed the Red Sea, but didn't survive the wandering through the desert, they lost their faith/trust in God, which they had at one point. So yes, in Jesus, you have crossed over from death into life. Leave/abandon Jesus after being regenerated by the Holy Spirit? What makes you think you have life...? You don't.


5. Not once, throughout his entire sermon, does he make a distinction between "the law of sin" in our flesh vs "the law of God". One of those laws we're freed from, the other we're not freed from but made slaves to from the inside out (law written on our hearts). Romans 6:14 totally flew over his head because he hasn't truly heeded the rest of the epistle.

• Romans 7:25 (NIV)
  
  25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
  
  So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature[a] a slave to the law of sin.
  
  Footnotes:
  
  a. Romans 7:25 Or in the flesh
  
  
  
• Romans 6:14 (NIV)
  
  14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

Whichever law Paul meant, whether he meant: we're no longer under the law of sin in our flesh, but under grace (thus sin is no longer our master); or we're no longer under God's Law but under grace (we're no longer under wrath), it does NOT gel very well with this pastor's argument because he's using the verse to suggest that we're freed from God's Law, period. That's the total opposite of what Paul is saying. Jesus saved us so we wouldn't be in hostility towards the Father's Commands (Romans 8:7-9). No one (but the Pharisees) is saying that keeping commands save us from bondage (to the world and to carnal lusts), it never has, it never did. It didn't for the Israelites who crossed the Red Sea (however, it could be said that their obedience to God is what saved them; they had to obey his instructions for how to avoid plagues. Technically, they had to obey the "passover" law for the tenth and last plague as well; they were given the passover lamb command prior to getting out of Egypt in Exodus 12) but what led to that obedience was their trust in what God said he was going to do. Trust/faith/belief working together with actions on behalf of the believer. They didn't receive the ten commandments and the rest of the law however until after crossing the Red Sea (after being saved); that much is true. Just like our belief in Jesus saves us from the world and our carnal lusts (our trust in God gets us out of Egypt), and he sends the Holy Spirit afterwards to live in us (which abhors all things sinful / all things that transgress God's Law). And with his Holy Spirit in us, we desire to live in his righteousness / his definition of what righteousness is.

Being zealous for good works and obeying God's Law is not "going back to the old slave master" like he made it out to be; the old slave master is the law of sin in our flesh, the law of the flesh who hates God's law.

Another way to say what both Paul and James are saying: your "trust in God" is what saves you. Even if you didn't show any deeds, that trust is what saves you. But show me your faith without deeds, and I'll show you my trust in God by what I do. Faith without works is dead. Abraham was saved by his works not faith alone. As was Noah. As were the Israelites getting out of Egypt. But for both Paul and James: if you trust God, you'll do certain things and do away with certain things.


6. He totally butchered what it means to be holy. Being holy means to be set-apart, unlike the world. How are we unlike the world? By keeping his commands, like Jesus commanded us to.

• Leviticus 20:24-26 (NIV)
  
  24 But I said to you, “You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey.” I am the Lord your God, who has set you apart from the nations.
  
  25 “‘You must therefore make a distinction between clean and unclean animals and between unclean and clean birds. Do not defile yourselves by any animal or bird or anything that moves along the ground—those that I have set apart as unclean for you. 26 You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.
  
  
  
• Ezekiel 22:26 (NIV)
  
  26 Her priests do violence to my law and profane my holy things; they do not distinguish between the holy and the common; they teach that there is no difference between the unclean and the clean; and they shut their eyes to the keeping of my Sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them.
  
  
  
• Matthew 23:1-3 (NIV)
  
  23 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2 “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3 So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.
  

His comparison between Jesus and Moses were good, but his sermon has been puffed up by the leaven of the Pharisees, traditional sayings / traditional usages of words, traditional commentary that nullify what's actually happening in the texts. He quoted commentary and gave more credibility to those authors than the verses in the bible themselves, even when the bible is saying the opposite of those authors. Like when he quoted Luther, "What then? have we nothing to do? No nothing [...]" Actually, yes, we have something to do, accept Christ, stay in Christ, follow him, walk in the Spirit. "Be still" does not mean "don't do anything". Contribute your walk. Walk in the Spirit and put the misdeeds of the body to death. Use what he, out of his grace, gave you to put into use. The Holy Spirit.  

[Garland-Green]

cristobela

I am not left with the same impression of the sermon you are. He said very early on in the sermon that the Egyptians could not cross over because they did not have faith, and that the Israelites could because they had faith.

7:10 "Then in Hebrews 11, verse 29 it says that by faith, that the Israelites passed through the sea on dry land, because they had faith, but the Egyptians could not do it because they did not have faith.

He did not evade talking about the fact that you have to have faith. He just mentioned it earlier in the video. He also said in what you quoted that they had different qualities of faith, not some were lacking faith others were not.

Perhaps it is a matter of what we are focusing on? You are focusing on this line; you gotta believe and you really gotta believe with all your heart, isn't that right? Which you take to mean that he is saying you do not have to believe? If we read the next sentences it can't be what he is saying can it? It has to be about quality and not about an absence of faith?

cristobela

Also note: they weren't teleported by God either. They had to WALK. Do something. Just because they had to walk does not make it any less an expression of grace (favor) shown on their behalf. I'm doing you a favor by opening up these waters: go walk. Likewise, I'm giving you the Holy Spirit to crucify the misdeeds of the body: go walk in the Spirit. Still grace. The Holy Spirit was a gift. Use it.

I think the point of the sermon was that we are not saved by our walk our walk is because we have been saved. We are not walking so we can be saved. We are saved already, in what Jesus has done for us. I can't add to the righteousness that I have in Christ. We have crossed over. If that is not true then I am adding to my salvation by what I do. I am achieving something greater than what Jesus has already accomplished. I am sure there were people who for various reasons could not walk, but had to be carried or had to ride a carriage to get across.They were a pretty large group of people and it is unlikely that there was no one who was old or sick. If that is true it could not be them walking on their own that saved them. They were not less saved than those who actively walked themselves. They did not have lack faith because they could not walk. The evidence for that is that they came through the water whole on the other side.

He goes on to say in 9:42. "... three things. Salvation is about getting out. Ok, but it is about number one, what we are getting out of. Number two, how we are getting out of it, and number three why we can get out of it."

10:20-11:03. "first, what we get out of it, ah, notice a couple of things. Ah, what we get out of. What Christs salvation is all about. It is about. It is about getting us out of bondage. It is what the word redemption means. If you look in the very beginning it says that when the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled pharaoh and his official changed their mind and said what have we done, we have lost the Israelites services. What a nice way of putting it. *laughter*. We have lost their services. Well, why didn't they just go out and hire someone else? That's, no - they lost their entire slave labor force. They were slaves. One of the most interesting things about this is that he says we are going to go get them. We let them go, changed our minds, we're gonna go get them. We're gonna bring them back, we're gonna kill them. We're gonna do both.

What he is saying is that though we are free, we don't always feel it and that it is sometimes a struggle. Though we are free, we don't always put up the fight we ought to against the sin that was once our slave master. If I am free I am free because of what Jesus did, not if I am walking perfectly. My ability to walk perfectly isn't what makes me free? Does that give us liberty to sin?
No, not really, because the ideal is perfection (be thou perfect because I am perfect) and Jesus tells us to sin no more. What it does is it removes salvation from being an act I have to contribute to or a walk I have to walk perfectly without stumbling and places it on Jesus. I get the impression that nobody is perfected yet (Philippians 3:12). Loving the law and being able to follow the law to the dot is two different things. Paul said he recognized that the law was good and that his flesh was bad unable to keep it. It is a regenerated man speaking. He is speaking in present tense, not past tense.

Romans 7:16-25

...I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.

20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Someone hostile to God doesn't recognize that the law is good. Are they able to? Can they want to do what is good, being in nature evil?

James 5:16
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

cristobela

So yes, in Jesus, you have crossed over from death into life. Leave/abandon Jesus after being regenerated by the Holy Spirit? What makes you think you have life...? You don't.

Did you get the impression that he hinted in the sermon that we can abandon faith and still be saved? It was not my impression. I understood what he said as it being in faith we are saved.

If I am holy, why I am I holy? Why are my actions pleasing to God now and yet they were not pleasing before? Why does He listen to me now, but He did not listen to me before?

He was a bit unclear with what he was saying, and I understand that it can be interpreted perhaps in a way that he did not intend it to be understood. About the law too, he did not specify what it was he was thinking.  

[cristobela]

Garland-Green

cristobela

I am not left with the same impression of the sermon you are. He said very early on in the sermon that the Egyptians could not cross over because they did not have faith, and that the Israelites could because they had faith.

7:10 "Then in Hebrews 11, verse 29 it says that by faith, that the Israelites passed through the sea on dry land, because they had faith, but the Egyptians could not do it because they did not have faith.

I'm not reacting to what was sound, just to what was unsound. This guy is not scripture: he contradicts himself. :P

Garland-Green

He also said in what you quoted that they had different qualities of faith, not some were lacking faith others were not.

I know. That was my point: Why, in the process of disproving something wrong (debunking that salvation is based on quality of faith), is he lumping in those who say, "you must believe to be saved", as if those two statements are identical...? They're not. He may have clarified this elsewhere, but he contradicts himself here. I didn't say anyone crossed the river without faith, nor implied that he ever said you could be saved without faith.

However, now that you mention it, that he's saying, some people must've crossed thinking, "I'm going to die!" he's implying they didn't believe God would maintain the waters divided for them long enough to cross over. They can doubt their own ability to run fast enough to escape the Egyptians' chariots. But had any of that doubt been in God's ability to maintain the waters divided for them, that does demonstrate people—who lack faith in God—getting saved. So it's not sound to say that that's what they were thinking.

Garland-Green

cristobela

Also note: they weren't teleported by God either. They had to WALK. Do something. Just because they had to walk does not make it any less an expression of grace (favor) shown on their behalf. I'm doing you a favor by opening up these waters: go walk. Likewise, I'm giving you the Holy Spirit to crucify the misdeeds of the body: go walk in the Spirit. Still grace. The Holy Spirit was a gift. Use it.

I think the point of the sermon was that we are not saved by our walk our walk is because we have been saved. We are not walking so we can be saved. We are saved already, in what Jesus has done for us. I can't add to the righteousness that I have in Christ. We have crossed over. If that is not true then I am adding to my salvation by what I do. I am achieving something greater than what Jesus has already accomplished. I am sure there were people who for various reasons could not walk, but had to be carried or had to ride a carriage to get across.They were a pretty large group of people and it is unlikely that there was no one who was old or sick. If that is true it could not be them walking on their own that saved them. They were not less saved than those who actively walked themselves. They did not have lack faith because they could not walk. The evidence for that is that they came through the water whole on the other side.[

But we can lose that salvation because of our walk. Losing our saltiness. Trampling the blood underfoot. Going back to and being overcome by the filth and darkness we were delivered out of. Hardening the heart that was once softened. Accepting the invitation, and even making it into the wedding banquet, but then getting kicked out for not putting on the wedding clothes; we decided to keep our own garments instead of putting on his (keeping our own nature and not putting on the new nature of Christ, which the Holy Spirit helps us to put on).

• Matthew 5:13 (NIV)
  
  13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
  
  
• Hebrews 10:29 (NIV)
  
  29 How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?
  
  
• 2 Peter 2:20-22 (NIV)
  
  20 If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. 21 It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. 22 Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,”[a] and, “A sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud.”
  
  Footnotes:
  
  a. 2 Peter 2:22 Prov. 26:11
  
  
• Hebrews 3:12-14 (NIV)
  
  12 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.
  
  
• Matthew 22:8-14 (NIV)
  
  8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
  
  11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12 He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.
  
  13 “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
  
  14 “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”
  
  
  
• Colossians 3:5-10 (NIV)
  
  5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.[a] 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
  
  Footnotes:
  
  a. Colossians 3:6 Some early manuscripts coming on those who are disobedient
  
  
• Galatians 5:19-24 (NIV)
  
  19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
  
  22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
  
  
• Galatians 6:1-2 (NIV)
  
  6 Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. 2 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
  
  
• James 5:19-20 (NIV)
  
  19 My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, 20 remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

The brother or sister in Christ who wanders, is saved from death when fellow believers restore them. We can walk away from life and unto death after coming to Christ. This is a point that he refused to touch on, and was totally obscured by what he said. He makes it seem like once you're adopted that's it. You're safe no matter what.

By our walk, we're not adding to Christ. We're just using what he gave us, what he facilitated for us.

Reasoning out of silence is dangerous, but even if we're going with the scenario of old people who couldn't walk or the sick (that scripture doesn't mention), that's why we must carry each other's burdens and help others, for those who find it difficult to walk on their own. And there were camels and donkeys to carry both loads and people on. I'm sure there were tired children too. But if any of these people didn't have faith, they would have run the other way, thrown themselves to the ground, kicked and screamed, not gone along/cooperated. But they went along with it. Thus they all had faith. I'm not saying any lacked faith in that moment.

When I say "walk", I'm talking about a willingness to cooperate with what God is doing, agreeing with his will and commands. Obviously a spiritual walk—walking in the Spirit—has nothing to do with being able-bodied or bound to a wheelchair. Even if you have all your limbs amputated, you can still have a spiritual walk, you can still put off your fleshly nature and put on Christ's, you can still reject certain ideas/thoughts.

Garland-Green

He goes on to say in 9:42. "... three things. Salvation is about getting out. Ok, but it is about number one, what we are getting out of. Number two, how we are getting out of it, and number three why we can get out of it."

10:20-11:03. "first, what we get out of it, ah, notice a couple of things. Ah, what we get out of. What Christs salvation is all about. It is about. It is about getting us out of bondage. It is what the word redemption means. If you look in the very beginning it says that when the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled pharaoh and his official changed their mind and said what have we done, we have lost the Israelites services. What a nice way of putting it. *laughter*. We have lost their services. Well, why didn't they just go out and hire someone else? That's, no - they lost their entire slave labor force. They were slaves. One of the most interesting things about this is that he says we are going to go get them. We let them go, changed our minds, we're gonna go get them. We're gonna bring them back, we're gonna kill them. We're gonna do both.

What he is saying is that though we are free, we don't always feel it and that it is sometimes a struggle. Though we are free, we don't always put up the fight we ought to against the sin that was once our slave master. If I am free I am free because of what Jesus did, not if I am walking perfectly. My ability to walk perfectly isn't what makes me free? Does that give us liberty to sin?
No, not really, because the ideal is perfection (be thou perfect because I am perfect) and Jesus tells us to sin no more. What it does is it removes salvation from being an act I have to contribute to or a walk I have to walk perfectly without stumbling and places it on Jesus. I get the impression that nobody is perfected yet (Philippians 3:12). Loving the law and being able to follow the law to the dot is two different things. Paul said he recognized that the law was good and that his flesh was bad unable to keep it. It is a regenerated man speaking. He is speaking in present tense, not past tense.

Romans 7:16-25

...I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.

20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Someone hostile to God doesn't recognize that the law is good. Are they able to? Can they want to do what is good, being in nature evil?

James 5:16
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

I agree with this. Though I'm not convinced that was his point. If that was what he actually argued, then okay heart But to me, he painted a picture of, once you're free, you're always free, and can never get entangled and overcome by sin again to the point that you lose your salvation, you stop being a child of God, you leave the kingdom of light and go back into darkness and stay there, after you were saved at one point. Scripture does say this is possible. Rejection after salvation. Falling out of grace despite being under his grace at one point.

Garland-Green

cristobela

So yes, in Jesus, you have crossed over from death into life. Leave/abandon Jesus after being regenerated by the Holy Spirit? What makes you think you have life...? You don't.

Did you get the impression that he hinted in the sermon that we can abandon faith and still be saved? It was not my impression. I understood what he said as it being in faith we are saved.

He was saying that once you've crossed over to the kingdom of light, out of darkness, and been adopted, that's who you are permanently, no possibility of change. Are you adopted or not? Once you are adopted, you can't affect anything—according to him. My point is that it is irresponsible to express himself this way because it sounds like he's denying the biblical truth that you can stop being a son of God once adopted, just like the natural born children (Israelites) stopped being children of God and were rejected.

• Luke 3:8 (NIV)
  
  8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.
  
  
• Matthew 8:11-12 (NIV)
  
  11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
  
  
• Matthew 24:48-51 (NIV)
  
  48 But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ 49 and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. 50 The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. 51 He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Garland-Green

If I am holy, why I am I holy? Why are my actions pleasing to God now and yet they were not pleasing before? Why does He listen to me now, but He did not listen to me before?

Repentance—and keeping that repentant attitude towards sin.

• John 9:31 (NIV)
  
  31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will.
  
  
• 2 Chronicles 7:14 (NIV)
  
  14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
  
  
• Psalm 66:18 (NIV)
  
  18 If I had cherished sin in my heart,
      the Lord would not have listened;
  
  
• Psalm 145:19 (NIV)
  
  19 He fulfills the desires of those who fear him;
      he hears their cry and saves them.
  
  
• Proverbs 28:9 (NIV)
  
  9 If anyone turns a deaf ear to my instruction,
      even their prayers are detestable.
  
  
• Isaiah 1:15-16 (NIV)
  
  15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,
      I hide my eyes from you;
  even when you offer many prayers,
      I am not listening.
  Your hands are full of blood!
  16 Wash and make yourselves clean.
      Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
      stop doing wrong.
  
  
• 1 John 3:22 (NIV)
  
  22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.
  

Keeping his commands—in Spirit and in Truth—like Jesus instructed is what makes us set-apart from the rest of the world. Thus, holy.

• Romans 12:1-2 (NIV)
  
  12 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
  

Garland-Green

He was a bit unclear with what he was saying, and I understand that it can be interpreted perhaps in a way that he did not intend it to be understood. About the law too, he did not specify what it was he was thinking.

Very much agree. My replies aim to block the unsound interpretations from taking root in anyone's mind.