July 18, 2018 Show with Camille Cates on “First Love: Embracing a Love that Lasts” AND “The Fight of Your Life: Living for God’s Glory”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister

George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arnton. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 18th day of July 2018, and I'm so delighted to have on the program today for the very first time,

Camille Cates, and she is a certified biblical counselor through ACBC, which stands for the

Association of Certified Biblical Counselors. She is a 20 -year veteran of youth ministry who brings her knowledge and experience of life with teenagers to audiences and readers alike, and she's now serving as the assistant director of a ministry called

Healing Hearts. Today, during the first hour, we are going to address her book,

First Love, Embracing a Love That Lasts, and during the second hour, God willing, we'll be addressing a new book,

The Fight of Your Life, Living for God's Glory, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Camille Cates.

Hi Chris, thank you so much for having me today. Oh, it's my pleasure, Camille, and if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

That's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Well, before we go into your own personal testimony of salvation,

Camille, which is something that we do here regularly on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio with first -time guests, before we get to the actual subject that we intend to speak on, we have our first -time guests give a testimony of their salvation, but before we do that, please tell our listeners something about Healing Hearts.

Oh, great. Healing Hearts Ministries celebrates 30 years this year.

We've been around as a biblical counseling ministry since then. The ministry originally started out in Washington State as a post -abortion trauma ministry, and over the years, the

Lord has tailored and tweaked things in our ministry to really become a discipleship ministry.

So we typically do discipleship and biblical counseling on some of the more traumatic life issues.

Post -abortion trauma is one of those. We counsel a lot of people who have abused in their past, specifically sexually abused, but we counsel on a lot of different issues, using

God's Word because God's Word is sufficient for healing, and our true source of healing is in Christ and Christ alone, and He's given us

His Word to do that, and so we're passionate about getting people into God's Word to see that He really does have real answers for real life.

Amen. Well, we will be, God willing, repeating this later, but the website for Healing Hearts is

HealingHearts .org. You can't get easier than that to remember. HealingHearts .org.

Now, if you could, as we do with our first -time guests, as I just mentioned, tell us something about the religious background of your upbringing, if any, and tell us what providential circumstances our

Sovereign Lord brought about in your life that drew you to Himself and then eventually saved you.

Sure. Well, I grew up in the church. I am from Texas originally, and my parents were very involved in our church growing up.

My parents served primarily my mom in our weekday preschool ministry at church, so I tell people a lot of times

I was one of those kids who was up there literally every time the doors were open, sometimes even during the weekday hanging out as my mom was doing things with the preschool.

So I grew up having very much a flannelgram storybook gospel presented to me, and my first understanding of the

Bible was that it was full of all of these superheroes, and it wasn't until later on where I became saved and grew in my faith to really understand that a lot of the people in the

Bible, the majority of them, were real people with real issues and sin struggles, and to see how the gospel met that later in life was really cool.

But when I was growing up, I just had a basic understanding.

You know, I heard about Jesus, but it wasn't until I went to youth camp at age 12 that the gospel really hit my heart.

And when I say that, my understanding of the gospel at age 12 was that I was a sinner, even though, you know, by most people's standards

I hadn't committed any heinous sins. I understood that God was holy, and I was a sinner.

I had disobeyed my parents. I had done various things that were against God's nature, and I deserved wrath and hell.

But in that preaching at age 12 at that youth camp, I heard that God had sent

His Son to die on the cross for my sins, and it's that personalization that I knew that the

Lord had saved me. And I remember going forward, and a lot of people talk about just sometimes a false conversion of just walking an aisle and praying a prayer, but when

I had gone and prayed and really believed

I received the Lord and received the gospel and confessed my need for Him, when

I went back and sat down, I just remember having a heart to worship Him, and that I loved

Him, and that I loved that He was willing to do that for me. But I think

I suffered from a lot of things that church kids do, and one of those being that I went home from that church camp high in this great salvation experience to not really know what to do with Jesus after that.

So I didn't have a whole lot of deep conversations with my parents. I didn't feel like I was getting much discipleship.

I was still in church, so I was hearing scripture, and I was hearing things that were true, but there was a lot of application, personal application that was missing.

And so I kind of say I really struggled not being discipled afterwards. So by the time

I got into my teen years and just seeing the world and the culture around me,

I didn't know how to discern any difference in the way. I just knew like there are certain things

I shouldn't do, but I didn't really understand why or ever learn kind of the things to do to grow in Christ.

And so I just kind of had a lot of head knowledge about the

Lord and about how Christians were supposed to live life. So when

I got into high school, I always tell people I was really boy crazy. From the time

I was little, I got caught kissing a boy in my preschool class.

I was four. Because my mom was the preschool teacher.

So my mom saw it coming. But here

I was, and I think that's why the Lord has later used it to help me be so passionate for teenagers.

I didn't understand how to have a godly relationship. You know, when you're coming into young adulthood, marriage is good.

And having a desire to be married and be with somebody from the opposite sex is a good desire, but it can go awry if you don't have a good foundation.

And so that boy craziness led me to being sexually active in high school and just kind of navigating some of those deep waters on my own.

And I gave in to that sexual pressure and became pregnant at age 16. And so at the time,

I wasn't sure what I was going to do. But my mom had found out, and she came to me, and she said,

Camille, do you want to have an abortion? And it shocked me, because I knew having sex outside of marriage was wrong, and I kind of blowed past that rule.

But then I was like, but I know abortion's really wrong. Like, you know, in my mind, I was having these kind of measurements of sin.

And your mom, on top of that, was a professing believer in Christ, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I, you know, again, I think part of my passion for discipleship is

I don't know how much my parents were really discipled to really live out the

Christian faith and what that means. And so, you know, their limited discipleship, you know, carried over,

I think, into my life. And so we didn't have a good, solid theology in our family of life and the issues of life and life in the womb.

So I just, you know, and I'm sure it was young and just selfishness at the time, but I just responded to my mom, and I said, no, you know,

I want to keep this baby. This is my baby. And I always kind of felt like a statistic, because the young man who

I had become pregnant by was long gone, didn't want anything to do with us. But my parents were really, really displayed the grace of God in saying, you know, we will love you, we will love your baby, we will support you, we will help you.

And so I'm thankful, you know, that they, their belief in Christ led them to be supportive when

I made the choice for life. So my mom was really instrumental in pushing me to education.

I graduated a year early from high school. I started college two days out, excuse me, two weeks after my daughter was born.

And they were, you know, life was just kind of going along, but there was a time where I stepped out of church during my pregnancy, and I really have a heart for young people that feel like the church doesn't have open arms for them, because that was what

I thought. Nobody told me that. Nobody said, we don't want you here, you're pregnant, you've disgraced us.

But I felt that in my sin and in letting shame cover me instead of God's grace.

And so one day, there, our music minister's wife, who worked with a lot of the younger college students, she came over to my house, and she said,

Camille, where are you? We want you to be at church. We love you. We want to support you.

We want to help. And so that was all it took to get me back into church.

And so, you know, even during my pregnancy, I'd gotten back into church, but it was such a works mentality.

I just kind of thought, well, okay, now I've got to sit up straight and fly right. You know, I've got a second chance to do this over again.

And even though I was saved by grace, I was kind of going back to a works mentality, but the discipleship still wasn't there.

And now I had a daughter and was looking for a relationship.

I wanted to have a family. And that's not a bad desire. It's a good desire.

It's a God -honoring desire. But I didn't know how to seek out a godly young man or to be working on who

I was as a young mom in Christ during that time. So I just kind of floated in and out of other relationships.

I found another relationship to get into and became sexually active again and became pregnant again.

And at that time, my theology was really rocked.

I started questioning things in my mind based on my circumstance, instead of based on the truth, the unchanging truth and authority of God's Word.

And so, you know, we had considered at that time having an abortion, but we never really got to that decision together.

The young man and I had become engaged. We were thinking about getting married. He seemed to be really good with my daughter.

And then one night while I was working one of my part -time jobs, I was going to college full -time, working two part -time jobs.

At one of my workplaces, my mom came up in the middle of my shift and she said, Camille, you've got to come to the hospital.

Something's happened to Lauren, my daughter. And we found out through the course of the evening that my boyfriend, while he was watching her, had sexually assaulted her and shaken her to death.

And so, obviously, that rocked my foundation again.

And, you know, suffering is a hard thing.

And when we have an inch deep knowledge of God and who

He is, when we get into those deep waters of suffering, we are tossed to and fro in those waves.

And, you know, I started in my mind just kind of with my own worldview and my own thinking of, okay,

God, how could you let this happen? And not really understanding

His sovereignty over situations, even sin and suffering, and that He still had a plan for the life, you know, inside of me.

But anyway, my parents had found out that I was pregnant by this young man.

The young man was incarcerated. And so that relationship was over. I had lost my daughter.

I was grieving. We buried her. And four days later, my parents were encouraging me to get an abortion.

And so four days later, I hopped on a plane to flew to Dallas, Texas, away from my hometown, and I had an abortion.

And as a Christian young woman, and a lot of people struggle with that, you know, how can a

Christian make a simple decision like that? But when you don't have that biblical foundation and view of life, and you have

God's sovereignty over your own life, you will take your life into your own hands and make your own choices and decisions.

And so at the time, I thought, you know, God was somehow going to make it all okay.

And my life just spiraled downward after that, probably for a couple of years.

And I was coping, you know, getting along through life by what

I call self -medicating. So I was really just kind of going off the deep end into drugs and alcohol and, you know, just to encourage even parents that are listening, and maybe they have a wayward child that, you know, they're seeing those same things, not to stop praying for them, keep praying for them, and keep encouraging them with the truth of God's Word when you can.

And the Lord was really gracious to me and helped me bring me to the end of myself.

And I had moved off to Dallas for a while to try and kind of just get away from my hometown and the memories and the pain and everything that had gone there, the friends that I had been getting in trouble with.

And I just found out, you know, when you move off to a different place, especially a bigger city, there's the same kind of stuff and only more of it.

So the Lord really helped me get sick of that lifestyle after a while, and I went home.

And just about the same time that a godly young man that I had grown up with in church had graduated from seminary and had moved back home after graduation looking for his first church to serve in as a youth pastor.

And we reconnected and started hanging out, and he shared with me one night that he had feelings for me, good godly feelings.

And I just thought, well, he knows about my daughter. We grew up in church together. He knows all of that has happened, but he doesn't know about my abortion.

And if he knew, you know, there's no way. And I think he sensed my hesitation, and he looked me in the eyes, and he said,

Camille, he goes, I know about your abortion, and I love you anyway. And I would say it kind of freaked me out, because here he was just confronting me with something that I didn't know anybody really knew.

And I think all I said was, okay, I gotta go. And I left. And I just remember the

Lord impressing upon my heart on the way home a renewed truth of the gospel.

And, you know, what was reverberating in my heart was, you know, this young man who's a youth pastor, and he's lived sexually pure, and he's headed into ministry.

You know, he knows about your past, and he loves you, and he wants to be with you anyway.

Well, God is holy, and he's just, and he's perfect, and he's righteous, and he knows that we're sinners.

He knows each and every sin, but he loves us, and he sent his Son because he wants to be with us anyway.

And that was a real turning point in my spiritual walk with the Lord. The Lord used this young man who eventually became my husband.

We'll have been married 23 years this August, and he really used my husband to help disciple me, what

I felt like for the first time in my life. So we got married, and we dove into youth ministry, and that's pretty much my testimony, the spiritual walk that God brought me through, and at the point, you know, where he brought me into ministry and serving him in that capacity.

Now if you could, just because of the fact that there are no doubt in the providence of God going to be some young ladies who are going to be confronted with the same question who will hear this program.

I am just very convinced of it. Obviously, I'm not a prophet, but I'm pretty certain with the size of my listening audience and knowing of the sovereignty of God, I believe that he's going to place this within the ears of women and young ladies and girls who are confronted with the question, do you want to have an abortion?

I would like you, if you don't mind, for just a little bit to let our listeners know, what were the reasons that your parents who professed to be

Christians were even coming to that point of asking you that and perhaps even giving you reasons why you should do that, which is obviously to many of our listeners stunning for professing

Bible -believing evangelical Christians to not only once, but on a second occasion, ask you if you'd like to do that.

What would be the reasons why someone, especially coming from a professedly

Christian background, what would be the reasons that they would be asking you that question? I think for anybody, whether it's the young woman or the young couple or family members around them,

I think it's a couple of things typically, and one of them is fear, and fear of what life is going to look like, fear of hardship, that it's not going to be easy, it would seem easier to end the pregnancy, end the life, and move forward with yours, but there's consequences, and there's things that come with that afterwards that are even more devastating, because God created life, and if He is the one who created the life and the womb,

He's the one who is going to help us continue to nurture and raise that life if we look to Him.

So I think fear was what was driving, my parents were fearful of my future, that what that would look like, the unknown, not being able to see their way around what this would look like.

Now, in regard to the fact of who the father, the biological father of the child was, or I'm not really sure what, because if they were committed to help you raise the child and so on, a fear of what others would think of you, especially perhaps in the

Christian community, being... Yeah, I think that's another fear of, you know, your reputation, and you know, there's shame that comes with sin, and so a lot of times our human response is, well, we'll just sin again to cover up, you know, and to hide that, so I think that was a temptation.

But, you know, I just think it was a lot of mixed emotions, but I would say fear is one. I think pride,

I think, was the other one that I wanted to mention, that we, you know, we want to do what seems best for us, and if that's...

And of course the very key word is what seems best for you at the time.

Right, right, and we just, we don't know, we don't know what our life is going to look like, and we think that, you know, whether it's, you know, pride being the root issue of the heart or fear, that we think that we can control things and, you know, guarantee that our life is going to turn out a certain way, and God is the only one that is really sovereignly in control, and so yeah, you know, we talk about a lot of times in the

Healing Hearts Bible study for post -abortion, we talk about idolatry, and there's a section where we work through, you know, what did we basically choose to sacrifice our children for, and you'll see that.

You'll see child sacrifice in the Bible, so it's not, there's nothing new under the sun. This has been going on for a long time, and I would say even back then, the root is probably still fear and pride, and thinking that we can control how our lives look, and disregarding an unborn life for that, and so that was kind of,

I think, where we were in all of that, and it's complicated, and a lot of times when

I'm counseling with people, you know, there are concerns that are godly concerns.

They're valid concerns, but when we let that turn into fear, we feel like we've got to do something to control and manipulate the situation instead of taking our concern, casting all our cares upon the

Lord because He cares for us, so I would say there were probably some valid concerns for my life, but looking to the

Lord for wisdom, asking Him how to help guide those future decisions and what they would look like, and our lives would have been a much better route to go, would have been honoring to Him, so I wish that's what we would have chosen.

I look back, I wish I would have chosen adoption for both of those babies, especially now knowing

God's heart for adoption and how He adopts us into His family through Christ, that it's a gift, but, you know,

I think even selfishness and fear were at the heart of keeping me from adoption, so I guess if there was a young woman listening today,

I would encourage them to lay down their fear and put their faith in the

Lord, to seek Him, to lay themselves low, not seek self or pride, but just to trust in the

Lord that He's got a plan for the life that they weren't expecting, but that God knew and God created, so.

And just out of curiosity, have your parents, or had they, reached a point, just as you have, where they realized the advice or even asking the question of having an abortion was really a horribly wicked sin, and is it something that they ever came to realize that they were very seriously guilty of something horribly wrong?

You know, that's a good question.

You know, I never know, as far as what's been expressed. I don't know where their hearts are necessarily before the

Lord. So, yeah, that's a tough question to answer.

You know, I'm not sure, a lot of the, it doesn't often come up in conversation,

I think, which would signify that there's still some hurt and guilt and shame covering that.

You know, God's Word says that His kindness leads us to repentance. And, you know, as much as I hope

I've reflected that to loved ones around me, they need to see the

Lord's kindness to bring them to repentance for that. I haven't seen a lot of evidence of that yet, but the

Lord is always still able to do that work. And this young man who molested your child and killed it by shaking the child, how young was the child?

She was almost a year old, right at a year old. So is he still incarcerated?

Yes, he is. Yeah, he is. And I'm so thankful to the

Lord for His Word, and He had brought me to a place before this.

But one thing that I love about our Healing Hearts Bible studies is that we work through anger was one thing that I needed to work through in understanding that there is such a thing as righteous anger, that we can be angry over people's sin, but making sure that we don't sin in our anger, that we should be.

It's good to be angry over the things that God is angry over, but anger and then forgiveness is another huge theme in the

Bible study and the Bible in general. Forgiveness is a theme, and so I have forgiven that young man, and I pray for his salvation, and it's only by the grace of God and understanding how much

Christ has forgiven me that I'm able to have the love of Christ to want to forgive, something like that.

Amen. Well, I'm going to say this prematurely because I end my program with it every day, as you may know, but at the end of every program on Sharpens Iron Radio, I quote the

Puritan Christopher Love, and I say that I want my audience to always remember for the rest of their lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

Savior than you are a sinner. And I have gotten comments from around the world about how that, above anything else, has blessed many of my pastors to be constantly reminded of that every day, that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater

Savior than we are sinners. Amen. Well, we are going to our first break right now, and if anybody would like to join us, the email address again is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country, your president, your country of residence, if you live outside the

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter, and obviously if you share some kind of similar experience to Camille, I could readily understand that you would want to remain anonymous if you have something to say or ask about that.

But if it's not personal and private, as I said, please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

USA. Don't go away, God willing, we'll be right back with Camille Cates right after these messages from our sponsors.

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We are now back with our guest today, Camille Cates, and we are going to be very shortly discussing her book,

First Love, Embracing a Love That Lasts, a discipleship study for young women.

And she wrote this, she co -authored this with Sue Liljenburg, and I'm probably mispronouncing that name as I do most names.

You got it right. Oh, really? Liljenburg. Okay, can you tell us something about Sue Liljenburg? Yes, Sue Liljenburg is our founding director of the ministry.

So back in 1988 is when the ministry became a non -profit organization, and Sue just had a real heart for, she's post -abortive, and had a real heart for post -abortive men and women to be ministered to with the

Gospel and through God's Word. And there are a lot of post -abortion materials out on the market, but I would say what sets the ministry apart a little bit is we like to say that we're

Gospel -centered and grace -driven. Amen. So yeah, that's who

Sue is. Well, before we get to the book, we just have a couple of questions that I think

I'll take right away. First of all, we have Ted in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and he wants to know how your boyfriend slash fiancée,

I'm assuming he's referring to the boyfriend that you are now married to, your husband, how did he know about the abortion, and how did he find out?

Yeah, that's interesting, because that was a question on my mind as well. Really?

He told me, and so interestingly enough, he had served for a while as a youth interim in our church, and of course my pastor at that time knew about the abortion.

I think my parents had gone to him. I've always been interested to know what that conversation was.

I don't know. I've never asked how he counseled my parents in that decision, but he basically had found out through one of the church secretaries who loved him dearly and wanted to make sure that he kind of knew what he was getting into, you know, in a relationship with me, and I think that's fair, but God knew that he needed to know and that his response would be pivotal in me seeing that God still loved me, even in the worst of the worst of the worst sin that I thought anybody could ever commit, which, you know,

Paul said, I'm the chief of sinners and he's never had an abortion or experienced abortion, so it's how we view the depths of our sin, that he loved me in spite of the sin in my past, and it was such a fresh picture of Christ to me, so I'm thankful for how he found out that information.

I think the Lord used him mightily. So he found out after it already happened? Yes, yes, and this was much later.

Well, Ted, we are only giving away these free copies of First Love that we have to either women or young ladies who are calling in,

I'm not calling in, here I'm thinking about my old days when I had a call -in show, who are emailing in questions, but we will make the exception with people who promise to give it to a young lady, and if you are one of those men who are promising to give it to a young lady, send me your mailing address in Albuquerque, not in Albuquerque, that's our next questioner is in Albuquerque, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and we will have that shipped out to you by our friends at cvbbs .com,

and keep in mind that's only if you promise to give it to a young lady or a woman who will use it for another young lady in her life.

We have, this is my Albuquerque listener, and in fact I was just talking with you about her before the program.

I usually don't give full names, but I'm going to because this is a woman who's been a guest on this program many, many times, she's one of my favorite guests, she's a brilliant woman, she has her doctorate, and she is a prolific writer and author, a former

Mormon who became a Christian by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, Latane C.

Scott, Dr. Latane C. Scott, and she asks, how does,

I'm sorry, how do you overcome feelings of guilt about your abortion, and how would you counsel anyone listening who has had one in the same way?

That's a great question, thank you Dr. Scott for posing that question, and I look forward to connecting with you.

So one of the things that I love about our

Bible study and Scripture in general is the power of Scripture, and so I believe it's

Psalm 10720 that says, he sent his word and healed them from their destruction, and so God's word is very powerful, and one of the things that he uses to remove guilt and shame over sin is

Christ bearing our guilt and shame, and so in our

Healing Hearts Bible studies, we walk through Isaiah 53 as we look at the chapter on the crucifixion and what

Christ went through on behalf of sinners and suffering and bearing the wrath of God, and for sin, so knowing that Christ has paid the penalty and actually took on guilt and shame for me, means that I cannot wear it anymore.

To wear it would really be continuing to sin and saying that what Christ did on the cross was not sufficient, and that I need to continue to wear this guilt and shame.

So it's only by God's grace and what Christ has finished work on the cross that guilt can be removed, and it's standing on the truth of that, and I love that we delve deeply into the gospel and into what

Christ did on our behalf, and that we really hold people accountable to either believe that and put their faith and trust in Christ and his good news, or we hold them accountable to unbelief and challenge them that they're walking in unbelief if they're not placing what

Christ did on their behalf to be rid of guilt and shame. So that's one way and one passage that I would use and dissect with a counselee or somebody

I was ministering to, to help them be rid of guilt and shame. Well, Latane's final question is, is there a way to go forward?

Yes. Yes. To move forward, I'm assuming she's meaning to move forward from...

Having an abortion, yeah. An abortion, or even a traumatic experience like losing a child traumatically, and I've experienced both of those.

Yeah, I love it, and I know this is going to sound like I'm speaking Bibleese, but it's the truth, and it's

God's Word. Jesus says he is the way, the truth, and the life, and so when there's a way forward, it's always through Christ, and as we know him more, as we walk through his

Word and commune with him through his Word, he heals us, he strengthens us, he gives us courage.

We're able to stand on grace and mercy to walk forward, and I think that was one thing for me going through our post -abortive

Bible study called Binding Up the Broken -Hearted, was that I was raised a good

Southern Baptist girl, and I knew grace, and I think that's one thing that carried me through a bit is that I knew that God would forgive my sin.

I think I abused and misused his grace some during that time in my life, but one thing that I...

So I knew that he had forgiven me for my abortion when... by the time

I had gone through the Bible study, but one thing that I didn't know God as was healer, that we have wounds that others have done to us, and we have self -inflicted wounds from our own sin, and God wants to heal those.

He sent his Son to forgive and to be a healer, and so that was refreshing for me to learn and to see him and experience him as healer in my life.

Amen. Well, Latayne, you are getting a free copy of the book First Love by our guest

Camille Cates, Embracing a Love that Lasts, a discipleship study for young women, and I'm sure you will be putting this to good use.

We have a listener in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, Gordy, and Gordy says, as a father of five, you know

I'll be passing this on to my teens, so we don't have to worry about it being wasted on a bookshelf somewhere.

In your opinion, what are the positives, if any, and negatives of social media on young ladies?

And he has a follow -up question there. Positives and negatives of social media on,

I know it's broadened out to say people in general. Yeah, right, because you wonder how many marriages have ended because of the abuse of social media by men and women, and I mean all kinds of crazy stuff goes on, but also how much people learn over the internet, and if I do say so, people listening to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio right now on the internet, there are two sides of a coin.

Right, right, so God can use these means for his glory, and I think what, you know, talking about the positives and the negatives,

I mean there are a lot of negatives, and it's hard in this day and age, and the things that we see coming, whether it's coming across the news or things that we read on the internet or hear, it's hard not to be discouraged, because it's like a wide open tap to endless evil, you know, if that's what we want, but there's also,

I think, I don't know if I mentioned this before, we've served overseas for a while in missions doing youth evangelism, my husband and I did, and the means for God to use social media to help the gospel be spread far and wide is amazing.

Yeah, in fact, I have regular listeners who are missionaries. We have

Joe in Slovenia who writes in almost every day, he hasn't written in yet today, but he's a

Southern Baptist missionary in Slovenia, and we have had, in the past, I haven't heard from him in quite a while, but on the old

Iron Trip and Zion Radio we had a faithful missionary in Korea who was emailing us regularly, actually he called in even a couple of times when we had a call -in show, but I do know that there are people globally listening.

We have listeners in 25, at least 25 foreign countries. That's great, and those are great examples of how

God can use social media and the internet and different forms of media and technology for His glory and our good.

I would encourage the listeners out there, one of the things that our youth studies focus on is really the heart, because we could try and build a firewall to keep our kids away from all kinds of technology, and there's wisdom in monitoring and moderating things to them, but really helping our young people have a heart for what

God has a heart for, and helping them to understand their relationship with Him so that they can discern.

The Bible even says that we need to train ourselves to discern good from evil, and we talk about that even in the

Bible, say we talk about media... In fact, could you pick up right where you left off there, because we have to go to our midway break right now, and we'll pick up right where you left off there about helping to cultivate wise discernment, biblical discernment, amongst your young people when it comes to using the internet.

We're going to our longer -than -normal break. Our midway break is longer than normal because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, always requires of us a longer break between our two major segments so that they can air their own commercials and public service announcements and other things.

So please be patient as we take this elongated break. Use this time to write down questions for Camille Cates, and also use this time to write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can more successfully and faithfully and loyally respond to their advertisements and patronize them, because the more you patronize our advertisers, the longer we are likely to remain on the air because their advertising dollars are, other than the very grace of God, are the reason that we are here right now broadcasting.

So please try to patronize our advertisers as much as you can, and we're going to be back after these messages with Camille Cates, so don't go away.

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So please remember to mention Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Now we just have a few important announcements to make before we return to our interview with Camille Cates.

And for those of you just tuning in, we are going to be discussing her book First Love, Embracing a

Love That Lasts, a discipleship study for young women, which we really haven't even gotten into touching yet, for the most part, because we've been discussing her fascinating testimony.

But before we get back to that discussion, I just want you to know that the Fellowship Conference New England is returning to the

Deering Center Community Church in Portland, Maine this August 2nd through the 4th. And the speakers include men who have all been on this program, some of them many times.

We have Pastor Tim Conway of Grace Community Church in San Antonio, Texas. Pastor Mac Tomlinson, who's an author and a pastor at Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas.

We have Pastor Jesse Barrington, who is the pastor of Grace Life Church in Dallas, Texas.

And we have author and pastor Nate Pickowitz of the Harvest Bible Church in Gilmanton Iron Works, New Hampshire.

If you'd like to attend that conference, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com, fellowshipconferencenewengland .com,

and please tell them that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Chirp and Zion Radio. The next conference after that that you should know about, where I actually will be in attendance, manning an exhibitor's booth for Iron Chirp and Zion Radio, God willing, that's

November 9th and the 10th in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, and that is the Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology being run by our friends at the

Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The speakers at this conference include

David Garner, Ray Ortlund, Richard Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Winn, and the theme is

The Glory of the Cross. That's November 9th and the 10th at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, the

Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology. If you'd like to register, go to alliancenet .org,

alliancenet .org, click on events, and then scroll down to the

Quakertown Conference on Reform Theology. Please tell the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals that you heard about this conference from Chris Arnzen of Iron Chirp and Zion Radio.

Then coming up in January of 2019, an event that I am waiting for with bated breath.

I feel like a kid in a candy store when I hear about this conference because I love it so much. This will be my third year,

God willing, of attending and manning a book, not a book table, manning an exhibitor's booth at the

G3 Conference, the G3 Conference which stands for Gospel, Grace, and Glory, and it is being held, once again, at the

Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia, which is a suburb of Atlanta, and the speakers include such illustrious names as Paul Washer, John Piper, Stephen J.

Lawson, Vodi Baucom, Mark Dever, Dr. Conrad Mbewe, who is my favorite preacher on the planet

Earth, pastor of Kabwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa, and chancellor of the

African Christian University, Tim Challies, Phil Johnson, who is the executive director of John MacArthur's ministry, grace to you,

Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, Stephen Nichols, who is the president of Reformation Bible College, the

Bible College that was founded by R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries, and many more.

If you'd like to register for the G3 Conference, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com,

and the theme this year, or should I say this January, is The Mission of God, a

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And you can also use that email address to send in a question to Camille Cates, our guest today.

That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. And as you know, Camille, before the break, we were talking about developing or cultivating biblical discernment amongst children and teenagers, perhaps more specifically.

But I mean, actually, when I think about it, kids who are extremely young, kindergarten age or younger, are using the internet these days and know more about computers than I do.

But you were talking about cultivating discernment among them when Gordy in Mechanicsburg was asking about the pros and cons of, he was specifically talking about young ladies and the internet and social media, but you expanded it to mean everybody.

Yeah, I did because I think we are all, you know, when we are given the ability to access media, technology, social media,

God holds us accountable to steward those things. So as a parent, and I have three teenagers now, we haven't discussed them yet, but I have a 19 -year -old daughter and two 15 -year -olds, one of those is adopted from China, our daughter from China and a biological son.

So I'm practicing what I preach when

I'm talking about helping our teens and helping them biblically and discipling them. So, you know, my encouragement to parents is to help teach your young people how to steward social media to the glory of God.

And in doing that, looking at our discipleship studies for young people, really the theme, if you said, what's the theme of your

Bible studies for young people, it would be based on the passage in Mark 12, 30 -31, where we're given the two greatest commandments, to love the

Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.

And so in our Bible studies, we actually break down those biblical commands to really help young people apply that.

And one of the things that God's Word said is that we're to love Him with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind, all of our strength.

And so when we talk about media and technology, we need to build that biblical framework and help them to understand, how can

I love God with all of who I am when using media and social media and technology?

And so we talk about the heart, and we talk about the mind, and the influences, worldly influences on the mind, and we are teaching them to discern good from evil based on God's Word.

But their heart motive has to be to do it for the glory of not mom and dad, we would like that sometimes, but that's not what they're commanded in Scripture to do.

They're to do everything to the glory of God, and to really understand they were designed and created to worship

God in that way. And so that's just one component that we walk through when we talk about loving

God with all of our minds. We hit on media, the influence of media, as well as some other influences, drugs and alcohol, depression, suicidal thoughts, anxiety, those kind of things that can really distract our minds from loving

God with all of them, all of our mind. And Gordy asks for practical advice, you've already done that, but a couple of things

I might want to ask you about is there are, because even amongst brothers and sisters in Christ, there is difference of opinion as to the level of authority that parents should be utilizing in the private lives of their children, and some would even say there is no such thing as a private life for a child under the roof of a parent.

But like for instance, I know parents who, they have the family computer, and it's in the living room where everybody's gathered, so if you're on the computer, whether you're an adult or a child, it's going to be where everybody can see what you're doing.

And that kind of monitoring of what children and even your spouse might be doing on the computer, do you agree with that level of authority and basically the monitoring of the computer?

I think it's hard, like you said, to just throw kind of a blanket statement out there and say that this is what we need to do, because we're all different, and we all have different dissetting sins, things that tempt us more than others, and I think the most important thing that I want to encourage is teaching them the biblical reasons for why we need to guard our hearts and being careful.

I would really caution parents, we can become very legalistic and almost pharisaic, but we're really good at raising pharisees.

It's kind of just a natural tendency when we're not focused on Christ's righteousness to promote self -righteousness, and so if we teach them, you can and you can't do this, this is what you should and shouldn't be watching, we need to teach them, what does

God's Word say about what we put before our eyes? And we go through the scripture,

I believe it's in Job, where he says, I will set no vile thing before my eyes.

And so we need to be having ongoing conversations, even if you monitor your kids' technology use and you have these parameters set, and they're not bad parameters, but we need to be careful that we're not trying to manage sin.

I've caught myself doing that, I've seen other parents do that over the years, that we try and manage our children's flesh and their sinful tendencies, and it's exhausting.

We need to teach them the truth of the gospel, and we need to be bringing them back to that.

I think there are some good guidelines that we can set in place, but if we do that to the neglect of teaching them the heart, and I believe it's in Deuteronomy 19 where the

Lord says to teach our children his ways, you know, that we need to talk about them along the road, and when we sit, when we lie down, like, we're supposed to be teaching them the truth of who

God's character is, why he wants us to be careful with what we put before our eyes.

So I hope that's helpful. I did hear, I do really enjoy

Nancy Lee DeMoss, and I once heard her read in one of her books that her parents kind of parented them with what she called greenhouse parenting, that, you know, when they were tender and young, they needed the protection of a greenhouse that would, you know, a plant needs to be sheltered from the storms, but the sun is let in, and all these things, but when they mature, they really do need to be set outside of that, but there's a time that we do need to be protecting our children from things that are out there.

I think teaching them and having, for a parent, having themselves have accountability on their computers and their phones, we all need that.

We all need the accountability of having kind of that, some of that software on our phones, so that's my encouragement.

Those things are not bad. They're good tools. They can be helpful in guiding and guarding and helping protect our children, but if we're not teaching them discernment and we're not teaching them the why of why we live a

Christian life, then we're going to be tempted to raise Pharisees, and that's a dangerous place to be in parenting.

Yeah, in fact, what you have been saying, believe it or not, reminds me of the mission statement of the

Grace Christian Academy in Merrick, Long Island, where it is under the oversight, at least it used to be.

I know that it's a separate entity, but it used to be under the oversight of the church where I was a member,

Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island, but their mission statement, a part of it anyway, was not to just teach children what to know, but how to think, and I think that what you just said seems to reflect exactly that.

Yes, absolutely, and to think accordingly to God's word. I mean, that's our basis as believers, so absolutely.

Right. Well, thank you, Gordie and Mechanicsburg, and since you live so close to CVBBS, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, on North Hanover Street in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, why don't you go there tomorrow to pick up your free copy since you've promised to give it to your children.

First love, embracing a love that lasts, a discipleship study for young women, and I'm assuming you have daughters, and in fact,

I remember now you did tell me that at least one of your daughters graduated from school or something.

So yeah, please pick that up to prevent CVBBS .com, the expense of shipping that out to you.

Before we go to any more listener questions, I really want to start to at least give our listeners some of the background of this book,

First Love, Embracing a Love that Lasts, a Discipleship Study for Young Women. It is broken up into three major sections,

Love Begins, Loving God, and Living Love Out. If you could break down those three major segments of the book.

Sure. Part one is really helping them understand the foundation of Genesis.

A lot of our foundational doctrines come from Genesis and God's design for humanity, his relationship with humanity, and the design for the complementarian roles of male and female, specifically in the husband and wife roles.

And complementarianism, just so our listeners know, that is where it is a view that both genders, male and female, are equal in the sight of God, but they do have separate roles.

Right. And so we want them to have, I mean, we are living in a crazy, mixed -up, upside -down world regarding sexuality and regarding gender now, and it is helpful for them to see from God's Word why did he make male and female, you know, what is his design, what is his goal behind that, how are we separate from the animals, what does it mean, you know, when we are created in his image and that is different than the animals, what does that mean?

So it may sound very rudimentary, but those are just good, making sure that they understand some of the things that we can take for granted as parents, that we think we have told, talked to them about these things, but them journaling, and it is really a journal, they are five days worth of journaling, and it is very interactive where they are looking up Scripture and they are answering questions, and we even have expression boxes for kids that are like the more creative flair of writing out poems or, you know, any way to engage what they are learning with Scriptural truths, and so we are helping them understand the foundation, we go through Genesis chapter 3 in the fall, and what went wrong with the world and how mankind was separated from God, and then

God's answer to reconciling mankind to himself through his Son, and so we really just hit the foundations through Genesis and through the

Gospel in Love Begins, and then Part 2, when we talk about loving

God, really hits on the first greatest command that Jesus talked about, loving

God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and like I said, we kind of piece and part those out for application, so we help them understand what love is, the definition of love, because the world has a billion definitions, and we want them to understand what

God's definition is of love, and then how to be able to love him with all of those parts of our being, and it goes through a lot of struggles.

I think we already talked about influences on the mind with drugs and alcohol and depression, anxiety, those kind of things.

We talk about idolatry with the heart and with the soul, and then we talk about their strength, really applying that to their body and teaching them what it means when

God's Word says that their body is a temple, or the Holy Spirit was their believer. That's what their body is for, and that we're to be stewards of that body, so we actually talk about self -injury and eating disorders, and glorifying

God by eating healthy and exercising, and those kind of just some practical things, and then really get into sexuality towards the end of part two, and guide them through not only what different forms of sexual sin are, why

God's Word says where it's listed in Scripture, those forms, but how to love

God emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and physically, and we go through pregnancy.

What are they going to do? They may be like me, and they profess Christ in their youth, and they get into sinful areas and sexual sin, and we want them to know the truth of God's Word and His grace to stand back up when they've made a simple choice, and so we talk through why abortion's not an option according to God's Word, and we walk through pregnancy and single parenting and adoption, and hit on some other areas there as well, and then part three is really covers the second greatest command, and that's teaching them how to love their neighbor as themselves, so we give them some groundwork for their walk with the

Lord. We talk about grace, and dying to self, and living by God's power through His Word, and how to put off and put on in counseling.

That's kind of some biblical verbiage and biblical counseling, but the Bible says that we're to put off the old man and put on the new, and I think young people sometimes get stuck at their initial salvation experience, and they don't really understand sanctification, and they may have heard that word a lot in church,

I think parents kind of neglect to really help them understand what does it mean to be sanctified, what does it mean to be changed and conformed to the image of Christ, and we see that through the put off and put on principle, and so many times where we remind our kids, you need to put this off, but we're not equipping them what to put on that's

Christ -like, so we cover that, and how to love others as yourself, and that's basically the gist of part three, so that's the

Bible study in a nutshell. We wrote it in three parts that it could be used either in a full school year curriculum, or they may want to split it up and wait to cover some of the heavier topics until their children are a little bit older, but maybe cover some of the foundational things in part one in the beginning, so there's kind of some start and stop to those parts, but if they keep going, there's a good flow as well, so yeah, that's the basis of the

Bible study. Great, and we are going to our final break right now. It's going to be a much briefer break than the previous one, and I already,

Camille, forwarded you a listener question. Joey from Clifton, New Jersey sent in a question that was rather lengthy, so I figured it would be good to forward it to you, so during the last break, you could review it, and then we'll have you answer the question when we return.

Okay, great. And if anybody else wants to get in line and ask your own question, now is the time to do it, or forever hold your peace, because we're rapidly running out of time.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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And we are now back with our guest, Camille Cates. We are discussing first love, embracing a love that lasts, a discipleship study for young women.

And then we are going to be very shortly, God willing, moving into the second phase of our interview with Camille.

And for those of you who have just tuned us in, the two topics today are the one

I just mentioned and the one we hope to at least scratch the surface of during the remaining half hour of our program,

A Fight of Your Life, Living for God's Glory. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And as always, please give us your first name, city and state and country of residence if you live outside the

USA. And as you know, Camille, I forwarded you a listener question.

Joey in Clifton, New Jersey says, Dear Camille, I am very moved by your testimony and very happy to hear how the

Lord showed you so much grace. Because your eventual marriage is such an amazing outcome from God's grace,

I just want to make a comment which is complimentary. Today, even many

Christians have come to expect the rosy storybook outcome scenario.

They think that regardless of their sin and willful disobedience, God will still bring an amazing outcome.

You are rightly focused on God's grace in your story, but we want those who are less biblically informed to understand that the knight of shining armor does not always show up.

And the rescue we desire does not always occur. These are especially true when we willfully sin.

We must have a principle of faith and belief in God that says even if God does not bring that storybook outcome, he is no less there.

And he is no less gracious and he is no less worthy of our obedience.

And if we sin grievously, God may indeed bring temporal consequences. I know that as an

ACBC counselor, you know these things. But for the sake of those listening, I know you can comment on this balance when you counsel people.

God bless you, Joey. Do you have your own comments now, Camille? Yeah, I do. I'm really thankful that this brother was able to kind of bring a balance to that.

And I would say not only does this apply to willful sin, but it's also in our suffering.

We don't always get the desired outcome. And so, yes,

I think there are some exceptions to my story. I would say that there's probably always consequences to our sin.

And we actually address that in our adult Bible studies because so many women come in if they're post -abortive, and we have to help them to understand the difference between God's punishment and natural consequences due to our sin.

And so we do address, you know, that there are consequences to sin, and we don't get to often escape those consequences.

I would say, you know, while the Lord was gracious to bring me a godly husband, of course he wasn't obligated to do that at all.

But yeah, I mean, I share a lot in my testimony and in counseling with people there are still consequences to sin that I still reap.

Years later, God doesn't remove those from our lives, but he certainly gives us his grace and his mercy and in knowing him more deeply as we press in, whether it's through repentance when there's been willful sin or, you know, like Job turning to God when there's immense suffering and seeking

God to know him more deeply when we're suffering greatly due to no fault of our own.

So certainly God is not obligated to make everything turn out the way that we would want him to.

There's always consequences to sin. Thank goodness he gives us the grace to bear up under those consequences and that his word says that he uses those, that God, Romans 8, 28 says that he works all things, our willful sin, our suffering, things that have been done to us through other sin.

He works all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose that we would be conformed.

Verse 29 says that we would be conformed into the image of his son and so I'm thankful that God graciously uses those, but definitely we can't expect or try to dictate that God would give us a storybook outcome.

That certainly doesn't happen. We hear the consequences, so...

I'm immediately reminded of Hebrews 12, verse 6. For those whom the

Lord loves, he disciplines and he scourges every son whom he receives, and that was the

New American Standard Bible, the King James Version says it this way, For whom the

Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

Yes, yeah, and we need to realize that that's for our teaching, that when

God disciplines us, he's using it to teach us not to punish us, and I think a lot of people, you know, the way it was phrased in the response, those who have sinned grievously a lot of times think that God is just punishing them instead of understanding that Christ took our punishment for that sin on the cross so that they can stand up well on his grace and mercy, but there's still going to be those consequences, that discipline that actually teaches us to look to Christ, look to Christ and be conformed to his image, so that's the beauty.

I think otherwise, if we don't hold the consequences in a tight and equal grip with God's grace, we'll tend to think that God is punishing us and that we just have to do penance or something, which is not biblical.

We need to understand that God is using it for our good to conform us to Christ's image, so.

Amen. Well, Joey, in Clifton, New Jersey, as I said earlier, we are reserving these books that we're giving away for either

Christian women or Christian young ladies, or for men who promise to give the book to a woman or young Christian lady, so if you promise to do that, send me your mailing address in Clifton, New Jersey, so that you can do that very thing.

You could bless the life of a woman or young lady that you know with this wonderful Bible study or workbook by our guest today,

Camille Cates and her co -author, Sue Liljenburg. Very fine Norwegian name, it sounds like anyway.

I think so, I think it's Scandinavian, yeah. And let's move on now, while we still have time, to The Fight of Your Life, Living for God's Glory.

Tell us about this new book. Yeah, we're really excited. As soon as we published First Blood, the first thing we heard come out of parents' mouths is, what do you have for boys?

And so it's been in our heart for about five years now. We just published and released that, and I just real quick want to tell your listeners too, if they want to purchase a copy, we're doing a special for a $10 preview copy, so they can go online,

HealingHearts .org, and when they check out type preview 10, and that will give them a discount where they can purchase the study for $10, limited to one copy.

But so the study for young men, Dr. Mark Shaw and Dr.

Bill Hines were gracious enough to come on board and help us co -author this study for young men.

And you know, we really, we said, we got to change the title, you know, what's good for young men?

And we really started thinking about, you know, we really wanted the study to reflect living for God's glory, because we feel like the battle for young men is they wake up every day and their simple tendency is to live for their own glory.

And so if, you know, we want to help them apply God's word to their hearts and their minds, they need to have a right understanding of everything that they do needs to be done for God's glory.

And to fight for it, that it's always going to be a fight, you know, whether it's sexual sin or pride or achievements or whatever it is, that's going to be a temptation to fight for self and for their own glory.

So the studies are very complementary to one another. A lot of people have asked about using them for a family

Bible study together. They can do that. The themes run common throughout. You know, some of those conversations, when they get into some of the deeper topics of sexual sin and stuff, they would probably want to separate their sons and daughters and have those conversations with them.

But very similar, same theme of Mark 12, 30, and 31, you know, learning to love

God with all of who they are and to love their neighbors themselves. Well, that's excellent.

And I'm going to give that website once again. It is healinghearts .org,

healinghearts .org. And if you could very slowly, once again, tell our listeners what code they need to enter to get this discount.

If you want to order online, you need to type in the code PREVIEW10, the number 10, the

PREVIEW10. Is that spelled out or is that a number 10? It's the number 10, 1 -0.

And we do have a leader's guide for both studies, two separate leader's guides that help them if they want to lead a discipleship group in their church.

We have a lot of churches that have done that as continuing discipleship for their youth program.

And they have a lot of discussion questions in there, some background. We touch on sexual abuse in the

Bible studies and what to do. They need to know how to report that according to their state, if they have a young person they're walking with that brings that to their attention.

And so just some background help, some further recommended resources. We have group activities that are really fun and that they have a point.

Sometimes we do activities just for fun, but these actually have a point related back to the biblical truth that they're learning.

So yeah, so that's available as a digital download through our store at healinghearts .org.

Great. We do have BB in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who has a question.

BB says, there are two areas in life where I think that it is most difficult to be truthful yet tender.

One is when someone is on their deathbed and you don't want to cause them extra distress and discomfort by letting them know what eternity waits them without Christ.

The other would be when you are counseling or evangelizing someone who has had an abortion.

You don't want to be too soft on the issue and you don't want to be overly rigid and overly strict in such a way that you would have them dismiss you immediately.

What is your counsel in regard to the balance that we need where we are not candy coating anything, where at the same time, we are not coming across as Pharisees?

I think that's a great comment and a great question. And a lot of times when

I'm counseling, and a lot of times I'll do workshops and I'll talk about how to address the issue of abortion with your women's group or churches, because statistically one out of three women sitting in the pew on Sunday morning is post -abortive, according to the statistics in our culture.

So a lot of people think it's not an issue. It is an issue. And God's word says that Jesus was full of grace and truth.

And I love that the Lord has the full measure of both of those attributes.

And while we're not perfect, he is who we need to seek to emulate in that.

And I'm thankful that he not only gives us his word because his word emulates his character.

He is the living word. He's given us his written word. So I think when we stick to biblical counsel, and a lot of times

I'll have people read scripture so that I don't have a tone in it.

They're reading it with the aid, and I'm praying with the aid of the Holy Spirit to open their eyes and open their heart.

And then I might ask a good question, a good follow -up question that seeks to try and administer both grace and truth.

And I'm thankful that the Lord gives us the Holy Spirit as believers to be able to do that. And that we really need to rely on God's word and his spirit to effectively minister to somebody who's had an abortion, just like they said.

So that's what I love about our Bible studies is I kind of say they're not any normal, average

Bible study. They really are focused on getting in the word.

There's a lot of scripture. They're reading and writing a lot of scripture and answering questions related to scripture.

And I think the format that we use is, I find it almost easy counseling because I'm working with somebody through the

Bible study. God's word has already done the work through the week. I just have to guide them through the discussion and what they've learned.

And so I wanna encourage your listeners too, if any of them really have a heart for ministry and they want to find out more information about being trained to lead our adult

Bible studies, we offer a certification to do that, to contact us through our website.

There's information on our website at healinghearts .org. But definitely we wanna model

Christ. We wanna emulate Christ and be full of grace and truth. Amen. Bibi, you have also won a free copy of the book,

First Love, Embracing a Love That Lasts, a discipleship study for young women. So since you live in Cumberland County, please go and pick that up yourself at the

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Services store on North Hanover Street in Carlisle, Pennsylvania to prevent them from having to ship that out to you and make the expense of shipping.

Let's see here. We have Bob in Hartsdale, New York, who asks, do you see much trauma being expressed by young boys and men after their girlfriend or wife has had an abortion?

Absolutely. I think, sadly, in America, abortion has become a women's issue and it's not.

There are two people that are affected. Sometimes men don't have the knowledge that a girlfriend or a former partner's had an abortion, but those that have or have been directly involved are very affected by it.

And interestingly enough, when we go and we either speak at conferences or we have an exhibitors booth,

I love that you mentioned G3. That's great. We're going to be there too. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah.

We got to make sure you say hello to me at my Iron Sharpens Iron Exhibitors booth. We will, we will.

But you would be surprised that more often than not, the men are coming up to us.

And I don't know, you know, women, they're still in a public place like that. If they haven't experienced biblical healing through Christ, they're going to be, you know, too afraid and ashamed and embarrassed living under the guilt.

But it's interesting how many men will approach us and say, you know, I have this in my past.

And so we do offer our men's post -abortion Bible study called

Restoring a Father's Heart. All of our adult Bible studies you can find, if you can read, write, speak

English, you can do anywhere in the world at healinghearts .org. Go online and sign up and we'll pair you with what we call an e -counselor who will walk with you.

We have male e -counselors who will walk with a man through his past abortion experience through that Bible study.

So we'd love to minister to you. Great. And Bob wants to also know, if you don't mind sharing with us what church denomination or Christian fellowship you are a part of.

We are members of Grace Fellowship Church. It's an evangelical, free, reformed theology church.

My husband and I do in Florence, Kentucky. And so our church is an

ACBC certified training center. And so that's how I got my certification was through the encouragement of our church.

We do a lot of biblical counseling. And so that's my background with our church.

Great. In fact, my webmaster, Eric Nielsen, happens to be an elder in an evangelical free church and he is also theologically reformed.

Great. And he's in Illinois. Illinois or Illinois, I forget how they pronounce it over there. But Bob, as long as you promise to give this book,

First Love, Embracing a Love that Lasts, a discipleship study for young women. If you, as long as you promise to give it to a woman or young lady, we will ship that out to you.

So send us your email, I mean, your mailing address if you intend to do so. Now I want you,

Camille, to have about three minutes uninterrupted where you can summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

Oh, goodness. Oh, I would say, you know, the love and the hope that Christ offers.

I always love sharing the gospel and to share it, I think, balanced. We have to mention bad news.

That the bad news is that we're all wretched sinners. We're depraved in our hearts and many, many of us live under the condemnation of that.

And those that don't, I think they're just, you know, they have the condemnation, but they're trying to live self -righteously to get rid of the condemnation, but it's still there.

And that God loved us enough to send His Son to die on the cross for us.

And that's the good news, that those who would turn to Him and place their hope in Him, receive

Him, that God saves them. And I'm thankful that He chooses to put

His treasure in jars of clay and that, I loved your quote about, you know,

Jesus being a bigger Savior than we could ever be a sinner. And, you know, that no matter what the listeners have been through, they've experienced, no doubt, much hurt, suffering, sin, the consequences of their own sin or someone else's, that when we put our hope and our faith in Christ, He truly does give us beauty from ashes.

And that's our ministry verse in Isaiah 61, 1 through 3, and that He's a

God that's a healer. And He wants to heal our hearts, but it's through Christ and His Word that brings us healing.

So I would want that for anybody listening and for them to have their eyes opened by the grace of God to see their need for Him.

They would respond today in receiving that salvation, but also to receive healing.

And sometimes that takes walking with another believer through the Word to really be able to have healing from things in their past, so.

Amen. And once again, if you want to get in contact with Camille Cates, go to healinghearts .org.

We also want to thank our friends at Focus Publishing who sent us the free copies of First Love, Embracing a

Love That Lasts, a discipleship study for young women. And if you want to find out more about more of their publications, go to focuspublishing .com,

focuspublishing .com. And by the way, I would love it if you would order anything that you find on the

Focus Publishing website from cvbbs .com, who sponsored this program. cvbbs .com

carries a very wide selection of Focus Publishing titles. And I am looking forward to seeing you,

Camille, at the G3 Conference. I look forward to having you back on the show. And if you could hold on, I want to say a proper goodbye to you off the air.

I want to thank everybody for listening today, especially those who took the time to write in questions.

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater