48 - Eternal Security, Part 3 (Can you lose your salvation)

Well, welcome to the

Striving for Eternity Academy's School of Systematic Theology.

We are glad to have you with us. We are in lesson number 48. Wow, that's like almost one full year's worth of training if you've been following with us every week.

A year. That's really what you're getting is actually what it took me about six classes in seminary.

Is what you're getting in this one class for you.

We are continuing in book number two, which we call

God's Gift to Man. And if you've been following with us, you know that we are in the

Doctrine of Salvation. We have specifically been in lesson number nine now on eternal security.

This is the third week that we're in this lesson. Following along, we took a look at some false views of eternal security.

Then we took a look at the biblical view of eternal security. And as we had done that, we looked at the definition of eternal security.

And I want to just define that again for us, alright, so that we have that remembered.

But God, the definition of eternal security is that God provides and secures.

The understanding there, the emphasis there is that it is God who does this work. God's the actor.

God provides and secures final salvation for all true believers.

Now each word there is very important. So God is the actor. He does the providing and the securing.

In other words, God not only provides the initial salvation, but He is also the one that secures it, that brings it to pass.

And notice what we're saying, final salvation. Final salvation being that final stage.

So God provides and secures final salvation for all true believers.

Now the emphasis there is on true, meaning that not everyone who professes to be a believer is a believer.

We've kind of went through that quite a bit. So we said that it was important to understand that God was the author and the finisher of salvation.

So the idea there is that we take into account an understanding that when we look at the issue of our salvation, whether we can lose it, which for some people, it's an issue that a lot of people have difficulty with, and I really don't know why, but looking at this definition we see that it's

God who does the work. God saves us. He redeems us.

He's the one that fully does the work. Not only does He save us, not only does

He redeem us, but He secures us. It's God who says He will hold us until the end.

So with that idea, let us begin our study here and see that we are now in a study of this doctrine where we want to learn what it is that God says about eternal security.

And so we went through a defense of it, and when we looked at it, we looked at this different scriptural passages.

The strongest one is Romans 11, 29. Why? Because it says in that passage that the gift of salvation is irrevocable.

And the reason that becomes important is because many people say that God saves us, and though He saves us, we then can lose it on our own.

We can lose salvation. And so that becomes this thing of, well, how do you lose salvation?

Well, if you do something really bad, you sin for a long time. Well, the reality is if you're doing that and you're just exposing one of two things, you're either disobedient or you were never a true believer.

But it can't be that you lose your salvation because of your sin, because that would make the gift of salvation a revocable or conditional thing.

And what's it conditional on? Your works. It ultimately creates a works -based salvation.

And we know, if you've been with us, we've dealt with that issue over and over and over again, that salvation is not based in works.

I had a great conversation with someone, an old colleague of mine, that I ran into today.

He actually created a board game, and you can't buy them anywhere else anymore but through him.

So I wanted to get some for my daughter. She's going off to college, and she wanted to take it with her.

And so I went to pick some up, and we got into a discussion. He's Indian here.

He's from India. And so he was raised Hindu, but also raised in a

Jesuit Catholic school. So all his schooling was Catholic, but he was raised as a

Hindu. And so we got into a discussion. I said to him, there's only two religions in the entire world. And he was like, what?

And I said, yeah, the religion of human effort and the religion of divine effort. And both of his religions were that of human effort.

And any religion that says that your work is involved in either saving you or keeping you saved, either way, that is a works -based system.

And that's not what the Bible teaches. So we looked at the defense. We also looked at the doctrines affected by this.

We looked at the priestly ministry of Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ is our high priest, then what kind of priest is

He that can't intercede for us, can't keep us in a right state, that we would have to be somehow stronger than Him?

The second we talked about the sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit. Remember, the Holy Spirit said He is the seal.

He Himself. He's the one that is the seal of our salvation. So if we're saying that we can lose that salvation, then what are we saying about the seal?

The one that is our guarantee. What you'd do is you'd take your letter here, and it would be like in a scroll, really.

And then you'd put wax here and you'd take a ring and do that with it. And this would be your seal.

And the Holy Spirit claims He's the seal. He's the guarantee. The word that's actually used in some passages we looked at in Ephesians is

He's the down payment, the guarantee. What kind of guarantee would it be?

Is the Holy Spirit unfaithful? God's purpose in salvation calls that into question.

The believer's union to Christ gets called into question. All these doctrines are affected by it.

Now, we didn't have time to finish up on really where we want to help you.

Because you're going to get hit with the challenges, the difficulties. So, we had the definition, the defense, the doctrines, and now the difficulties.

So, let's look at our syllabus. If you have your syllabus, you can grab it and follow along. You get a syllabus when you enroll at the website down there in our academy.

You'll get a syllabus sent to you. You can follow along with us. Now, with this, let us deal with some of the difficulties that we find here.

And we're going to try to give some answers for these. So, let us start. What about those passages that speak of the

Lord rejecting those who thought they were saved? Now, I just tipped my hat, didn't

I? That's right. I am saying that I believe that those people who say they're saved, profess

Christ, but don't possess Christ, are those who we're discussing.

Therefore, it's people who are not genuine believers. Okay? So, they thought they were saved.

And there's many people who think they're saved, but not. Let's look at an explanation of this.

How would I explain the passage that there's many people, and typically the people that are proponents that you can lose your salvation would argue it this way.

They would say, what about the passages that say that you can lose your salvation? That's how they would word it.

But really what it is, it is that the Lord is rejecting those who thought they were saved, not rejecting those who were saved.

And that would be the difference. So, the explanation is that these passages address professing, that's your first blank, professing believers and not possessing believers.

Those are your two blanks there. These passages are addressing professing believers and not possessing believers.

These people are to be considered false converts.

False converts, that's what we would define them as. And it's clear, let's look at a longer passage, one of the scariest passages in all the

Bible, is Matthew 7, 21 -23. It is one that I think for many people, it should scare them, but it does answer this question.

So, let's look at this passage. Alright. Not everyone who says to me,

Lord, Lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven. But the one who does the will of my

Father, who is in heaven, on that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name?

And I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.

So, now let's keep this up here and kind of dig into this. Okay? I want to break this down. First off, notice in verse 21, how do these people, how do they refer to Jesus?

They call him Lord, Lord. The emphasis there on the double

Lord means that it's a claim that he's Lord God. Okay?

They're recognizing him as Lord God. They see him as their

Lord as Master and their Lord as God. They're claiming to see Jesus as God, which we would agree with.

But what else do we see? Well, the other thing that we see is that they say they've done many things in the name of Jesus.

What have they done? Well, in verse 22, they say they prophesied in Jesus' name, they cast out demons in Jesus' name, and they've done many works in Jesus' name.

Now, one of the things I'm going to point out is, you know, people sometimes say that you have to end your prayers in Jesus' name.

Like, somehow, that's a magical incantation that somehow makes that to be a true thing.

If you say, in the name of Jesus, he must answer. No. Do you see what these guys are saying?

These people are saying to Jesus, we said this in your name. And he's saying, so what?

He's saying, I never knew you. Now, that becomes important. Why? Because he's saying, there wasn't a time where you once knew me and now not.

Or, I once knew you and now not. What you have there is a case where he's saying,

I never knew you. You were never one of my children. That's what Jesus is saying.

So, here you have a clear case where some will say, see, these are people who once believed and they did these things in God's name, but now they're lost.

No. Jesus said he never knew them. They were never part of his kingdom. Alright? 2

Peter 2 .20. Let's look at this one now. 4.

If, after they have escaped the defilements of the world, which through the knowledge of our

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, sorry, Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome.

Now, notice here. So, they escaped the defilements of the world, but then those defilements entangle them and overcome them.

It says, the last state will become worse for them than the first.

For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.

So, this passage seems, by some to say, that this is people who are professing to know

Christ and then they lose that. And really what it is, is it's someone, if you look at this, keep it up for a sec.

Verse 20, it's that they escaped the defilement. Maybe they came to church and they see some things in church that they like and now they fall from that state and they're back overcoming the world.

But there's nothing here that says that they were righteous. See what it says in verse 21?

For it would have been better for them to have never known the way of righteousness.

So, it's not that they became righteous and lost it. They just knew the way of righteousness and then they're going to fall under a greater condemnation because they knew the truth and then rejected it.

And that's the point. The point is that they came in the way of righteousness. In other words, they came to church, found out the truth, came to an understanding of biblical truth, and then left.

Okay? So, let's take a look at John 6. And I think we looked at these last class, but it's good for review.

We did? All right. So, in this one here, I'll just go over this quickly then, since we did kind of review these.

In this one here, what you see is that the disciples walked away. It says that, they say, well, see this one in verse 66, it says the disciples turned back and no longer walked after them.

So, are all the disciples, were they all believers or could some disciples have been unbelievers that just followed after Jesus?

What do you think? Well, if you've been following along with me, you know what

I think. I think that they are people who once believed, but walked away.

And so, or sorry, once walked after Christ and believed in their, like in their head, kind of.

They had a rationale of understanding, but they didn't repent. They didn't, they weren't true believers.

How do we know that? Well, 1 John 2, 19. They went out from among us because they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.

But they went out that it might be plain that they were not of us. In other words, how do I know that someone who leaves the church, rejects

Jesus Christ, was never a believer? Because they didn't continue in the faith. If they continued in the faith, that would have been because they were believers.

God, remember, is not only the provides, but He also secures final salvation.

That's the definition. All right. Let's move on to some new material now. What will the doctrine, will not the doctrine of eternal security encourage people to sin?

This is a question often. This is actually what led Pelagius and many others into this false doctrine.

Okay. The fact that someone is eternally secure, isn't that going to lead them into sin?

And this is an argument from logic. And that's your blank there, logic. It's an argument from logic.

Now, let me give an explanation. Salvation means that we have been freed from sin, not freed to sin.

Do you get that distinction? Salvation means that we're freed from sin, not free to sin.

Any person who supports a license to sin does not understand salvation.

If you think that God saved you so you can trample over the work of the cross, then

I would question your salvation. Now, I can't know your heart, but you clearly wouldn't have a right understanding of what salvation is, to think that it's a license to sin.

Okay. 1 Peter talks about that. Is it 1 Peter 2? It's that we don't give our bodies over to lust, to allow this lusting within our soul to give our license the vice.

So, we do not do that. It is not a license to sin.

It's a freedom from sin, the punishment and penalty of sin.

In other words, we are in a right state with God positionally.

It doesn't mean that we can go do whatever we want. If we do, then we make light of what the cross is.

So, let's take a look at... Let's put up Romans 6. This is a long one, but let's try to deal with it.

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under the law but under grace? And that's basically the question he's saying here.

The Jewish people... Actually, I had a rabbi ask me this, because by being under the law, they had all these requirements that they must do to remain in their mind to stay in a right state with God.

So, he's saying there, hey, we're not under law anymore, we're under grace. So, can we sin because we're not under the law?

He says, by no means. This is the strongest way of saying a no in the

Greek. It's a no man, never be. Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin which leads to death or obedience which leads to righteousness?

There's no in between here. But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves to sin became obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regards to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things which you are now ashamed?

For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruits you get lead to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

Now that was a long passage, but I hope you see in that passage what I was talking about. That passage explains it.

We are free from sin. And so you could look at Galatians 5, 1 and 13 and see in that passage as well.

We're not going to take time to look at that one. Let's look at the next argument that people make. How about the unpardonable sin?

I've heard that one many times, so let me explain first. It must be understood that the unpardonable sin is not committed by a professing believer.

The unpardonable sin cannot be by someone who is claiming to be a believer.

Now, it could be someone that once claimed to be a believer but denies it.

But if someone is professing to believe in Jesus Christ, if someone truly is a believer, they can't commit that unpardonable sin and it's really tough to know what that sin is.

We'll look at the passage in a moment. Second, the mention of this sin occurs only once in Scripture and we should understand that the unpardonable sin to be attributing the works of Christ to Satan, having personally observed them.

In other words, well, let's look at the passage and see. When the unclean spirit which has gone out of a person, it passes through the waterless places.

I think I got the wrong verse here that we put up. Okay, so this is...

This is not looking like the right verse. Okay, so we'll... All right,

I'm going to have to look up that verse. Maybe someone in the chat room can throw the verse up because I actually have it in my notes as that,

I think. But anyway, it's in Matthew. It talks about you have those who actually see

Christ. They see His works and they attribute the works that He does of casting out demons as the work of the devil.

And I think it is... Let me just look. I think it is that Matthew 12. I just think that it's earlier in Matthew 12.

So let me explain it while I'm looking. And what you have there is, I believe that this is something where people observe the work of God right in front of them and then attribute that work of Jesus Christ to Satan.

And in doing so, what you end up with is... You end up with a case that in our day and age that is something that nobody is able to do because we don't see that work.

31 is it? That's what I was just seeing. Okay, so there is what

Matthew 12 .31. Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the

Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. The context here is that Jesus heals a man of demon possession and this demon possessed person ends up being...

They say, oh, He's doing the work of Satan. And so what you have there is a case where people are observing

Jesus, casting out a demon, and they're saying, oh, that's the work of Satan, not God. You and I don't see

Jesus doing that today, therefore we cannot be guilty of that sin.

Okay, the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. I know it was like the fad for some people to get on YouTube and go,

I blaspheme the Holy Spirit, you know. Yeah, that's... I mean, they're in trouble for different reasons, but I think this unpardonable sin is something different that we have to take a look at, okay?

So that's that. Let us take a look at the next argument that people make.

What about passages that speak of Christian leaders who fell away from the truth?

We're going to look at a couple of those. Let's look at the verses first. Acts 20, 29 and 30.

I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in to you, not sparing the flock.

And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things that will draw away the disciples after them.

So you have there a case where Paul knows that people will come in after he leaves, and they're going to try to draw people away.

And it may even draw some genuine believers into bad teaching, okay? 2

Timothy. For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica, Cretans has gone...

has gone to Cretans, has gone to Galatia, and Titus to...

He's mentioning here some different people, and Demas, he says, has abandoned. Now, here's the thing, all right?

When you look at that, you have a Demas who, as far as we know, left and we don't see him returning.

But you know what? There's someone else who left and returned, and that would be John Mark. John Mark would be someone who, though he left for a time, there would be signs he's a believer because he continued.

He returned to be of good work to Paul. Paul recognized that Paul was just maybe being in error or what, we don't know.

But he never gave up the faith. Demas, however, probably gave up the faith. So how do we answer this? Well, the explanation is this.

These passages speak of false religious leaders. Your blank there is false. They're false religious leaders who had crept into the true church and were spreading false doctrine.

These were never said to be true believers. We shouldn't be surprised by that. Satan is very active in trying to bring false doctrine into the church to weaken the church.

The more false converts he can get in the church, rising them up as leaders, the better it is for the work he wants to do.

That's the simple reality. So that would be the thing I would say to you is that these are people who were never true believers.

They were false religious leaders who found their way into their church maybe because they were able, you see this actually often in churches today.

I'll tell you how you see it in churches today. You get some businessman who's very successful in the world and he comes into church and because of his success in a worldly sense, some people think he's a, because he's a natural leader, he starts just naturally getting people to his side and people start following him and people just go, oh, he's just a natural leader that people are following after.

He doesn't really understand the things but he rises up and because of his business skills, they make him a leader when he really is not qualified to be a leader because he's not even saved.

Let's deal with one more and that is, we'll deal with two more actually, but next one is are there not verses that say a believer may lose his salvation?

Let me explain this and then we're going to look at these passages and deal with them one at a time. These passages describe either the believer's loss of reward, that's your blank there, a loss of reward or those who heard the gospel and are attempting another means of salvation and or rejecting the truth.

So in other words, these passages we're going to look at either talk about someone who is a genuine believer that loses rewards because of disobedience or it's talking about someone that professes to be a believer but isn't a genuine believer.

So let's look at these passages. Now the Hebrews 6, 4 -6 is one that we have a paper up on our website.

For it is impossible. Now look at that fourth word there. What's that word? For it is, what's that word?

Impossible. Why is that important? Because whatever he's talking about with this thing that he's going to talk about losing, you can't get it back.

For it is impossible in the case of those who were once enlightened to have tasted the heavenly gift and have shared the

Holy Spirit and have tasted the goodness of the Word of God, the powers of the age to come and they have fallen away to restore them again to repentance since they are crucifying again the

Son of God to their own harm and holding up to contempt.

Whatever this is, and you can go to our website down there, look up under our biblical commentaries, look up what we have there under Hebrews 6 with this passage and you're going to see how we put this in context.

It's a short paper. It's maybe two or three pages long, quick to get through, but the emphasis there is not on the losing of whatever this is.

It's the fact that if you do lose it, it's impossible to get back. The whole focus is on that, that you can't get back.

Okay? So if you believe that you can lose your salvation and you're going to use that passage, then know this.

You can only lose your salvation once and that's it. It's not one of these things that so many end up teaching.

You lose it and get it back and you lose it and get it back and it's like this ping pong ball effect where you can keep losing it and get it back as soon as you do some sin and you lose it and you repent and get it back and back and forth.

No, it's impossible to get it back. So if you're believing that you can lose your salvation, it is impossible to get it back again.

James chapter 5. My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save a soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

This is probably dealing more likely with the reality of the need to confront one another of sin, believers.

The whole book of James is dealing with how do you know you're a genuine believer. He's now ending this and he's talking about those.

So he's giving these arguments. Here, you want to know a genuine believer? It looks like he does this and he does this and he does this and he does this and he does this but now you see someone that you think is a genuine believer.

They're doing all these things and you see them doing some sin. You go and you confront them. Why? Because they're going to lose reward.

And so you pull them back. Alright? 1 John. And keep in mind before we go there, 1

John is often confused because 1 John is talking to people of Gnosticism, people that think they can sin in their flesh but not in their spirit and therefore it's okay.

So they're making up these excuses to kind of justify their sin. Bad, bad, bad. And so when people look to 1

John they get confused because this is talking about the specific group of people.

If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask

God, he will give him life to those who commit sins that do not lead to death.

There is a sin that leads to death. I do not say to one to pray for that.

All wrongdoing is sin but there is a sin that does not lead to death.

Now, I don't know this. This is a difficult passage to interpret and I'm not really sure myself what the sin is that's leading to death and the ones that aren't leading to death and that we shouldn't be praying for the sin that leads to death.

We shouldn't be praying to sin, period. Could it be that Paul's saying, hey, you know, it's better to die?

You know, it is. It would be better to die and be with Christ. But we shouldn't be looking to be killed.

Some argue he's talking about sin that leads to death is suicide and we shouldn't pray for it but that people are taking their life so that they could be with Christ.

Not really sure, okay? So I'm just trying to say that so I don't get all the emails this week. What's the sin that leads to death?

I don't know. So that passage that many turn to is not really a clear passage and you're not going to take something and build a doctrine on something that's not clear, all right?

So let's do one more. Galatians 5, 4. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law.

Now notice, it would be. You have fallen away from grace. So the idea here is that they were in the church, they're part of the church, they knew the truth but now they're severed from Christ.

Okay, now people would argue that's teaching that you can lose your salvation. You once had grace, now you're severed from that.

I would say that they were part of the church and had a taste of grace just like it said in Hebrews.

They tasted of it but they didn't partake of it. There's a distinction there, all right? So let's look at one more argument that people make.

How about those verses that suggest that an individual may lose the Holy Spirit? Now where is this?

This is going to be in the Old Testament in 1 Samuel 16. Now the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and a harmful spirit from the

Lord tormented him. Also you're going to see it in Psalm 51. This is a psalm after David sinned with Bathsheba and it's his psalm of repentance.

Let me hear joy and gladness, let the bones that you have broken rejoice, hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities, create in me a clean heart,

O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your

Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing heart.

If you look at this, I think this is talking about the idea of the assurance of salvation where he doesn't feel like he's saved.

And there is a notion in the Old Testament, let's look at the explanation. There is a notion in the

Old Testament that someone can lose their salvation. I think it's different in the New. So let's look at the explanation in your syllabus.

Individuals who cite these verses as an objection to eternal security misunderstand the ministry of the

Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. Now, I'm going to say this. As a dispensationalist, I can say this.

Someone who is a covenant theologian, if you don't know those terms, that's okay, we're going to eventually get there. But someone that's a covenant theologian and doesn't see a distinction between Israel and the

Church is going to have a problem with this. Because this would be saying that the

Holy Spirit is working differently within the Church between Old and New Testament.

And I would say that no, he's working differently in a different dispensation because that's consistent with the way

God works. He gives more information and works differently. So, looking back in your syllabus, the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit is a ministry of the Spirit since the inception of the Church.

It is not found in the Old Testament. These are references to the service, that's your blank there, the service of individuals, not the salvation.

So let me see if I can explain this in the few minutes that we have left. In the Old Testament, the

Holy Spirit would indwell men like Saul and David to serve

God. What's special about Saul and David? They were kings. They were leaders of the people.

It seems the Holy Spirit may have indwelled the judges and the prophets.

So He would indwell people for the purpose of leadership, of service of some kind, not salvation.

Now if you look at Jeremiah 31 in Ezekiel when it talks about the

New Covenant, what is the New Covenant? The New Covenant is that we won't need a priest anymore because the

Holy Spirit will indwell us. And we no longer need a priest because every believer will become a priest.

That everyone will have the Spirit indwelling him, teaching him God's Word. That is what the

Jewish believer looked forward to, to a time where all believers had

God indwelling them, not just the priests or the kings or those who were set aside for leadership.

So in the sense of leadership, when the Holy Spirit left Saul, it was a removing of Saul from leadership.

And the Holy Spirit went from Saul to David. And so that's what you have. He comes from Saul, enters

David. And that is a case of what you end up with is that is a case of the

Spirit entering someone for the purpose of service. Now I'm being asked the question, would that include the writers of Scripture?

Yes, in a sense. I think that the writers of Scripture were probably filled with the

Spirit, but it doesn't mean that they had no control over their hand.

It didn't mean that they dictated. We're going to get to that when we get to the doctrine of the Bible. It doesn't mean that the

Holy Spirit forced their writing. He did work through them in such a way that they wrote exactly what he wanted written, but they still wrote in their own style.

So what you end up with is a case where they probably were somehow filled with the

Spirit, indwelt with the Spirit. But in this case, the purpose of that indwelling is different. In the case of the

Old Testament, they're filled for the purpose of service. Where in the New Testament, we're indwelt with the

Spirit as a guarantee of our salvation. Okay? As a guarantee of our salvation.

And so that would be the argument there. Alright? I hope that's as clear as mud.

No, I hope it's clearer than that actually. But if you do have questions, you can email us at at strivingforeternity .org

We would be happy to get back in touch with you. Also, you can go to our store and buy all our products.

Where's that? There. You can get our newest product. We gave these away at the fire.

Side one and side two of the process of reconciliation.

This is basically like if you want to know how to deal with believers on Facebook, get one of these.

Read through it before you post. I mean, you know, you're getting ready to call someone out on Facebook.

Is it a preference issue? Oh, it is? Then don't post that flame on Facebook.

Oh, it is a sin issue? Okay. Identify the sin with Scripture. Now ask yourself, is it petty?

Oh, it is? Forbear. Okay. You just pray about it.

It's not petty? Then this is the steps you start going to. What if you're in sin? What if it's a sin and you're the one in sin?

Then you go down this path. And there you go. But on the back is Matthew 18.

And so there's some explanations here. Really, really cool tool. Really enjoying this. Looking forward to people putting this to practice.

And maybe Facebook will suddenly become a different environment where we can really be friends.

Yeah. So you can get that at our store. So we also will be encouraging you if you're in the

Northern California area, please consider signing up for the NorCal Fire, NorCalFire .info.

NorCalFire .info to sign up for the NorCal Fire. That'll be coming up in September.

We just got done with Jersey Fire and already we're now looking forward to NorCal Fire. Okay. So that's going to be in September of 2014.

You can go down there and get that information. That's in San Jose. As we do every week, we want to encourage you to encourage someone else.

Last week we had Brother Ed Romaine. Well, this week we want you to encourage his ministry partner.

And that is Taylor Callen. I gave his Facebook page down there.

They are both out in Utah for several weeks and they are out evangelizing to Mormons.

So we encourage you to encourage them to go out and let them know, hey, we want to encourage you.

They're spending like two months. They're in seminary and this is how they're spending their time off. They're out there witnessing to people.

So we want to encourage you to go and encourage them this week. They can use the encouragement. They can use it to know you're praying for them.

Maybe find out who they witnessed to this week. Ask them, hey, who have you been witnessing to? What are some names? Pray for the people they've been speaking with.

But it would be a great encouragement to them if you would go and do that. And so that is this week's class.

And we finished up lesson nine, which means we have one lesson left in this book.

That is gonna be the blessings of salvation. Last lesson before we get to the next book in our systematic theology.

I actually am deceived enough to think that I can finish the next lesson in one week.

Now we will have class next week, but I'm telling you now that the week after that we will not have class,

I don't believe. I'm going to try, but to do that is gonna be tough.

I will be in New York City doing some ministry that week, and so I may not have class.

We're gonna see. I'm gonna see if I can get all this show prep done in time before we leave.

So with that said, until next week, I want to remind you to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.