LIVE DISCUSSION: "Man Drinks Iniquity Like Water" (Job 15:14-16), Part 2/4

What if the core problem isn’t bad choices but a broken nature—and what if the cure is not a cleaner slate but a new heart? We take you from Ezekiel’s promise of renewal to Jude’s assurance that Christ himself keeps us from falling, weaving Scripture with real stories of family, strongholds, and the quiet battles that shape daily life. The point isn’t to minimize sin; it’s to recognize why grading it on a curve leaves everyone short of the canyon’s edge.

We push past the myth of “try harder” religion and show why imputed righteousness is not theological jargon but oxygen for a tired soul. If Christ’s perfect life counts as ours, then assurance stops riding the rollercoaster of our habits and starts resting on his finished work. That changes how we parent, how we pray for loved ones, and how we face the moments when we fail and want to hide. You’ll hear why Job’s sacrifices hint at a deeper truth: Jesus accounted for sin in full—past, present, and future—so repentance becomes a return to love, not a plea for entry.

Along the way, we ask hard questions with gentle honesty: Are children born innocent or merely untested? Can anyone bridge the gap to divine holiness by effort? What does it mean to be a new creation rather than an improved version of the old self? If you’re wrestling with assurance, striving under spiritual exhaustion, or longing to see renewal in your home, this conversation offers clarity, conviction, and comfort anchored in the Word.

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Transcript

Humanity’s Condition And Depravity

SPEAKER_03 0:00

In us apart from him. And you know, a lot of people will hear that. And for those of you who hear it now who don't know Christ, I won't apologize, but please understand that's where we are. Okay. The evidence of that is this. Look out into the world. Does the world look like a happy, joyful, overflowing uh place where there's peace and prosperity for everybody everywhere? Uh no. But I mean, and and and yet the evidence for that, Jonathan, for their b humanity's condition being totally depraved, just continues to pile up every day. More and more and more and more. And yet people refuse to see it. That's true. Just Lisa, go ahead.

SPEAKER_06 0:46

Um, well, I was just thinking, you know, my uh the verse that stands out to me the most in all of this is in Ezekiel 36, verses 26 and 27. God literally says, I will give you a new heart, a new spirit I will put within you. And you, you know, um, I don't know if that's exact, but he will cause us to walk in his statutes. He will do it all. The problem comes is is that happens. God does it, and then we're convicted of our sin, and then we fall on our knees, and then we cry out to the Lord. And so people don't realize that they've actually been given that heart by God, and and they assume that because they took action on what he was causing us to do anyway, it was their decision. So it's it's it's like they they miss all that. And when you realize that it was him that that does it, it just it humbles you even more. And one more thing that I'll say is it's if you really look at your own situation in your own lives, I mean, I was into uh, you know, I committed a lot of sin and and it took a long time for me to be uh to realize just how sinful it was. You know, for many years I went about my merry way, um you know, not realizing that I was even really committing sin. And and you we do it even in ignorance sometimes, don't even realize it. And there's no there was nothing in me seeking the Lord. There was nothing. And it wasn't until, you know, I I recognized what I was doing was so sinful. And then I cried out, and of course, but it again, it's he does it, and it's so beautiful. I mean, he gets all the glory, period.

No Degrees Of Sin: Grand Canyon Analogy

Imputed Righteousness And Assurance

SPEAKER_02 2:52

He gets all the glory. I like what you said about um uh you know, you talked about committing a lot of sin, and then you brought up uh the even the sin that we commit in ignorance. See, this is this is the part that men don't understand. This is this is the part I don't understand. I mean, I do understand, but I don't understand how people who claim to be Christian, who read the word of God, and and and it will come up with this idea that there is some degree of of um law keeping that you can do that will warrant God's blessing on you. Something that goes outside of what Christ has already done. Because you have many Christians today who who say, in spite of what Christ has done for them, that they can still be lost ultimately. And see, that can't be so. Because the problem that men have is that they they they look at sin in a matter of degrees, and we're gonna see this in the next verse. There are no degrees. In other words, there is not like put it this way: if we were all standing, if all of us on the panel and all of us, if we're standing on the on the on the edge of the Grand Canyon, we got a tour guide that took us up to the top of the Grand Canyon, and they said, Okay, you guys do whatever you can, all of you, do the best you can to jump off the edge of the Grand Canyon to another and to land on another spot across across the canyon. Granted, some may run faster than others, some may jump higher than others, and no matter how far anyone jumps, the result will be the same for all. We will all perish. This is some this is a basic concept that many Christian folks don't understand. It doesn't matter what standard you have made for yourself to deem yourself in a worthy standing with God. No true believer, in my opinion, ever feels that his standing is solid for any other reason than the work of Christ. That is it. What Christ did is now my works. Christ lived on came here and lived a perfect, sinless, spotless life. I trust him, his work now becomes mine. So when God sees me, he sees me as having obeyed the law of God. Is it my works that saved me? No. Is it works that saved me? Yes, just not my works. The Lord's works, Christ's works, imputed to my account. So the person who believes that they can lose their salvation, they believe that at one point they received salvation, that their sins were taken away from them, but that there are still sins yet that can be held accountable to them. Saying, without realizing what they're saying, that Christ, what he did, wasn't actually effectual, that he didn't actually take away all the sins because I was able to commit one. There was a sin or two or ten or a million that I was able to do that somehow weaved through the cracks of the atonement established by Christ. This is craziness. People do not know why or how significant these beliefs that they hold to are.

Family Struggles, Strongholds, And Prayer

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Yeah, man, this is this is crazy. It's like I gotta get more into Joe. This is making me want to get more into Joe. But just starting with the first point you made, um, where you said, you know, this your salvation, I'm just saying salvation against right here. That was so very convicting because I literally just talked to my sister about this. My youngest, but my only sister, she's younger than me. And, you know, we're talking about breaking strongholds in the family. I won't make it too long, but this is so revealing, and Joe is so revealing, so I want to get into maybe finding the answer because I kind of told her that, you know, before she got here, you know, the family wasn't. And I'm not, and I'm just trying to say this to her the right way, but I didn't, I wasn't trying to blame her, but she took it that way. What do you mean before I got here? I'm like, no, no, no, not blaming you, but you know, we were cool. There was no bitterness, there wasn't a sense of strongholds. Of course, I was younger. I'm a I'm a kid, you know, I'm 38 now, but it's so revealing as I'm walking and getting closer to Christ, how much I just say, you know, the sins and stuff that we have committed as just being our nature. But that's what I was trying to explain to her, that it has recently revealed itself. It wasn't always like this, you know. We were a family, we were tight-knitted, we lived together in one house. You know, I can't I can't name a time when we had any, I can't name a time when I could call anyone of our family members bitter or even felt there was a stronghold until now that we're all older. And it's like, okay, even my little sister who's 30 now, she's picking up on it because of how she's, you know, living her life and my niece, and you know, she's walking with Christ on her own path. So we're connecting how we're connecting with her. Thank God, give God the glory for that. But that's what her battle is. And I'm like, well, Chelsea, I'm I pray for the same thing every day. But I think it's a little, you know, it's coming, it's revealing too late. You know what I mean? Not too late, but that's where I'm a little stuck at. And I'm I'm gonna wrap it right there because that's where I kind of want to get more into Joe. And maybe someone can tell me to go to this verse of one where he revealed why. Because you said we we act out of ignorance, we sin out of ignorance, and I think that's the biggest thing.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

That's the biggest thing.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

I just want to pray for my mother's salvation, you know what I mean? Because that'll, or my family, you know.

Christ Died For The Whole Nature

SPEAKER_02 9:53

So I think this is I'm in the same boat, brother. Listen, here this is what here here's the when you're dealing with the word of God, there are so many paradoxical elements to it, and I say that a lot because it's just true. And and here's what I mean. Like, if you only look at the fact that Christ died for, like, there's a believe me and believe me when I tell you this, there are a lot of Christians who believe that at the time they came to faith, that Christ, that Christ, that their the only sins that Christ forgave were the sins that they committed up to the time that they made their confession. And then after that, they they sort of somehow they they look at it this way that Christ, when they came to Christ, they now have a clean slate. And now their goal is to sin less. But that is going to be a a trial of fear and spiritual negligence that is going to plague you for the rest of your life to live that way. And the thing is, when you really grasp the reality, that Christ died to take away your whole self, he removed the entire, he that sin nature is gone. That's what he died to quench the judgment and wrath of God that is due to the nature of man in his totality, the whole man. He died to make sure that your nature can never put you in a place where you sever the union that his death established between you and the father. So what so my point is when you understand that it's your nature, like Lisa talked about committing a lot of sin. See, the issue really is not about the the quantity of the sin, it's about that aspect in your nature that produces it, whether you do it or not. Sin has sin in men, whether men, if you are laying in your in a hospital bed unconscious, you know, I don't know how much sin you're doing when you're you're unconscious, but you don't stop being a sinner at the moment you become unconscious. Your nature still exists. It is the nature that we have, the sinful nature that is what needs to be dealt with, so that sin cannot grow and and and and reveal itself. So, in other words, it's like think of it like the seed of sin is always in us, like a dormant cancer cell. It's in you, and the principle of sin is in you, and so the whole, not just the axe itself has to be removed, the axe and atoned for, but the principle that produces the axe has to be removed. And so we become, that's why Paul says, we become new creations, not modified old ones. We become new creations, not a fixed up one. We don't become cars with a new paint job and some new rims and armor all on the tires. No, we become a new car. It's a whole different thing. That's what has to happen. So when you understand that the whole nature, the whole simple nature is what Christ dealt with, that makes it easier to meet to rest easy because you know that there's nothing that Christ died for on our part that was able to slip through the washing away of our sins that he provided by his blood. It's impossible. Uh Sister Candy and then Mariah and Lisa. Candy, go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 14:21

This ain't what I was gonna start out with, but if it's a new car, the first thing to do to take care of your new car and learn about your new car is what read the book on it, right? Learn what it's about. Yep. I thought that was funny whenever you used the card. But it it goes back to our our nature is sin, and faith comes by hearing. Well, what are what do we hear to even know what faith is? We hear the word of God, right? So then when when we become of faith and believe in Jesus Christ and what he came and did for us, right, then we he gives us a new heart and a new mind. Okay, well, when we receive that new heart and that new mind, it is the acceptance of him in his word, God's word. So, unless we read God's word and are in him, what does the new heart and the new mind do for someone? That's just a question for thought. But at the same time, if you get what I'm saying, that new heart and new mind, if you don't feed it with God's word, what good is it going to do you? True, absolutely, and then how do you know? Because that that word, unless one is reading and and eating that that nourishment, they don't even realize what what they're being convicted of. That conviction won't come, it'll still be condemnation, right? Right, absolutely, our transformation comes from the word of God, Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Amen, sister. Absolutely, sister Mariah. Go ahead.

Teaching Children And Sin’s Nature

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Um, I just wanted to say a few things. First, being that I understood the weight of my sin when God had called me and how, like, you know, you plan ahead your sin, you don't even think about it, you're just planning sin, you know. Um, but it wasn't until I had children that I understood that it is something that is um like it exudes us, it's just permeating through our skin. Um, I'll ask my kids, like, why did you, why, why did you not tell the truth? Why did you lie? And they say, I don't know. And that is true. They don't know, but I know why they do, because they are um born of the nature of sin, right? You know, and so I'm like, I know, baby, you know, you know, grace, grace, because God gave me grace, and and you know, just teach them. But also I wanted to say that I I thought it was very interesting because you said that um people think that they um have a clean slate once they come to Christ, and then it's up to them, like they can continue washing themselves clean and regenerating um and renewing themselves. Um, and then something um you know, I was just compelled to read Jude 1.24 again and look up what it actually means by falling, but it says now to him who is able to keep you from falling. And if you look it up, it's it says figuratively, but I know that this is the truth without sin, to him who is able to keep you without sin. It is him, you know. So I think that that is just so beautiful because it's just in this little simple word, it just tells you what um the imputed righteousness of Christ is all about. And it's not a um, and I love that you'll always say, like, um, you're you sin, you you didn't sin and become a sinner. You you're sinner and you so you sin, you know. So um a lot of people just don't understand that. And I think that that um they don't know why or how they are a sinner, they just are trying to work their ways to stop sinning, and that is impossible with the nature that you were given from Adam.

Kept From Falling: Jude 24

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Amen, sister. Um, I'm you know, you brought up in the Jude 24, and I love that that that verse a lot. Uh, and I I quote it often. And um, but here's something I want to I want to I want to bring out because you said, you know, the because the verse says, to him who is able to keep you, right? Now, here's the here's the funny thing. Especially with people who talk about Christians being saved today and losing their salvation later, they will tell you that the reason the the people who believe that they can lose their salvation, and I got you next, Pat. So people who believe they can lose their salvation, they believe that the way they maintain it is by keeping the law, right? By keeping the law, you're gonna like this, Mariah, I think. All right, now but when you read a verse like what you just read in Jude 2024, to him who is able to keep you, so how are they looking at that? Because listen, if you if if the keeping is something that they need to do to stay safe, if there's some kind of keeping of the law that they need to be able to do to stay saved, then that means that that keeping is fleeting. One day you're keeping, one day you're not. So do we conclude the same thing when it talks about him who is able to keep us? Because that verse is is that verse is read it again, uh Mariah, Mariah, read that verse again because I want to make this point. Let me see.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

Um I was just quoting it off the top of my head, but it says now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you holy and blameless, right, with ever seeding joy.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

That's right. I believe. No, that's it. So the thing is, it says specifically that he's the one that keeps you from falling. But the same people that say that they keep the law to stay safe, if that's the truth, what they're saying is then they have to apply that same logic to Christ, not keeping them from falling. So it doesn't make any sense. Either Christ keeps you from falling, or he also his his inability to keep has to do with your inability, has to do with your inability to keep yourself from falling as well. And so we can't say that about Christ because it says clearly there that he keeps you from falling. So how can you fall if you're saved, if you're a saved person? You can't not because of you, you can't fall because he's the one who keeps you, like somebody put in the comment, Lisa put in the comments. Keeping means to guard, to safeguard, to protect, to watch over. He calls us to be watchmen. Shall the one who commands us to watch not watch himself, not govern our actions so that we cannot fall. But Jude 24 makes it very certain that he keeps us from falling. So I just wanted to add to that. And I love that verse being brought up in this context, and that's what I really love, especially when we look at these other parts, we read these verses here, and we're able to extrapolate from other places arguments that support what we're talking about. So that's that's a very that's a good one there. Brother Pat, go ahead. Sorry for the delay getting to you, brother.

Human Standards Versus Divine Holiness

SPEAKER_04 22:32

No problem at all, man. And I love listening to you guys. I love you, you know, it it occurs, Jonathan, that um mankind's been on this earth for thousands of years. They've tried every religion, they've come up with every philosophy, a million different uh types of ways to live, and this world isn't right, and nothing, no matter what man tries, nothing fixes the world, you know, nothing patches it up, and um God gave God gave Israel the law, right? Right. Um right could they keep it? If you if you look at if you look at the history, uh no. If rightness could come through, they would fix their problems as the problems for us.

SPEAKER_02 23:31

Pat, your your your phone is bad breaking up really bad. Okay. Real really badly, brother. Sorry about that. Uh hit hit me back if you're able to get it cleared up, Pat. Yeah, but it's breaking up really bad. Uh so hopefully you can solve it and get back into the conversation. Sister Lisa, go ahead.

SPEAKER_06 23:54

Well, I was just gonna kind of comment on on top of what Sister Mariah said about um you know the sinful nature that we're born into. Um, you know, before I was born again, um I don't think I don't I don't think I would have been so um I wouldn't have believed that so much. Um do you know what I'm saying? It's like if you ask an adult who is not born again, and you or if if you if you tell them a child is born in sin, uh I mean they're gonna argue with you. Um a lot of the, you know, the you know, the people of the world don't even see that their thoughts are sinful. Like I said, I didn't even realize some of the sin I was committing at the time. You just don't even know. And so it's proof that we we are a new person, we are a new creation in Christ because we can recognize these things. I only look at my little granddaughter who's four, and she gets a look on her face, and I know there's gonna be some mischief going on just by the look, the expression she has on her face. And and it's it's funny, you know, it's uh but it's so true. I can recognize, and her mom is, you know. I said, You see this right here? Where do they learn to lie? Where do they learn, you know, you see cookie crumbs around their mouth? Did you just eat some cookie when I told you not to? No, no, I didn't have that cookie, and there's crumbs, there's food all around. It is crazy. Um, and and we we have to be literally taught right how not to be in sin. That's right. And yet we still are, you know what I mean? So it's amazing, it's really true.

Job’s Sacrifices And Full Atonement

SPEAKER_02 25:47

It is. We you know, we don't even think like, I mean, could you imagine? Like if people like if their if their error or if they're if if what they were gonna do that was contrary to what their nature was, and it would result in them doing these good deeds. Can you imagine what that would be like? Can you imagine, oh, I'm so mad today, I'm gonna get some, I'm gonna buy some flowers for my wife, or I'm gonna go go buy my daughter a new car. People don't, you know, but the reality is we should be we should be looking for opportunities and means to do good. But we resist it at every turn. And we all and one of the reasons why we resist it because we're always thinking that someone's gonna take advantage of us. And it's and and what you have to do is you have to look at, okay, well, now you know how God sees the sinner when he sins. You're sinning against God. You know, but it's it's just crazy. But nobody gets nobody gets nobody gets mad and goes makes a charitable contribution.

SPEAKER_06 27:00

It's so true.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

I'm so mad. I'm gonna I'm gonna go, I'm so mad I'm gonna go visit cancer patients. That doesn't happen.

SPEAKER_06 27:08

That is that's so funny.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

Yeah, that's what happens. You know, people always want to they want to do crazy things. Brother Jeffrey, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 27:18

Jonathan, going back to your point about again, losing our salvation, I've I've shared this with you several times. I'll share it again here. If that were possible, Jesus would still be in the grave, just as dead as he was when he came down from the cross. We know that's not what happened. Three days later, he walked out. The totality, the totality of humankind's sin, all of it, was placed on him. He paid it in full. Absolutely. All of your all of Jonathan's sin, from the moment he's born to the day he sees Jesus face to face. Jonathan, your sin debt is paid in full. Absolutely. That is such a simple thing. And again, I go back to my point I made a moment ago. It is that is so difficult for so many people to get their mind around that he did everything. Right, right. Absolutely, brother. We have no part of it, right? But that's that's what he had to do. It had to be a perfect holy process. Jesus did that, he is alive because he loves us. Hallelujah. Amen, brother.

Are Children Born Innocent?

SPEAKER_02 28:31

So when it comes down to when it comes down to it, right, when measured against infinite holiness, man at his best fails. You because the God Himself has to be the standard of infinite divine holiness has to be what we measure ourselves against. That has to be it. No man can say, I can lose my salvation if I don't maintain a certain degree of obedience and then thinks he's gonna get to heaven because of it. Because he's based this on a measure or a standard of measure that he's created himself, and so that's impossible. So this verse here, verse 14, this strikes at the root of all of man's confidence. It strikes at the root of it, it digs it up from the very roots. His natural virtue, human virtue, means nothing. It is useless. It's like the analogy I gave you about all of us trying to run and jump off the Grand Canyon. Doesn't matter how far I jump, you may jump three feet, I might jump five feet. You may get an Olympic champion that can jump seven feet. At the end of the day, all of us are gonna be at the bottom of that of that canyon, that valley. So, free will, that gets you nothing. Because if we're because what we're talking about is man's nature. So, your your will, whether you want to call it free or not, what whatever you want to say about it really doesn't matter. Your nature is what drives your decisions, your nature is what drives the exertion of your will. It is determined by your nature. What's your nature? Sinful. So what will you choose? That which is sinful. You cannot pull out, like we talked about earlier in the book of Job, you cannot pull out the clean from the unclean. That is an absolute impossibility. Excuse me, can't be done. And then there's the inherent the inherent moral ability. Just because we are moral agents, doesn't mean that we adhere to what is morally required. And all it takes is not even having is not even having an act to put on our little bore. If you never sinned, if no, if a man is born today and never commits an outward act, he is still condemned. Why? Because his nature is such that at some point, as it was with Adam, it is an inevitability. It is an inevitability that he will sin because the seed is there. Paul calls it evil concupiscence. It's buried in you. That's what you are. Eventually, you will sin. You will sin. It's inevitable. That's why Paul, you know, uh, you know, God told um told uh Adam and Eve, in the day, in the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die. And it seems to convey the idea of the inevitability of it. That sooner or later you're going to. Because that's what's in, that's what's in man. And no man, as he comes into the world, possesses a righteousness that can endure under the divine scrutiny. That's what we talked about. The we were talking earlier when Lisa mentioned sins committed in ignorance. You know, the Israelites had to, they had a sacrifice for sins committed in ignorance. And if you remember, early in this very book, Job offered sacrifices for his children in the event that they would sin. Just in case. Just in case. That's a father for you. And that's a good analogy for what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us. If Job offers sacrifices for the sins of his children that they are yet to commit, how much more should we understand that about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? He committed, he sacrificed himself not just for our past sins or the sins that we had had tallied up at the time we believed, but he took into account all the sin that we would do after we believe, up until the moment we die. If Job did it, how much more should our father have done that to us through Christ? And man, I wish we had thought about this when we got when we were in that part of the book where he talked about him offering sacrifices for his children. Because it's such an important, important point. Uh, brother Rod and then Pat.

SPEAKER_01 33:40

I just had a quick question, just kind of asking this. It just popped in my mind. So, you know, we're all, you know, we all sinned from nature, but you know, you say you have the, you know, the wife and the husband who, you know, do it the covenant marriage and then all that, and then they have the kids. Because, you know, I was at talk to my daughter about this, and you know, I get it now, even more of my ignorance that, you know, I would always say kids, you know, are somewhat pure until I understand it a little bit better tonight that we aren't, until they meet the constructs of the world. You know, it's like, okay, because until my daughter found out certain things, she was as pure as white snow. And I always would just tell her, you know, just keep your innocence, baby girl. You know what I mean? That's what I would, and I still tell her that to this day, you know, but of course, she's not with me 24-7. I can't be there 24-7, even when she goes to school and stuff like that. But I'm asking, like, you know, what if what if you start out that way where you are already walking with Christ? Is the kid still technically, you know, condemned in a sense?

SPEAKER_02 34:39

Like if we are really we we are born sinners. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Just popped in my head. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 34:47

We we are born sinners. We don't, we don't become sinners, we're born sinners. Gotcha. And so let me say this because because I know this is a hard pill to swallow for a lot of people. I understand that. You know, and we all I have kids and grandkids, so you know, we we're all