38 - The Spirit and Salvation

Well, welcome to the

Striving for Eternity Academy's School of Systematic Theology. You know, if I was a smart individual,

I would have thought of something shorter to say each week, huh? All right, should have had a much smaller name of this academy, shouldn't we?

But we're glad that you're with us. We welcome those new students. We have several new students this week.

We are glad that you have joined us. And we are very grateful that you have tuned in each week, those who do each week.

Those who are new, we welcome you. We encourage you, if you are an enrolled student, what an enrolled student means is you get the syllabus.

Oh, and there it is. So it's this way, right? So syllabus is over here. All right, there's the syllabus.

So you can get your syllabus and follow along. If you enroll as a student, you get the syllabus, which is nice because you get all of the notes that we have.

We give you some fill in the blanks, which the purpose of that is actually so that those things that we really want to emphasize, we give you as a blank to kind of get you writing.

One of the things is that the more senses that you use, the better you remember something.

So we want you actually writing things. Helps you to remember it. It's one of the reasons my morning devotions,

I actually have the little phone. People don't open a

Bible anymore. They open their app, right? But I have an app on my phone that reads the Bible to me. So it reads along.

So I'm hearing it as I'm reading it. More senses you can use. Just silly ideas for you. But we are, if we take a look, we are in the book, book number two.

We will have four books all together, but we are in book number two of our systematic theology called

God's Gift to Man, dealing with sin and salvation. We're in the doctrine of salvation specifically, which is section three.

We looked at man and sin. Now we're looking at salvation. We have the lesson on the spirit and salvation.

And we've been looking through these with taking a look at different, the different roles that the

Godhead has. And so we looked at the fact that we saw that the

Father plans salvation. And we saw that in the two weeks.

Then we saw the Son provided salvation. And this week we're going to see that the

Spirit performs salvation. The Spirit performs salvation. And so as we look into this, we've kind of seen already in the previous lessons that our study of salvation begins by examining the works of the triune

God, all providing the work of salvation. It's one of the areas that you see all three members of the

Trinity active. And so there are some key texts to elaborate that we can look at.

And you see those in your syllabus there. But Ephesians 1, really that whole chapter there, but verses 3 to 14 specifically,

Titus 3, 3 to 7, 1 Peter 1, 2 are ones that you see all of the members of the

Spirit active. Now, this lesson is going to, will focus on the Spirit in salvation, particularly how

He performed salvation. That's your blank there, performed salvation.

So, what we see is that God the Father planned this. God the

Son provided it in His death. And God the Holy Spirit performs it by doing the regeneration work.

We're going to actually see all the different things that the Holy Spirit does in this lesson because it's more than that, than just the regeneration actually.

So, there are four things we're going to look at in this lesson. And I am making the statement early that I'm actually going to finish this lesson tonight.

I know, after the last couple of lessons, some of you find that hard to believe, but I think

I can do it. Now, I'm also going to say this just to kind of get you going. Next lesson, if you look in your syllabus, you know where we're going.

Yeah, it's the one that everyone loves to debate. That's right, Calvinism versus Arminianism.

Actually, we won't argue that. We're going to be discussing, well, we will discuss that actually, but we're going to discuss really

God's sovereignty and human responsibility in salvation. But we know what we all mean. So, we're going to see if we can get to that next week.

But, there are four main works of the Holy Spirit in relation to the application of salvation.

Okay, and this is what we're going to look at this week. Conviction, regeneration, preservation, and sanctification.

Now, as we go through these, we're going to give some definitions, we're going to look at some scriptures, and so we're going to try to get through this if we can in one week.

So, let us begin with conviction. So, we start with conviction, and with this, we will say that here when we look at the word conviction, let's look at our definition if you have a syllabus there.

The Spirit convinces men internally of their need.

That's your blank there. Do you see that? Need. So, He convinces people internally of their need of salvation.

The convicting work of the Spirit occurs prior to actual salvation, and not everyone who is convicted of sin repents of his sin.

This is important because I know a lot of people that talk about the salvation almost act as if salvation starts with regeneration, and we need to actually back up a step and look at where the

Holy Spirit actually starts. The Holy Spirit starts with the convicting work.

So, what that is, is that is the idea that the Holy Spirit convicts everybody,

I believe, of their sin. Now, He can use things like our conscience to do that, but He convinces people, convicts people of their sin.

The purpose of that is so that they see their need for salvation. Now, I'm not preaching to people's felt needs, not saying that, because their felt needs and their real needs are two different things.

So, what we have is the reality that we need to look at the fact that when we examine the the role of the

Holy Spirit, and if you have been following with us throughout this class, and you go some,

I don't know, maybe 20 lessons back, when we were dealing with the ministry of the Holy Spirit, you know we dealt with this before of the ministry that He serves.

And this is one of the things that we said back then, and we say again, most people seem to forget about this work of the

Spirit. And so, this is an idea that we have to be aware of.

We need to remember that the Holy Spirit starts with the fact that He is going to start the ministry in convicting people.

He's going to take people that want to ignore their sin and make them aware of it.

Make them see a need for salvation. And this is the thing, we have to be aware that, and some people mix this up.

We're going to see this next lesson, but when people talk about Calvinism, some people wrongly define

Calvinism as seeing the convicting work as a regeneration work. And so, people get this notion as if because God convicts a person, they must be saved.

They must be regenerated. No, that doesn't have to be, okay?

So, we end up having a case where the Holy Spirit convicts people, they feel that guilty feeling, they know they're wrong, but they don't repent.

Okay? And that's why it's important we say, not everybody who is convicted of sin repents of that sin, okay?

I believe the Holy Spirit convicts everybody through their conscience, but they reject it.

And so, when people talk, as we're going to talk next class about irresistible grace, some people are arguing over the convicting work when they're talking the regeneration work, and they're mixing them up.

So, I want to be clear on this, alright? So, let's take a look at some scriptures and explain more, but I just want to make really clear, that's why

I'm spending the time on it, that the convicting work of the Holy Spirit is not the regeneration, okay?

It is what happens before salvation. This is actually the first work, or the pre -salvation, okay?

This is the first, shall we say, step in the salvation process, and not everybody, actually most people, don't get to step two, which would be the next one of regeneration, okay?

So, let's look at some scriptures here. I have here the promise of this ministry of the

Holy Spirit. We see this in John 16. Let's take a look at this. John 16, verses 8 to 12.

You can read along with me, since you probably didn't bring your Bible to class.

I know, you could open your Bible and look it up, but here, it's easier. Class will go quicker this way. John 16, and when

He comes, He will convict the world concerning sin.

See, future tense. So, this is why Jesus is making a promise in the future, all right?

So now, as we look at that, let's look at verse 9. So, what's

He going to do? What's He going to convict? He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.

Concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me. Concerning righteousness, because I go to the

Father and you will see Me no longer. Concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot hear them now.

So, let's break this down, and let's take a look at this, okay? He gives us three things, three truths in which the

Spirit is actively convicting people. Convincing men. Ready? These three.

These are the three that are in your blanks. Sin, righteousness, and judgment.

Sin, righteousness, and judgment. We saw those three in that passage.

So, that is what He's convincing people of. Sin, righteousness, and judgment.

Some examples of this. Let's take a look now. So, this was Jesus promising

He would go away. The Holy Spirit would come. So, let's take a look at this now, kind of fulfilled.

So, we see in Acts 2 .37. Now, and this is, by the way, if you're looking in your blanks, this is

Pentecost, okay? This is the example at Pentecost, Acts 2 .37.

So, your blank is Pentecost there. Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do?

So, you see here the Holy Spirit cut them to the heart. Let's take a look at the example of, in Acts 7 .51.

This is with Jesus Christ, is your blank there.

You stiff -necked, uncircumcised in heart and ears. You always resist the

Holy Spirit as your fathers did. So do you. I'm just looking at the blank there and that doesn't seem,

I think I wrote something in wrong for my blank. I'll have to go back and check my original notes because I have my written notes here.

But this is really, this is Jesus speaking to the Jewish leaders, which should be what is there.

This is not Jesus, this is Peter speaking to the Jewish leaders. So, Jewish, the Jewish leaders should be your blank there.

The Jewish leaders. And then lastly, the third example we have is in Acts 9 .10 and this is with Paul.

This is with Paul. And so, with Paul, it says here, and he said, who are you,

O Lord? Now this is after he sees the light and he feels, he is blinded and whatnot.

He says, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. So, we see in those three passages, and I always encourage you to read the context.

Don't trust me, I already got something wrong from my handwritten notes, huh? Okay, thanks.

There you go. You shouldn't trust me, you should check the scriptures. That was a good way of illustrating it.

Okay. Write it in in pencil. Okay, thank you. The abuse

I get. So, so yeah, but what we have there is examples then of the convicting work that we see.

All right. So, let's move on to the regeneration.

Regeneration, that is like our favorite topic, isn't it? I mean, that is what we love to discuss, isn't it?

We love to talk about regeneration, or at least you should if you're a Christian. It should be one of your favorites, right?

Talking about how God redeemed you from being an enemy of His to a child of His.

That's, that should be exciting. All right, so let's look at the definition. The impartation of eternal life to those who were dead.

Okay, and your blank there is eternal. It is the impartation of eternal life to those who were dead, spiritually dead.

So, in other words, oh, someone's asking for the third blank. So, it's, so the third blank there was

Paul. Okay, Acts 9 .5 refers to Paul. So, it should be the

Pentecost, the Jews at Pentecost with the Jews and then with Paul.

So, I'm thinking, I'm being asked, am I sure? Can I be certain of that?

Which should be the way it's phrased, right? Okay, so regeneration is the impartation of eternal life to those who were spiritually dead.

And this we could look, you could look up at Ephesians. Oh, we have that?

Okay, good. Ephesians 2, 1 and 2. All right, it says there, and yes, you were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once, which you once walked, past tense, following the course of this world, following the prince and the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

So, you see that in the past, it was that you once walked in this way, but now you walk in a new way, okay?

So, let us, so this is the idea, there's the impartation of this is as you have in your notes there, the regenerating work of the spirit occurs simultaneously with salvation.

Is the application of this, of the salvation in connection with the complete work of the

Trinity? Your blank there is the Trinity. So, what this is trying to say here is that this happens simultaneously with salvation.

It is not a separate thing. You don't have regeneration and then salvation, and you don't have salvation and then regeneration.

There are some groups that talk about salvation as if it is separate from regeneration.

There's some who say you get regenerate and then later you get some second blessing of salvation.

We are dealing with a group as a, recently that we're going to writing some articles on that believes that you can be saved but not regenerated.

So, you have this outworking of salvation that you work your way through it and then at some point you've arrived and you get regeneration.

So, we're trying to say they're not separate. They happen simultaneously and it is the application of this, of salvation in connection with the complete work of the spirit.

Let's look at Titus. This is a little bit of a longer one, but let's read this passage.

Yeah. If I was, if I was trying to make it, if I was trying to get done in one week, I wouldn't read the long passages.

Okay. So, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,

He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the

Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

So, you're seeing here that where we once were, our previous life, our new life, the eternal life, and you're seeing all three members of the

Trinity in this passage. So, we also see its implications.

Okay. Regeneration makes the believer a new creation. That's your blank there, creation.

A new creation and gives him, are you ready for this? Discernment. Gives him discernment.

If you are a believer in Christ, you should have discernment. All right.

Let's look at some passages. Second Corinthians, probably one of my favorite chapters of the Bible, Second Corinthians chapter five.

But therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is, notice that's current text, current tense.

In the Greek, you have things that are important based on the tense. This is present tense, current.

Currently, you become a new creation. Old things have passed away.

All things have become new. The importance of that is that once you have, once you have regeneration, you become a new creature, a new creation.

Okay. Old has passed away. The new has come. You can't return to those old ways.

When you look at these passages, I hope you realize these passages say, teach, we can't lose the salvation.

I know there's some issues that people believe you can. We will get into those things. Where are the sticky points with that?

Where is it hard to understand? Where do we need to deal with some scriptures that seem to imply you can?

We'll deal with that. Let's take a look though at, oh, second is

First John 2 .20. Okay. First John 2 .20, but you have been anointed by the

Holy One and you all have knowledge. Now, in some translations, not this one, but in some translations, this says discernment.

So, we as believers in Christ have discernment.

Why? Because we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us. That's one of the other things that's simultaneous with regeneration and salvation is the

Holy Spirit indwelling us. What's called the baptism of the Spirit that happens immediately at salvation.

It's separate from the, if you remember the lessons on the Holy Spirit, it's separate from the controlling, the filling of the

Spirit. But the indwelling or baptism is immediate with salvation. And that happens at regeneration.

But He gives us discernment so that we can discern things. Now, does that mean that everything we think is discerning and right?

No. Some people argue that because they think something and they have discernment, therefore they're absolutely right.

No. We have to test the spirits. We have to test with the scriptures and see if these things are so.

But we do have a giftedness now of discernment. We can discern the things of the world.

So, when we look at that, we realize that we need to be able to discern certain things that are true and false or of God and not of God.

And not all Christians, because they may be, as believers, have a discernment and commanded to be discerning, it doesn't mean that we all have good teaching and sometimes that can influence our level of discernment when we're told by those that should know better wrong is right.

Okay. Let's look at our third one and that is preservation. Preservation, and let's look at a definition of this.

This is defined in your syllabus there as the Spirit of God secures, that's your blank there, secures us at salvation for eternity.

That's real important. You see, He's the one securing us and holding us. And so, if the

Holy Spirit is securing us, for you to break that seal, you better be stronger than the

Holy Spirit. That's a dangerous thing to say. But again, we've said this many times before if you've been in these classes, we're building up our theology.

We don't start in the middle. I know many people start their theology in the debate on Calvinism versus Arminianism or can you lose your salvation or can you not or end times.

And we started at the beginning for a reason. We started looking at the nature and attributes of God, working our way through these in a systematic way so that when we get to these stickier issues, we've built upon them so I hope that you now see, this is the

Spirit doing this. This is a work of the Trinity that saves us, not a work of us. And so, it's the

Spirit who's going to preserve us and seal us. We also have as a definition, the preserving work of the

Spirit occurs simultaneously with salvation, not on our death. He seals us at salvation, not at glorification, importance.

This is essentially the truth of a doctrine called eternal security. Your blank there is eternal security.

And so, you're going to see in Lesson 9, we're going to deal with that in more detail. So, we're going to deal with this again but we're trying to build up to this so that if you watch these classes in order, in other words, you start at Lesson 1 and work through, we're in what,

Lesson 38, 39, something like that. And so, if you work your way through, by the time we get to these other things, we hopefully have built up the background that you have seen why these are rooted in the nature and attributes of God and so you understand this.

This is because God does this work. He's the one that preserves us and therefore, since He does this simultaneous at salvation and He's the seal,

He's the only one that can break it and Romans 8 says He won't. We're going to get to that. Let's look at some scriptures though.

This one is long. It's essential though. Oh, we're just going to, okay, we'll just read,

I was thinking we could read all of Ephesians 1, 3 to 14 but we'll just do this. 13 to 14 is just really the important one.

In Him, this is speaking of the Holy Spirit, in Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in Him were sealed with the promise of the

Holy Spirit. Okay, so, well, let's keep reading.

So, let's deal with that. So, you see here that we were, it says here that we were sealed, when?

When were we sealed? At the point of salvation, we were sealed. Look at verse 14.

Who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire the possession of it to the praise and glory of God?

So, what you have here is a case and this is really important to understand. The Holy Spirit seals us and the sealing is, let's put ourselves in the time of what this is.

It talks about the Holy Spirit being a down payment, okay? A down payment.

And that's important because what we see with this is the idea of when you pay for something, such as like you put a down payment down on a house, if you're buying a house and the down payment is what gives you, you don't own the house, unless of course you buy the whole thing, but it's the promise of it.

That you own it, but not, you still owe payments, shall we say, in a sense, right?

In that sense. But it's the down payment of something that's future. And so, what they would do on something like that, they'd take a document, they'd sign it and then what they'd do is they'd write it in a scroll, roll it in a scroll, put a wax seal on it and take a ring, you know, and they'd take hot wax and put a ring insignia to seal it.

In other words, if you broke that seal to read what's in it, you'd have to break the seal.

So, the idea here is that the Holy Spirit is the seal and He's our down payment.

In other words, He's our guarantee of our eternal life. It's Him that's the guarantee, not us or our works, okay?

That's important to recognize, okay? It's not us, it's not our good works that's going to save us, okay?

It's God who is, the Holy Spirit specifically, who is going to do that work that's going to be that down payment, all right?

He seals us, He guarantees us, and so I hope you'll see that this is, if He's our guarantee, how can we break that?

Okay, let's look at what we have there for the scriptures in your syllabus. A seal was used to identify letters of importance, as I mentioned.

Wax was applied to the scroll and a distinguishing impression was applied to the wax.

The seal was a mark of ownership, that's your blank there, of ownership.

Sometimes called an earnest is the word, the down payment. It means a down payment, that's your blank there, down payment or promise, okay?

So, what you have there is that the

Holy Spirit not only owns us, He owns our salvation.

At the point that we're saved, He is not only that seal, that ownership, but He's the down payment of the future promise, okay?

He's the guarantee. So, if He's guaranteeing our salvation and He's saying

He's going to seal us and preserve us, how do we think that something we can do will lose that?

Just saying. Let's take a look at another passage, 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 21 to 22.

And in this text, again, we see that the work of the Spirit is in relation to the work of the

Trinity and salvation. It says, and it is God who established us with you in Christ and who has also put

His seal on us and has given us His Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

So, again, do you notice who's the seal? Who is that guarantee? The Holy Spirit.

So, I hope you're seeing this is the

Holy Spirit that does this. And it's the Holy Spirit who's going to keep us in a saved state, all right?

And then in Ephesians 4 and verse 30, and do not grieve the

Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Again, do you notice that?

You were sealed for the day of redemption. The Holy Spirit seals you for that day, all right?

The sealing of the Holy Spirit should affect our behavior. That's your blank there, behavior, okay?

The Holy Spirit seals us so that as a promise, that should affect how we behave, okay?

It doesn't mean that we should say, hey, I can go do anything I want because the Holy Spirit saved us. No, the fact that the

Spirit is sealing us and guaranteeing us should humble us, not make us prideful, should cause us to want to live pleasing to Him, not for self, okay?

Let's see, we're doing well. So, let's see if we could finish up the last point, which is sanctification.

And I know there's a lot of confusion sometimes on this one, but sanctification, this is the idea, the

Spirit is involved in the making holy, that's your first blank there, holy, the

Spirit is involved in the making holy or setting apart, that's your second blank, setting apart of a believer.

So, sanctification is this process where the Holy Spirit makes us holy or sets us apart as a believer.

This is related primarily to the position of the believer and the progress of His salvation.

So, this is where we see progression. This is where some people get confused. One group that is calling it a progressive salvation, okay?

What they're trying to say is salvation continues, it's a work in progress. Sanctification is we get saved once immediately at a point in time.

At that point of salvation, we have many things happen simultaneously. It's one point we get regenerated.

We get baptized or indwelt with the Holy Spirit, okay? We are preserved or sealed with the

Holy Spirit. The sanctification process begins. We're adopted into the family of God.

I mean, all these things happen immediately. At that point of repentance, salvation, repentance and faith and regeneration.

Now, we talk salvation in three tenses. Past tense, we were saved.

In other words, regeneration. Present tense, sanctification. The process that begins at salvation and continues until we die.

And once we die, the future tense, glorification. Regeneration, sanctification, glorification.

Those three. Past tense, present tense, future tense. Unless, of course, you're dead and then you're already in there or you're not a believer yet.

And then maybe regeneration would be future tense. But for those who are saved, we talk in those tenses.

So, the idea of sanctification is that it is a process that begins at salvation and continues until, or sorry, begins at regeneration.

Let me speak specifically because salvation covers all three of those. So, begins at justification, which also is simultaneous.

Justification or regeneration continues until glorification, okay? So, the spirit and the positional sanctification.

Let's deal with this. Now, this is the idea that we are in a position of being sanctified.

Let's look at 2 Thessalonians 2 .13. But we ought to always give thanks to God for you, brothers, beloved by the

Lord, because God chose you as first fruits to be saved through sanctification by the

Spirit and belief of the truth. And so, what you see here is in applying salvation to the sinner, the

Spirit is seen in the connection with belief. That's your blank there.

Belief in the Word of God, okay? So, applying salvation to the sinner, the

Spirit is seen in connection with the belief of the

Word of God. All right? So, the Holy Spirit is active in applying the Word of God to the belief of believing the

Word of God. All right? That gives us a position of sanctification. Let's look at, we mentioned this earlier, but 1

Peter 1 .2. According to the foreknowledge of God the Father in sanctification, the

Spirit, for obedience through Jesus Christ, for the sprinkling with His blood, may grace and peace be multiplied to you.

So, what you have here is, once again, the Spirit is seen working in conjunction with the

Trinity. And so, the Father plans salvation.

That's your first blank. The Father plans salvation. The Son provides salvation. Your second blank there is provides.

The Son provides salvation through His obedient sacrifice and the Spirit performs, that's your third blank there, performs or applies it by setting the believer apart for God's own possession.

Okay? For God's own possession. Now, what we have here is that, let's look, and I'm doing well.

Some think I can't get through the rest of this and not skip the verses, but I'm trying. So, the

Spirit and progressive sanctification. This is now the, so we're positionally sanctified.

In other words, at the moment we're saved, we're declared sanctified, we're set apart, we're made holy in a positional sense.

But there is this progressive sense where we are continuing to be sanctified.

All right? So, let's look at some verses here. Romans 8, 14. Romans 8, 14. We're going to go through these kind of quickly.

For all who are led by the Spirit are sons of God. So, what we see here in this one is the

Spirit leads. The Spirit leads. That's your blank there, leads. The Spirit leads. Next, we're going to see

Romans 8, 16. We're going quickly. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

So, in here we see the Spirit assures. The Spirit assures. Let's go to 1

John 2 and verse 27. And we see here that the

Spirit teaches. Okay? The Spirit teaches.

Let's take a look at this. But the anointing that you receive from Him abides in you and you have no need that anyone should teach you.

That doesn't mean we don't have teachers. It means that we don't need priests to tell us what

Scripture means. We have the Holy Spirit that will tell us so we can study it on our own and no longer need priests.

But it says, but as His anointing teaches you about everything and is true and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in Him.

So, He teaches. Now, hold on. Before we go to the next one, let's just stop for one second because I do want to address that verse.

So, what that is is, and people think I'm going to go along with it. What that means is that we do have teachers and God does give us, some people, gift of teaching.

And we should have teachers. We should teach, okay? But the issue here is that because I believe something doesn't make it right, if that was true, the

Holy Spirit would be the God of confusion, okay? Because there's so many people that have differing views on things.

So, the argument here is, well, how could everyone have differing views and this verse still be true?

It's because most people are misunderstanding. It means that the Holy Spirit will help us to know truth.

We study, we still have to do this study, but the Spirit is going to help us to understand truth from error.

And now, we may have differences, but it means in the big picture, we can rely on the Holy Spirit to teach us, okay?

All right. John 14, 16, I will ask the

Father and He will give to you another Helper and He will be with you forever. This Helper is called a

Comforter, so the Spirit comforts, okay? The Spirit comforts. Your four blanks there, the

Spirit leads, the Spirit assures, the Spirit teaches, the Spirit comforts. All right, so that's the progressive sanctification.

Let's look at the last view of sanctification. This is called the Spirit and perfected sanctification, perfected sanctification.

This is also called glorification, all right? Glorification, that's your blank there and I mentioned this.

At the moment a believer dies, he immediately completes the sanctification process and receives his glorification and this is called perfected sanctification.

And so, some people get confused and they take this sanctification, this aspect of sanctification. Are we on?

Is it working? Okay, so okay, that was a proof that I could be technically challenged.

Okay, so I got this little device that the batteries died on it. We actually usually put in brand new batteries.

We try to stay green and we use rechargeable ones. I think this was done probably, rechargeables were not fully charged just to make me have to change the battery.

What made it worse was I put the batteries in backwards. Okay, let me put that back on now.

All right, so what we have is clearly

I think someone wants to see if I will go over time because I am doing so well. All right, so help me.

Where did we cut off? Do you know where we lost? Oh, you don't know where we exactly. Okay, I will back up now and just go over the last one.

Romans 8, 16 and 17, by virtue of being a child of God, is that where you think

I should back up a little bit more? Okay, so let me back up. The perfected sanctification is called glorification.

That's your blank there, glorification. At the moment a believer dies, he immediately completes sanctification and receives the glorification.

So don't confuse, as some people do, this perfected sanctification as being something we can live out.

Don't confuse progressive with perfected. Okay, perfected is something future, progressive is something now.

All right, so Romans 8, 16 and 17, by virtue of being a child of God, a believer will gain the same inheritance of Jesus Christ.

We will be glorified just as Jesus Christ was glorified. You notice that? That the argument here, we are a child of God, we have inherited this glorification though we don't receive it yet.

Okay, let's look at the last verse and we will get through this. Thank you.

All right, Romans 8, 28 to 30. And we know that for those who love

God, all these things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom

He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.

And those who are predestined, He also called. And those whom He called, He also justified.

And to those whom He justified, He also glorified. And so what you have here is these verses show the progression of sanctification from beginning to end.

A person is predestined, that's your blank there, predestined because he was called, that's your next blank, he was predestined because he was called.

Once called, he was justified, that's your next blank, justified. The final stage of justification will be that he is glorified.

Your blanks are predestined, called, justified, glorified.

And those show the whole thing. So, what we have here is, when we look at this, is we see the progression leading to the perfection.

And this is all the work of the Holy Spirit. This is what the

Holy Spirit does in saving us. These are His roles. And when it comes to sanctification, there is lots of confusion that people have.

And people confuse it. And when they do, when they confuse these things, this is where we get into problems.

And people start getting into an issue where they start to confuse and start saying that they start teaching you can lose your salvation.

Some will end up teaching that you have to work for your salvation. All of that is typically confusion in this doctrine of sanctification.

And I didn't skip a verse. Some people.

All right, so, a couple of quick announcements. For those who are watching live, one of the announcements that was mentioned earlier,

I will be doing an interview on G220, dealing with the

UConn professor that lashed out at the preaching. So, that's going to be immediately following this class.

That show actually already started. But they know that I'm going to be jumping in a little late. If you have any questions, next week we will start dealing with Calvinism versus Arminianism.

So, we will deal with that. If you have any questions, you can email us at academyatstrivingforeternity .org.

Remember that we have a store, so we can sell all of our products and you can buy them and help us.

And so, OhioFire, ohiofire .org, it is coming around the corner.

It is less than a month away. It is scaring me. I got to get my message done. But register for that, ohiofire .org.

Please, we don't have enough people registered. We want to get that going. So, please call, register for that.

And we are looking to try to really do a lot with that. I'll just mention also

JerseyFire, that's coming real quick, jerseyfire .org. Because we do want to try to end class on time, because I do have an interview to get to, let us real quick, the brother of encouragement is someone

I just recently got to know. He's on Facebook. And so, you'll have to get to know him through Facebook.

But his brother Cody May. Cody is the brother who put us up this week when we stayed up in Connecticut as we traveled to the different universities on the

Ivy League tour. We stayed at brother Cody's house. If you go to our YouTube channel, you'll see an interview where we actually talk with Cody, so you can get to see his face and hear him talk.

He had a great dialogue with a Catholic person, had a great way of dealing with constant instantiation, just really neat.

And so, someone's saying the fire events are near airports. We're in Columbus. Ohio Fire is in Columbus.

It's right by the Columbus airport. Okay, you're trying to distract me. Okay, 27 seconds. We're going to end on time.

So, real quick, I'm being told it's too late. No, the outro doesn't count.

Brother Cody May is a sweet brother of the Lord, very active in abortion, in preaching against abortion ministry.

Want to encourage you to encourage Cody. He's a great brother. He has three beautiful children that he adopted from Ethiopia.

He has two more he's trying to adopt from Congo, and I'm being told I just went over by seconds.

Only six seconds. All right, but encourage brother Cody May this week. He's a sweet, sweet brother.

I love this guy. He's a guy I will be trying to build a better relationship with, so encourage him this week.