Equipping Eve: Hopeology

Is the church today doing everything it can to provide women a firm foundation of truth in Christ Jesus? Well, it's true. There's no shortage of candy-coated Bible studies, potluck fellowships available to ladies, but beyond Sunday morning, are Christian women being properly equipped to stand against the same deceptions that even enticed Eve in the garden?

In an attempt to address the need for trustworthy Biblical resources for women No Compromise Radio is happy to introduce Equipping Eve, a ladies-only radio show that seeks to equip women with fruits of truth in an age that's ripe with deception.

My name is Mike Ebendroth and I'm pleased to introduce your host Erin Benzinger, a friend of No Compromise Radio and a woman who wants to see other women equipped with a love for and a knowledge of the truth of God's Word.

The Word of God as a Firm Foundation

Hello ladies and welcome to Equipping Eve, the show that seeks to equip you with fruits of truth from God's words. So we can stand strong and firm on that word in an age of deception. I know I just repeated the tagline, but it's important for us to remember not because it's the Equipping Eve tagline but because we need to remember that we have a strong and sure foundation in the Word of God.

And why is it so strong and sure? Because the Word of God is God's Word, right? At the risk of sounding simplistic, it is God's Word. God is the author of that Word. The 66 books of the Bible used human authors, but it is His Word, inspired, infallible, without error.

And the best part, that Word reveals to us the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is why we can stand strong and firm on it. That is why that foundation does not waver. How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in His excellent Word.

What more can He say than to you He hath said, to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled? That's one of my favorite hymns because I love that first verse. We have a firm foundation in the Word of God, the Bible, and that is why at Equipping Eve we like to talk about the Bible and about the person who is revealed to us in the Bible.

That is Jesus Christ. God the Father, God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Holy Spirit, the triune God. Three persons, one God, revealed to us in Scripture. Also in Scripture, we see how it is that we can obtain salvation and that is through repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, both of which are a gift from God Himself.

Check out Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 for that. My name is Erin Benziger. I am the host here of Equipping Eve, but you know, we like to mix it up a little bit with the occasional interview or two. Hopefully, we'll be doing more of those in the future.

I think I have some of the technological pieces worked out, so it's certainly not perfect. We're very low budget, not fancy here at all, and that's okay. I'm not saying that so you send money. I really am not because there's no room on my desk to get any fancier.

So we just kind of work with what we have. I just work with what I have and when I say we, of course, I'm referring to the producer of Equipping Eve. If you go to the website EquippingEve .com, you can see a picture of our producer, Charlie the Cat, and he's actually here in the studio with me today, and by studio, I mean my home office.

So anyway, and that's how fancy we are here at Equipping Eve. We have a computer and a cat, and you know what? It works. It's fine. You can give me some fancy equipment, but at the end of the day, the show is still going to be the same.

Maybe the audio will be a little better, but it's not too bad, so we'll go with it. Okay, that was a complete tangent. That made no sense. Sorry about that. Anyway, so as I record this, we're coming up on Valentine's Day.

Now, I understand this is airing after Valentine's Day. If I've done my calculations correctly, and that's okay because, you know, every day is Valentine's Day. Not really. So, but I just had to Google Jesus and Valentines because oddly enough, I went to ChristianBook .com and there were not Valentine things splattered all over the front page, so that's kind of odd.

So kudos, Christian Book. But you know that somebody somewhere has completely distorted and twisted Valentines and Jesus and mushed them together and made it awful. And so I just Googled like Valentine Jesus or Jesus Valentine.

I don't even remember what it was. And of course, up pops articles such as, 10 Reasons Jesus is Always Your Valentine. Yes, or here at CBN .com, A Valentine's Letter to Jesus. Which was written by a man with a PhD.

I don't understand that. That's, I mean, this is evidence of why letters after your name don't necessarily mean anything. And to be frank, I have seen evidence of that in multiple areas of life. But anyway, that's a whole other story.

So don't feel bad if you don't have an advanced degree in whatever. I mean, people have PhDs in fairy tales, so they may have a PhD after their name, but they're not smarter than you. And even if they are, who cares?

Because anybody who writes an article that says, A Valentine's Letter to Jesus is... I'm not going to say not smart, but not interpreting scripture and understanding our relationship with Christ correctly.

And so without reading all of these, the thing is, you know, Jesus is not our Valentine. Valentine, you think of, you know, this romantic love. So guess what? Jesus is not my boyfriend. Nor is he yours.

For which we're all very thankful, because that's just icky. And you know, to portray Jesus as such is a twisting of the scripture. A lot of people will take Son of Solomon and do that, and it's just, it's inappropriate.

You know, there are other authors who try to get to your emotions and make things very touchy-feely and present Jesus as a romantic figure almost, whether they're doing it intentionally or not. And I can think of one popular writer, Ann Voskamp, has done this in some of her works.

And it's, it's icky. For lack of a more professional sounding word, it's just inappropriate. You know, Jesus is our friend. Jesus is our brother. If we have been saved, but more than that, he is our Savior.

He is our Redeemer, right? He is our Lord. He is King. And that doesn't mean that he's out of reach, and he's just high and lofty. He is high and lofty, but he's also personal. But he's not, you don't go on a date with Jesus.

I'm sorry, if you think you do, you need to read your Bible more and listen to the flutters in your heart less. You might need medication if you have that. So that's not the main purpose of the show today.

I just happened to Google it. And so, you know, so this man with a PhD has written a Valentine letter to Jesus based on Mystic Thomas Akempis. So there you go. That's a problem. So that's at CBN .com.

Don't look that up. Ten reasons Jesus is always your Valentine. Yeah. These are not not great. This is at BeliefNet. And so they pull verses out of context, and then that's why Jesus is your Valentine.

So, and you know, the purpose of that particular article is like, you know, if you're single, don't, it's cool, like don't fret. You know, don't twist Jesus into your Valentine for people who are single who don't want to be single.

That's just not helpful. So, yeah, Jesus is not your Valentine. There. I said it. You can make a sound bite out of that. Jesus is not your Valentine. So, let's talk about hope, please. Can we? Let's talk about hope.

The Christian Hope in Christ Rather Than Earthly Circumstances

John MacArthur has said that life without hope is bleak, and I found a great sermon from John MacArthur entitled, A Theology of Hope, and he uses the word Hopology in here, which I kind of loved. So maybe that'll be the title of the show.

I don't know. You'll know when you're listening to it, but that he wanted to give, he wanted to teach his people a little Hopology in the sermon, and I kind of like that, so we're gonna go with it, Hopology.

But think about it. Think about where you place your hope. If all we have to place our hope in is what's here in front of us on this earth, then our outlook will be bleak, right? As MacArthur said, life without hope is bleak, and realistically, people who are without Christ, who are unsaved, their life is bleak.

They might have hope in, you know, the next big thing, like the next weekend. Maybe that's all they have to look forward to. Sometimes I feel like that's all I have to look forward to, but that's okay.

You know, because there's a greater hope for me, but if you don't have Christ, then, you know, your hope is the next Saturday, or the next promotion, or the new house, or going to White Castle on Valentine's Day.

I don't know. You know, so how depressing is that? If our hope is just in what's here on this earth, look at how fallen this earth is. We have sickness. We have murder. We have war. We have just junk, just general junk.

Nothing is easy anymore. I don't, maybe I'm the only one who experiences this, but you can't just go run an errand and get it done, and you can't do it and deal with cordial people. I don't even need people to be particularly friendly, but they're not even particularly cordial anymore, and it's just, it's just a bleak place to be, this earth, in spite of all the goodness that God has given us to enjoy here in this life and on this earth.

I think it's still really eleven. I think it's still really evident. Did I just say eleven? That's not even a word. It's evident to those who belong to Christ that he is kind of pulling our fingers off of this world, isn't he?

And maybe, maybe if you have children or grandchildren, you don't feel that quite as much, but I certainly feel it. I certainly see it, and I speak with many other brothers and sisters in Christ who feel it as well.

We enjoy things on this earth that God has been good and gracious to give us, but at the end of the day, we just long for our eternal hope, right? I mean, if this is our best life now, Joel Osteen, then somebody give me a bottle of Xanax, because what, what do you have to look forward to?

You know, getting old and having more health issues and less money to pay for them, and you know, working until you're 85 before you can finally retire. I mean, what? This is not what there is to look forward to at the end of the day.

If this is my best life ever, then I want to make it an exchange, and but the good news is that for us Christians, we have a greater hope. All of us were at one time as many are in the world today without hope.

Turn with me, ladies, to Ephesians. Can you hear my Bible turning? I'm turning with you. Reminder, I use the NASB. When I read to you, unless otherwise noted, I typically use the NASB. So turn with me to Ephesians 2, verse 11.

Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by the so-called circumcision, which is performed in the flesh by human hands, remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

At one time, we were separate from Christ, having no hope without God in this world. That is a depressing place to be, but that describes all of us before we came to Christ, right? And therefore describes all of those who are currently without Christ.

But this is why we keep reading. This is why we always read scripture in context. Verse 13, Ephesians 2, 13,. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were formerly far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

For he himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, etc. etc. And then it goes on to talk about how Christ has reconciled Jew and Gentile. But those of us in Christ have been brought near by his blood.

That's not the literal blood coursing through his veins having efficacious effect, but this is the death of Christ that has reconciled us to God, that redeemed us and has reconciled us to God the Father.

What good news this is! This is the gospel. Those who were far off have now been brought near by the blood of Christ. You know, it's easy for us, and we've talked about this before, to lose sight of Christ when we're in the midst of trials or difficulties, and it's even it's easy for us to lose sight of Christ when we're in the middle of a good time, you know, when things are going well, or maybe even just status quo.

Maybe that's the best you can hope for, and that's okay, you know. But we can lose sight of Christ even then because we become complacent. And when we're in the midst of trials, we allow our circumstances to cloud our view of Christ, but we have to remember where our hope lies, and that is in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thomas Manton has written,. How does your heart work on God's promises in difficult cases? When we judge by sense, reason, and outward probabilities, we are driven to our wit's end. But faith lives above sense and will be a support and strength to your soul.

In such cases, reason and faith are in competition. How do the workings of your spirit incline you to reason or to faith? Faith can trust God's Word in the midst of difficulties when sense sees nothing but hazards and sorrows.

Faith holds to the promise against all hazards and rests on God whatever we may feel to the contrary. Hope that hangs on the creature, when the creature fails, they fail. When bread and outward supplies are gone, they are lost and undone, but the children of God have built upon a promise.

When God tests them with troubles, they are able to depend upon the Lord. A believer can say yes to a promise when all the world says no. Promises say yes to our hopes and amen to our desires. Under great difficulties, promises hold their note.

If you desire a thing according to the will of God, Amen, says the promise, so it shall be. May I hope for such a mercy or comfort? Yes, says the promise. You ask of creatures by all appearances. May I look for good?

No, one answers, but the promise says yes. Believers are content with the promises. Yay, though all the world says no way. Christians, for your comfort, you only need the affirmation of the promise. Can you with certainty depend upon the promises and with a calm expectation wait for the blessing in the midst of all pressures whatsoever?

Carnal men limit God, but faith enables Christians to commit their souls and affairs to God. He is faithful and mindful of them. He has the power to help them and this quiets and calms their souls under all providences.

Our hope is not in our current circumstances or in men or in the creature, the creation. If it were, we'd all be pretty depressed. Our hope is in God and in his promises. And our faith rests in him. Turn with me, ladies, to Romans 8.

The Hope of Salvation and the Redemption of Our Bodies

Romans 8 verse 23. Are you there? Okay. Romans 8 verse 23. Now we'll go to 22. For we know that the whole creature groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.

For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. We know what it is to groan, don't we?

Christian ladies, we are the only people in the world who have true hope. True hope is in Christ. You know, and this is then one of the most obvious reasons why we should not be silent. You hear people say, well, my faith is very personal.

Me, I believe in Jesus, but my faith is personal, so I don't talk about it. Why? You have hope. You have the knowledge of the only way to salvation. You have knowledge of the only way to have true, lasting hope that will be realized for eternity.

Why would you keep that to yourself? That doesn't even make sense. What these verses and Romans are telling us is that the greatness of what awaits us as part of our salvation, it's not yet realized. So God has given us good things here.

He's given us the fellowship of our brothers and sisters. He's given us, I pray, he's given you a pastor who rightly and faithfully exposits the Word of God, and that he's brought other sisters in Christ into your life that can build you up and encourage you and pray for you and are there to cry with you when you need to cry, are there to rebuke you in your sin and encourage you whether things are going well or things are not going well.

Those are all gifts from the Lord. In addition to the temporal passing gifts that he gives us, our homes, our families, our friends, our cars, our jobs, our food, we have an even greater hope. The greatness of all that awaits us in Christ, read the first chapter of Ephesians, is still yet to be realized.

In 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, chapter 5 verse 8, Paul writes,. Since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. We have been redeemed, but we still fight against our fallen flesh, and one day we will be glorified.

Redemption of our body will be complete. We will be like Christ. We won't be deity, of course, but we will be like him one day. That is a great and glorious eternal hope for the Christian. Turn ladies to 1 Corinthians 13 verse 12,.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have also been fully known. But now faith, hope, love abide these three, but the greatest of these is love.

So now we we see in a mirror dimly, but one day we will know fully. One day we will be like Christ. We will be with him forever, and we long for that day. We long for that day when we will not just be like him, but be with him.

Christ's Promise to Prepare a Place and Return for His People

Think about it. When Christ was preparing for his crucifixion, he offered his disciples words of hope. Turn back to John 14. What were the words of hope that Jesus offered to his disciples for comfort?

Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you. For I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

And you know the way where I am going. Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going. How do we know the way? Jesus said, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me.

If I go and prepare a place for you, he said, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And friend, that is also a promise for us. We know that when we are absent from the body, we will be present with the Lord.

And oh, what a day that will be. Because then, then will be the full realization of our hope. When we are with the Lord. And so what do we long for? We don't just long to be with the Lord so that we can get away from this world.

No, that's not it. We have a mission down here, right? We have a mission to proclaim the gospel, to proclaim Jesus Christ wherever we are. So don't shirk that at the risk of using the phrase being too heavenly minded to be any earthly good.

If we are heavenly minded, then we will desire to do what the Lord has called us to do here on this earth and not just proclaim his son, salvation through his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. So this whole don't be too heavenly minded to do any earthly good is a misnomer.

And just don't ever use that phrase because it's ridiculous. So there you go. Um, we must be heavenly minded in order to do earthly good, right? Because our focus and our hope lies in Christ who is in heaven.

I feel like I need to say this. Duh. That's for those people who use that phrase. Duh. We must be heavenly minded to do any earthly good for the kingdom of the Lord. So yes, we can look forward and long for that day when we will be with Christ.

There will be no more sin, no more sickness, no more death. He will wipe away every tear from our eyes. But we don't just long for that to get away from the stuff down here. I mean, let's face it. We all, that's, that's part of it because the stuff down here is just, sometimes it's very, very heavy.

But that's not our sole purpose in resting our hope in that. Hope is in that because that's the most glorious promise of the Lord. And we see in the Bible that Christ promises that he will bring us to be with him.

And we see more than that. We see that Christ will return one day. Christ will return. Turn to Titus chapter two, verse 13. Titus chapter two, verse 13, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ the Lord.

Jesus, who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds. We are looking for the blessed hope, which is the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

GotQuestions .org says about this verse that Titus 2, 12 -13 says that the grace of God teaches us to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age while we wait for the blessed hope.

The appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior. This passage identifies the blessed hope as the glorious appearing of Jesus Christ, our great God and Savior. The word hope does not communicate uncertainty as in, I hope something might occur, but it's the glad assurance that something will take place.

Jesus is our hope and no one can take that away. Hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us, Romans 5, 5. The blessed hope is the joyful assurance that God will extend his benefits to us and that Jesus Christ will return.

We wait for this event now. Jesus said he would return. I just read that to you. The angel said he would return in Acts chapter 1. The epistles say he will return. He could come back any time for his church, for the rapture of the church.

I know I just lost a bunch of listeners right there. And we aren't going to go into detail on that, but this is the blessed hope of the Christian. Christ will return for his church. This GotQuestions article goes on and says, should this blessed hope of Christ's anytime return have an effect on the believer?

John wrote, all who have this hope in him purify themselves just as Jesus is pure. The believer anticipating Christ's blessed return will seek to live in the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit a life of purity.

We will all stand before the Lord and give an account of how we lived for him on earth. Jesus' imminent return should motivate the believer to live godly in an ungodly world. And then let me add to that not just about you behaving well, which of course we live in a manner worthy of the calling with which we have been called, but you living in such a way that you are acting on the mission that Christ has given you to proclaim his salvation through him to all people.

And we live in anticipation of Christ's return, in anticipation that we will be with him one day, whether through death, rapture, whatever, that we will be with him forever. About these verses in Titus chapter 2, John Calvin writes, that is why Paul speaks particularly here of hope.

What he suggests is that we should not be surprised if men are more than cool when it comes to serving God. That is because their eyes are fixed on earthly things, which are their sole concern. Instead of contemplating the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, we turn away.

The world holds us in its thrall, dazzles us with its seductions, and robs us of all sense. Let us learn then that the one true way to serve God is to pass swiftly through this world, conscious that God has placed us on earth on the condition that we journey as strangers and do not make our nest here.

And although he may grant us periods of rest, we must continue on as we look to him and to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is certain that until we reach that goal, however grand we may appear to be, all within us is simply vanity.

I think that is a good way of looking at it, that we pass through this world swiftly with our eyes fixed on Christ so that we are faithful to our calling. Again on these verses here in Titus chapter 2, Charles Spurgeon says,.

One work of the grace of God is to cause us to be looking forward to the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. What is that blessed hope? Why, first, that when he comes, we shall rise from the dead.

If we have fallen asleep, and that if we are alive and remain, we shall all be changed by his appearing. Our hope is that we shall be approved by him and shall hear him say, Well done, good and faithful slave.

This hope is not of debt, but of grace. Oh, I love that. This hope is not of debt, but of grace. Though our Lord will give us a reward, it will not be according to the law of works. We expect to be like Jesus when we will see him just as he is, 1 John 3, 2.

When Jesus shines forth as a sun, then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father, Matthew 13, 43. Our gain by godliness cannot be counted down into the palm of our hand. It lies in the glorious future.

And yet to faith it is so near that at this moment I almost hear the chariot of the coming one. The Lord is coming, and in the coming of the Lord lies the great hope of the believer, his great stimulus to overcome evil, his main incentive to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord.

Amen and amen. Christians live looking for the blessed hope. Do we not long to be present with the Lord, whether by death or his return? We know that a glorious eternity awaits us with him, and that is why we want to tell others so that they have that same eternity awaiting them instead of an eternity of damnation.

We live looking. We live with hope, and we live with joy because of our Savior. Just to close here, ladies, some words from John MacArthur. MacArthur has said, quote, Our hope realizes its fullness at the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus, the one who gave himself for us, the one who redeemed us from every lawless deed, will purify for himself a people for his own possession in the purest sense possible.

This is our hope. What an amazing reality it is at the very heart of our Christian faith. The hope that is ours in Jesus Christ, the hope that encompasses so many things, the hope that he will care for us while we're here on this earth, the hope that he is, it's the knowledge that he's interceding for us even now, the hope that he will return for us, the hope that we will be with him forever, that we will be like him.

All of those things are at the heart of our Christian faith because our hope lies in the person of Jesus Christ, the Savior, the Redeemer, the Lord, the King, our friend, brother. Jesus Christ is our hope.

And ladies, I hope, I hope that Jesus Christ is your hope. I hope, I pray that your hope rests in him. Okay, ladies, until the next episode, get in your Bibles. That's where you can find out more about this blessed Redeemer and the hope that is ours in him.

Get on your knees. Put your trust in him for all things. Get equipped. Thanks for listening.

Closing Reprise and Program Sign-Off

Is the church today doing everything it can to provide women a firm foundation of truth in Christ Jesus? Well, it's true. There's no shortage of candy-coated Bible studies, potluck fellowships available to ladies.

But beyond Sunday morning, are Christian women being properly equipped to stand against the same deceptions that even enticed Eve in the garden? In an attempt to address the need for trustworthy biblical resources for women, No Compromise Radio is happy to introduce Equipping Eve, a ladies-only radio show that seeks to equip women with fruits of truth in an age that's ripe with deception.

My name is Mike Abendroth, and I'm pleased to introduce your host, Erin Benzinger, a friend of No Compromise Radio and a woman who wants to see other women equipped with a love for and a knowledge of the truth of God's word.