Colin Cook takes listeners on a journey of faith, focusing on the transformative power of the gospel. He discusses how the cross liberates us from the judgment of sin and calls into question the validity of self-condemnation when God has already forgiven us. In moments of weakness, especially for those grappling with addiction, Cook offers a unique perspective on embracing faith, highlighting that the reaction to our failures often exacerbates the problem more than the failure itself. Discover a path to rebirth and renewal as Cook inspires listeners to take their faith seriously and reclaim their spiritual identity.
So Paul makes this astonishing statement in Romans 6, verse 7, for he who has died has been freed from sin. What in the world does that mean? Well, it certainly doesn’t mean for he who has died is free from sin, but has been freed from sin. Do you catch the difference? We’ll talk about the difference or explain it in a bit. But there are people in the world, Christians, and I will have to say they are fanatics. They’re still God’s children, but they’re fanatics who believe that you can actually in this world get free from sin totally. not only in behavior but in thought so that you never sin again. These people put that goal before you like a carrot before the horse. They say the sanctified life will bring you to the place where you will never sin anymore and that you will get rid of your sinful nature, and they place this before people to such an extent that these people get religiously neurotic and somewhat crazy, and setting this goal before them and pleading and going on before God in agonizing prayer and fasting and berating God for this blessing to come upon them. The early Methodists, not the present ones by any means, called this the second blessing. The Salvation Army used to call it holiness. I’ve forgotten they used another phrase as well. But anyway, there were people, and there have been people throughout the world that have believed this. as a denomination, as a whole doctrine. But listen, I’m not simply talking about people like that. I’m talking about you and me. Because the fact is that if you have an addiction like drugs or alcohol or sexual addiction or food addiction, you may very well slip into this kind of thinking because you’re getting so desperate. We all get desperate when there’s an addiction lurking around or when we’re indulging or involved in an addiction because we know that addiction leads us to such loss of control that all chaos can break loose. We can destroy our families, our friends, our relationships. We can destroy our health and our financial situation. It can be really scary. And so the temptation when you become religious with an addiction is that you might well feel that God has to remove your sinful nature. And that means that you get to the place where you never have a thought or a sin anymore. That is not what Paul is talking about here. And that is not the way to be free from an addiction. It says here, for he who has died has been freed from sin. Not is free from sin, but has been freed from sin. So what does that mean? Well, it means freed from the power of sin, freed from the identity of sin, freed from the judgment of sin. Do you hear the difference? A person who is freed from the judgment of sin is not the same as a person who is free from sinning anymore. The judgment that has come upon him from the Lord has been taken away. But has the judgment that comes upon you from your own mind been taken away? If you don’t know the gospel, then it hasn’t. And so what happens is that you constantly berate yourself when you fail again, yet again, yet again, and again. And you say, oh, what’s wrong with me? I’m no good. I don’t amount to anything. I am such a sinner. I’m hopeless. I’m lost. And people go into panic stations. There are people still in this Christian age that do go into panic stations in regard to their spiritual health or ill health. And they… get worse and worse every day. Some people try to go to church not simply once a week, but four times a day on Sunday, and several times during the week in order to cure this sinful nature of theirs. They read the Bible instead of five minutes or 15 minutes a day, two or three hours a day if they have time. Some people exhaust their health by getting up at four o’clock in the morning to pray. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with this if this is a true faith, peaceful state that you are in, and you choose to fellowship with the Lord in that way. But I’m saying that it is hellaciously dangerous if you go into those behaviors of spirituality because you’re in panic and you don’t know what else to do. So, you see, let us explore what it is to be freed from sin. Let’s remember what Paul said in verse 6. Our old man, that is our natural humanity, has been crucified with him. How so? We weren’t at the cross? We weren’t there with him? We don’t have any nails in our hands and feet? We haven’t died in a literal sense? No, of course not. Paul is talking about Jesus, as I mentioned yesterday and the day before and the day before that, I have to keep repeating it, is that Jesus is our substitute. He takes our place on the cross. He is judged on the cross for you and me. Now that has to be absorbed by faith, in which we say, Lord God, I’m going to take Jesus’ death seriously and really treat myself as if I had already been judged or executed, as if I had already had the punishment of the law of God upon myself. I’m going to take it that Jesus took my place on the cross, and therefore I am no longer under judgment and condemnation. Therefore, my old man, my natural humanity, which is under the judgment of death, is no longer under the judgment of death. Now this takes, this isn’t simple talk. Some people think, well, Colin talks soft Christianity, soft gospel. This is simply too easy. Are you kidding me? Listen to me. If you really take that seriously, you will find how difficult it is to take it seriously, to believe that every day, to express it to your Heavenly Father when you’ve done wrong or made a mistake or goofed once again. I’m telling you, this is faith with its gloves on. This is faith where the rubber meets the road. This is faith that is ironclad. This is not soft gospel. Lord God, forgive me, have mercy upon me, and I thank you that I am not condemned. Suppose a guy who is struggling with alcohol takes a drink after he hasn’t drunk for several weeks or months, and then he takes another, one is never enough, as they say, and he gets drunk, and he’s under the table. What state of mind can he now express to God? Well, in the natural state of mind, he will be terribly discouraged, He will be overwhelmed, he will be depressed, he will say, oh God, I have failed again, and all of that. The natural inclination is not at all to think positively or to give praise to God in a state of drunkenness, especially addiction to drink. But if that man were to say, Father in heaven, I will not accept judgment and condemnation. I will praise you that I am still your child. I will praise you that I am freed from sin, that is, freed from its judgment, freed from its condemnation, freed from its identity. I thank you, dear God, that I am not an alcoholic, even though I am drunk. This sounds sacrilege. That’s why it is very, very difficult faith, I’m telling you. It is not soft gospel. It is a brave man of faith, or woman of faith, that talks in this way to God in a state of drunkenness. But if you do… you will begin to see that the power of the alcohol is not the same as it was when you just went moaning and groaning and depressing yourself in such a state. The point is, not the whole point, but one of the major points is that the reaction to a failure is greater than the failure itself very often. Because if you get depressed and angry and overwhelmed, that reaction to failure, that’s worse than the failure itself. But if you lift up your heart and say, Father in heaven, I praise you that I am freed from the power of sin. freed from the power of sin. You must begin to absorb this, you see. If you do that, you will see that the addictive force of your addiction is not in the chemical itself, but in your mental reaction to it. He who has died has been freed from sin. Well, how did we die? Well, we talked about that a minute ago, but we’ll talk about it again We’re still alive. We’re still in this body. We’re not transcended. We haven’t ascended to heaven yet. We have not superseded our natural state. We’re still living in this body of death. But we are considered as, reckoned as, treated as, we are imputed as if, it is imputed to us as if we had died, as if we had been executed. Why, you say, Colin, how sure can you be of this as if business? Well, because it says it. Paul says it several times, and the one that I will refer to is 4 verse 5, but to him who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted as righteousness. We are counted as if we were righteous, do you see? That is the great truth of the gospel. Why are we counted that way? Because Jesus is counted as a sinner. Do you see that Jesus took upon himself all the judgment of humanity’s sins? He was numbered among the transgressors. The word numbered in Hebrew is the same word or the equivalent word to counted in Greek. so that when Jesus was numbered among the transgressors, he was treated as if he were a transgressor, so that we could be treated as if we were righteous. It’s the divine swap. Jesus takes our sin, we take his righteousness. But Jesus wasn’t a sinner in the same way that we are not righteous. But he’s counted a sinner in the same way as we are counted as righteous. And if God makes that account, then you have to agree with it. I’ve heard people say so sanctimoniously, well, I know God forgives me, but I can’t forgive myself. That’s a lot of poppycock and rubbish. If you can’t forgive yourself, then you do not know that God has forgiven you. You are not believing what he says. if God has forgiven you and the cross of Christ and the gospel message of the atoning work of Christ hasn’t dawned on you yet, because once it does, you will be giving yourself this wonderful acknowledgement that you are freed from the judgment of sin. And when you are freed from the judgment of sin, you know, that is, you declare yourself freed from that judgment of sin because you know you have died. but not died in yourself, died to humanity. You haven’t committed suicide. You have treated yourself as dead because Christ took your place. Ah, so how seriously are you going to take this? Do you take this as a little bit of simpleton Christianity, a little bit of, you know, naive talk by this radio preacher that doesn’t know any better and keeps repeating the same stuff all over again, or are you willing to be very, very serious about it? Take it into your heart. Believe it. Express it before God. Give praise to him and thanks. And rise up when you’ve fallen so that you bounce back because of this truth. Are you willing to do that? If you are, you’re taking it seriously then. And that’s what faith does. Thanks for joining me today. Colin Cook here, and you’ve been listening to my broadcast, How It Happens, which you can hear on the radio if you haven’t heard it before on the radio at 10 o’clock in the evening, repeated at four in the morning on KLTT AM 670 in the Denver and Colorado and surrounding states areas. You can also hear the program any time of the day or night, though, on your smartphone. Simply download a free app, soundcloud.com or pudbean.com and key in how it happens with Colin Cook when you get there. If you would like to make a donation to this listener-supported radio, now in its 29th year, You can send your donation to FaithQuest, P.O. Box 366, Littleton, Colorado, 80160, or make your donation online at faithquestradio.com. Thanks, see you next time. Cheerio and God bless.
