Common Questions

Well, it's good to see you tonight here at Bethlehem Bible Church. Soon we'll be back in 1

Thessalonians, but we've been doing a variety of different passages and subjects, and I get asked a lot of questions as a pastor.

Where did Jesus go when He died? What happened? And I think it all started back in 1997.

Almost every Sunday night we would have a service, and then we would go to our house that we were renting in Sterling.

How many people have been to that house? Several. Every Sunday night we'd have a Q &A, and we'd sit there by the fire, by the lake, and talk about the

Lord and His Word for hour upon hour. Finally, I'd have to shush the people away at about 4 in the morning.

And inevitably these same questions kept coming back over and over and over. And so we're going to talk about some of these questions tonight.

The most common questions that I've received as a pastor in the last 20 years of Bible teaching.

And I'm going to not get through my entire list tonight. So we'll just pick up next week.

But that doesn't shock you, does it? That I'm not going to make it through the list. So the first question

I have tonight, and then we'll try to find a biblical answer. Do you have to know exactly when you were saved?

Do you have to know the exact moment in time when you were saved? Now, Sunday morning, every question I ask you, the congregation, is rhetorical.

I don't expect an answer back. But tonight I do. So before I give you my answer, what's your answer, congregation?

If someone said, I'm really struggling, I don't know if I'm saved or not. Do I have to know the exact time when

God saved me? What would you say? Brian Bartlett, what would you say? Okay.

What else? Tom? Okay, would that be very important if we don't know the exact time when

God saved us? Are you believing right now? Right, there's the present tense of 1 John's salvation.

Are you believing right now? Okay, good. What else? Mark? Okay, we're going to talk about that.

Didn't somebody write it on a card? Well, actually, that's one of the reasons why we're going to talk about this tonight, because based on other kinds of competing theologies, there is a direct time where you must know or else it didn't happen to you.

I don't want to give too much away yet. Wes? Okay.

Alright, last comment. Do you need to know the exact time when God saved you?

What's right or wrong with that? Barry? He started going like this, and I figured that meant he was really wise.

Alright. Steve Nelson, do you have to know exactly when God saved you? Alright, let's talk about this a little bit tonight, congregation.

I looked online, and I found some of these responses to this question, do

I have to know exactly when God saved me? Quote, sometimes

Satan does not want us to remember the date. See, when a kid hears laughing, they realize, and it's okay for them to laugh.

Another person said online, how can anyone forget the date of the greatest thing in their lifetime experience?

I was saved on May 25th, 1988 on a Saturday night, 9 p .m.

at the Cathedral of Praise here in Oklahoma City. What a night. Salvation is a process, one man wrote.

Not an event you need to find a date for. Rest easy and enjoy the journey. How about this one?

I think you might like this better. And we're going to get into our text, don't worry. If you can't remember the day you were saved, celebrate it each and every day.

The date when you were born again doesn't matter. What matters is that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are born again.

Let's turn our Bibles to Ephesians chapter 1. I could go to a lot of different places, but we are going to tonight be reminded that we're not trusting a date.

We're not trusting a time. We're trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work. He is our representative and substitute and risen

Savior. From the human perspective, if you know the time and date, wonderful. If you don't know the time and date, that's fine as long as you're believing right now.

There was a time when you were dead in sins and God made you alive, true? There was an exact moment when

God regenerated you and made you born again. God knows that exact second.

One day you were walking in darkness, God interrupted you, God intervened, God stopped you, and He changed you.

He monergistically saved you. But sometimes we don't recognize those things immediately.

And I want to take you to Ephesians chapter 1 verse 13 and 14 just to remind you in Paul's just burst of praise.

Remember verses 3 through 14 is all one Greek sentence. 200 and some words, all with one

Greek sentence, praising God for His salvation. God, you're to be praised because the

Father chose me, the Son redeemed me, and the Spirit's work shows up in chapter 1 verses 13 and 14.

And what I love about Ephesians, and why I always go back to it, is it had been how long since Paul had been saved on that road to Damascus.

He gets saved on the road to Damascus, and then how many years later does he write Ephesians? 25 years later.

He writes Ephesians, and he still hasn't got over who God is and what He's done for him.

He still hasn't lost his first what? Wasn't that long ago, some of you in this very room went to Ephesus with me, with Gracie.

And what do you see at Ephesus now? You don't see a dead church. There's no church.

25 years later, Paul hadn't got over the experience that God had saved him, out of all people, for His glory.

And it says in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 13, as Paul has this Trinitarian praise, in Him, and of course this union with Christ is a key theme in Ephesians, in Christ, in Christ Jesus, in Jesus Christ our

Lord, in Him, union with Christ. In Christ, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, reading the

New American Standard tonight, having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the

Holy Spirit of promise. When you believe, you are sealed with the

Holy Spirit of promise. And so what I want to focus on tonight is, if you don't know the exact time, as long as you're believing, still the

Spirit of God seals you, and He knows the exact time. It wasn't that long ago, somebody at Bethlehem Bible Church, oh,

I guess it was a long time ago, 13 years, pretty much said that if you don't know the exact time when you were saved, how do you call yourself a

Christian? What I love about Ephesians, it says, when

I do believe, I am sealed. Because here's what happens, if I don't know the date, what does it even affect in my life?

I'll tell you what it does affect, and here's the only thing that it affects. If you're believing right now, I don't really care when you believed, the only thing that it's going to affect is this.

What about my baptism? Right? What about my baptism?

Because if I believed in 1979, and then I ran around like a crazy carnal person, and then

I kind of rededicated my life in 1990, when was I really saved, when should I get baptized?

But I love here in Ephesians chapter 1, in Him you also, after listening to the message of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the

Holy Spirit of promise. So if you don't remember the exact time, if you do believe, you were sealed with the

Spirit of God, and His promise of never leaving nor forsaking you. God marks you out, and He cinches that with Ephesians 1 .14,

who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory.

The answer to the question, do you have to know exactly when you were saved is, no, as long as you're believing right now.

So I ask you the question, are you believing right now? Do you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only

Savior? Question number two. Can you help me with my struggle with assurance?

Regularly and often I will meet with people, and they'll say, I'm struggling with the assurance of my salvation, can you help me?

If somebody asks you the question, what would you say? First I think, I hope you'd say, yes,

I'd like to help you. How could you help them biblically? Someone's struggling with their assurance of salvation. I'm a

Christian, but I don't feel like one now. Help me. What would you say to them?

Bruce, so would you say,

I'm going to get ahead of myself. Good response, Bruce. Next. Thank you.

Yes, Barry, do you have something better than your first non -response? Pray for me.

Reading 1 John. Okay, good. All right. Yes, Bill. Okay, excellent.

By the way, just on a side note, I'm not trying to flatter you, but I love pastoring Bethlehem Bible Church.

I love it that you know the word, want to learn and grow and honor the Lord in that. May you excel still more, 1

Thessalonians. Nyada, you were going to say something? Okay, so maybe they don't even understand who

Jesus is, and so there's a reason for their lack of assurance. Okay, good. Listen to what

Thomas Brooks says. Our knowledge of God, of Christ, of ourselves, and of the blessed scripture is imperfect in this life, and how then can our assurance be perfect?

It's rare to meet someone who has never struggled with assurance. So this is a good thing to know what to say because people do struggle with assurance.

Don Whitney said, If Spurgeon experienced occasional doubts about his salvation, the less gifted should not consider themselves strange for struggling with doubts.

You are not abnormal if you have occasional doubts about whether you're a Christian. Why is this even an issue these days?

Well, easy believism comes along and says you prayed the prayer, you're a

Christian, and then you realize your life doesn't match up to the biblical definition of Christian, and so you wonder.

It is scary to think Matthew 7, Not everyone that says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will of my father, many will say to me in that day, what?

Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? Have we not cast out devils and in your name done wonderful works?

And then I will profess to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you that work iniquity.

It's a big deal. And some people aren't Christians and they shouldn't feel like they are.

And frankly, we talked about this too in discipleship class today. Bible teaching churches have higher issues in the congregation of folks struggling with assurance.

Why is that? Why can you go to another church where they water down the gospel and you never even wonder if you're a

Christian or not? Brian, if you're not preaching the full counsel of God and count the cost, pick up the cross, deny yourself, follow

Christ Jesus, then you never ask yourself the question. Tom, Tom, what do you think if a

Christian is dabbling with sin and struggling in sin and committing sins, do you think they're going to struggle with assurance?

Okay, is that a good thing to have happen? You know what,

Tom, would you just come up here? Would you just come up and teach? I'd love to relax. Let's turn our

Bibles to Colossians chapter 2. And the first thing we want to do when... That's an excellent answer,

Tom, thank you. First thing we want to do is we want to think about the objective nature of forgiveness, the objective nature of who

Jesus is and what he's done. And just like Bruce said and Tom, we have to get our eyes focused back on what we do know and who

Christ Jesus is. That's where we redirect our own thoughts and the person we're counseling.

We're going to think about what does salvation really entail. And friends, this is a huge issue because easy -believism contributes to faulty assurance or lack thereof.

And so too does sacramentalism. Roman Catholics call assurance of salvation the sin of presumption.

The sin of presumption. How can you so presume that you're going to heaven?

Presuming on the grace of God, assurance of salvation to the Roman Catholic Church is a mortal sin.

Did you know that? Gregory the Great, the 7th century Pope, he not only denied assurance was possible, he said it's dangerous.

And how do you control the hordes and the masses and not let them run wild? Well, this is a good way to do it.

Pope Gregory the Great said, The greater our sins, the more we must do to make up for them. Whether we have done enough to atone for them, we cannot know until after death.

We can never be sure of success. Assurance of salvation and the feeling of safety engendered by it is dangerous for anyone and would not be desirable if possible.

Dangerous and not desirable. Council of Trent, Roman Catholic Church. Whoever shall affirm that when the grace of justification is received, the offense of the penitent sinner is so forgiven, and the sentence of eternal punishment reversed, that there remains no temporal punishment to be endured.

Before his entrance into the kingdom of heaven, either in this world or the future world in purgatory, let him be accursed.

Thomas Watson said, If you have assurance, be careful you do not lose it. Colossians chapter 2, verse 13.

What a great passage. The first thing we do is remind people objectively who Jesus is, what is salvation.

This is just one passage among many that you could take yourself through. Colossians 2, verse 13.

And when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions.

True or false? When God saves you, he forgives all your sins, past, present, and future.

True or false? At justification, all your sins, past, present, and future, high -handed, sins of commission, omission, sins of ignorance, sins of deliberation, they're all credited to Christ's account, and he bears them on Calvary even though he never was personally a sinner.

The answer's true. And so when you think about what salvation is, you say,

I'm struggling with some sins, and I'm not feeling assured. Don't forget who Jesus is and what he's done at Calvary.

Having forgiven. Do you know what that word forgiven there is? It's where we get the word favor or charis.

Charis. You ever heard of charismatic? Charismatic just means grace. He's graced us freely, divinely accomplished and applied.

All our trespasses. And it's at the end of the sentence so you realize it's everything.

Look at verse 14. Having canceled out the certificate of debt. When you sin, it incurs a debt against God.

No wonder Jesus taught us to pray, forgive us our debts. That's why forgiveness is called remission.

Canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us.

These things are blotted out of the way, taken it out of the way having nailed it to the cross.

The first thing you want to do if someone struggles with assurance is to tell them objectively who

Jesus is, what he has accomplished in their place. The second thing you need to do is very, very important.

And we work through making sure assurance isn't an idol.

I know people that for all practical purposes, they struggle with their assurance so much.

And by the way, doesn't it feel horrible when you don't have assurance? It's horrible.

So you want assurance back. How do you get assurance back? If you try to capture,

Spurgeon said, the dove of assurance, he just flies away. But when you look to who

Jesus is and what he's done on the cross, the dove of assurance comes and floats right back down and sits on your shoulder.

So the first thing that happens is people say, I've got to get my assurance back because it's no fun thinking, could

I be a Christian? Maybe I'm not a Christian. Edward Reynolds said assurance will assist us in all our duties.

It will arm us against all temptations. It will answer all objections. It will sustain us in all conditions.

Joseph Carl said, the greatest thing that we desire next to the glory of God is our own salvation. And the sweetest thing we can desire is the assurance of our salvation.

One of the things that I love to do is I love to read Galatians when I struggle with my assurance.

Okay, my name is Mike Avendroth and I struggle with my assurance. Why would

I want to read Galatians if I struggle with assurance? Why would

I want to read something like this? Nevertheless, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus, even have believed in Christ that we may be justified by faith in Christ, not by the works of law, since by the works of the flesh no one shall be justified.

Why is that helpful to me? Do you all believe in nonverbal communication?

Some of you look kind of tired so I'm going to wake you up. Do you believe in nonverbal communication? I'm going to give you some nonverbal communication from Tom's answer.

Would it be fair to say that half of our problems is we're too focused on ourselves and it's inward looking and looking in and do

I feel this and have I experienced that? Spurgeon, whenever I feel that I have sinned and desire to overcome that sin for the future, the devil at the same time comes to me and whispers, how can you be a pardoned person and accepted with God while you still sin in this way?

If I listen to this, I drop into despondency. And if I continued in that state,

I should fall into despair and should commit sin more frequently than before. But grace comes in and says to my soul, you have sinned but did not

Christ come to save sinners? See, that's it. You are saved not because you're righteous for Christ died for the ungodly.

My faith says though I have sinned, I have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

And though I am guilty yet by grace I am saved and I am a child of God still. And what then

Spurgeon says, why the tears begin to flow when I say, how could I ever sin against my

God who has been so good to me? Now, I will overcome that sin and I will get strong to fight with sin through the conviction that I am child of God.

Number three, can people go to heaven if they commit suicide? Question number three,

I regularly get asked this question. It was probably 12 years ago, someone called me and said, we live in Lemonster and our loved one has committed suicide.

We think they're a Christian and could you come and do the service for us? So I went there and did the service.

And what do you think I said? What would you say? A friend calls you up. In 2000, and it's gotten worse, there's a suicide in America every 17 minutes.

What would you tell someone? Can a Christian commit suicide? If a Christian commits suicide, can they go to heaven?

What's the answer? Right. Okay. Anything else?

It's a very sensitive topic, obviously, Bruce. You know,

I think every one of us would agree that suicide is very, very selfish, right?

And by the way, if you are a Christian and you have that momentary lapse of sanity and you do something, then what a shame it is that now your friends and loved ones have to try to think through in their own mind, were they really a

Christian and can God forgive and all that stuff too. So, we to continue in sin, the grace might abound.

I know. Well, the thing is, it's certainly a bad way to go out, isn't it? I would like to endure till the end.

348 Council of Carthage condemned those who had chosen suicide.

363 Council of Braga condemned and denied proper burial rights for all known suicides.

Council of Ares 452 said suicide was the work of the devil.

Pythagoras, not for spiritual reasons, but for math reasons, said that it upset the delicate balance of the world.

Aristotle condemned suicide because it robbed the community of someone who could serve.

Middle Ages, if you committed suicide, they would not just say you can't be buried, but they would mutilate the body and drag it through the streets, sometimes placing the body on a pole outside the city gates as a public warning to other people not to commit suicide.

If you tried to commit suicide in the Middle Ages and did not commit suicide, failed, you would be arrested, publicly shamed, and sentenced to death.

I don't know why that's funny, but you guys are the strange congregation.

Biblically literate, but very strange. Criminal ordinance,

Louis XIV of France, 1670, the dead person's body was drawn through the streets face down, thrown in the garbage heap, and then all his public property was confiscated, whether he was married or not.

Interestingly, Shakespeare comes along and he begins to write about suicide, and public perception begins to change.

Many characters in Shakespeare's plays died of suicide.

But what do we do? In 1983, the Roman Catholic Church reversed canon law that prohibited proper funeral rites and burial in church cemeteries for people committing suicide.

The catechism says of the Roman Catholic Church, suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life.

It's gravely contrary to the just love of self. It likewise offends love of neighbor because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family, nation, and other human societies to which we continue to have obligations.

Suicide is contrary to love for the living God. True or false, the unforgivable sin in Matthew is suicide?

False. True or false, suicide is a serious offense against God? True or false, the person who commits suicide cannot in time repent of their sin?

True. True or false, if you're a Christian, Jesus bore all your sins, including the sin of suicide?

That's what we have to go back to. I grew up in sacramentalism, and you had to remember all the sins that you committed during the day because,

God forbid, if you died in the night without one of those sins confessed, you wouldn't go to heaven.

How can you get forgiveness if you commit suicide? Now, here's the question.

Obviously, sin of suicide is murder. Psalm 31, my times are in your hands.

God's the giver of life. The Lord gives. The Lord takes away. Obviously, it's wrong to say

I reject the life that you have given me. I reject the bitter providences that you have put together in my life.

How many people in the Bible committed suicide? Do you know? Do you know the number? Think about this biblically now.

Abimelech, Judges 9. Saul, 1 Samuel 31. Saul's armor bearer, 1

Samuel 31. Ahithophel, 2 Samuel 17. Zimri, 1

Kings. And Judas, Matthew 27. Did I miss anybody?

Some think, I forgot, Pastor Steve, what's your view of Samson? Okay. I didn't say, okay, look,

I'm here, okay. Sorry, I asked the guy. No, I agree. When you think about suicide, you have to go back to the cross again.

Can a Christian commit a sin? Wouldn't you say any sin a

Christian commits is crazy? It's not thinking. It's irrational. In light of what

God has done, and our response then is sin, whether it's complaining or slander or envy or lack of gratitude, lack of praise.

It's basically, in one sense, crazy.

If you realize that God forgives every sin, including the sin of suicide, what if you met somebody who says, well,

I'm glad to know that because my life is so bad, I think I just better go commit suicide because I can't live any longer.

Then what would you say? Could an unbeliever say that?

It sounds like an unbeliever would say that. Okay. What else would you say to them? I like it we have different counseling styles here.

Right? Some counseling styles, please tell me how you're thinking and let me help you.

Other counseling styles like Al Mohler. Al Mohler's counseling styles, the kind I usually like.

That's why people go to Pastor Steve for the TLC. What's your problem? What's the

Bible say about it? Why are we here? Right? That's the Al Mohler school. Amelia.

Okay. Excellent. Let's turn our Bibles to Romans chapter 6 as we work through this. We're going to do this one and maybe one more, and we're going to have to come back next week for some of the other questions.

Let's try to get to the cremation issue as we're just thinking through biblically. Years ago when

Walter Martin was on the Bible Answer Man, I loved it that they'd ask him a question, he'd give an answer, and as I grew in faith, they'd ask him a question.

I'd quick turn off my radio and see if I could give the answer. I don't know if you know this congregation or not, but you are the people in your family who are the religious ones, and they're expecting you to know the answer.

Right? You're the religious ones. You go to that Bible church. And so that's why when people come to me and say, well, there's a death in the family, and pastor, could you come and speak at the funeral?

I would love to, but you're the one that they all see in the family as the religious one, and you're the one who's going to have the platform to get up with tears and say,

I love you all, I love my grandma, and by the way, this is what the Bible says about Jesus and his exclusivity, and how he saved sinners.

People are going to ask you questions all the time. What does the Bible say? Now, of course, Romans chapter 5, it starts off with the benefits of justification.

Boy, isn't this wonderful? It's just like the kaleidoscope of the greatness of God. When God justifies you, declares you righteous,

I mean, it is the entryway into a thousand blessings and more.

Just a few he lists here in Romans chapter 5. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God.

The first thing that you get when God justifies you is peace with God. Can you imagine? What's the opposite of peace?

War. To imagine, I had a personal relationship with Jesus, and it was one of enemy, and God was at war with me.

You say, I was in a war with God. Well, he was at war with you, and now there's peace. Peace means there's two kind of opposing factions, and now just blended together because of Christ's death.

We have peace with God. That's not the peaceful feeling. That's objective military language.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Him we have obtained access. When you get justified, it's not just peace with God that you have, but you also have access by faith into this grace by which we stand.

No trespassing. And now the welcome mat is out based on Christ's life.

And it goes on. And what do we do with this great justification truth?

Verse 1 of chapter 6. What shall we then say? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

By no means. How can we who died to sin? This is what I would tell the Christian who says,

I'm struggling and I just have to end it all. Who died to sin still live in it. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of God the

Father, that we too might walk in newness of life. Friends, why do you love the book of Ruth?

I love the book of Ruth for lots of reasons, but one of the reasons is it talks about the providence of God. And when

God brings you through a bitter providence, He's still sovereign in those things. And we can't say, may we never say, you know what,

I need to get out of this. I have to take my own life. It's sinful.

It's ungodly. It's selfish. But if the person, the answer to the question is, if the person's a

Christian, no sin can undo the work of God for that person.

If you could lose your salvation, how long ago would you have lost it?

Salvation is something that's done for us. Of course, don't commit suicide. That's not the way out.

That's not a good testimony. It was just a couple of hours ago, and Kim and I had friends that we went to Grace Church with.

He's probably 50, his name was Mark, and her name was Kim. Kind of a little business together.

You'll find this interesting. This will wake you up. Remember Barney, the purple dinosaur? So the

Cochranes and the Avendroths went together and bought a Barney outfit. And you could go do parties in Los Angeles, and you could make $100 an hour.

Guess who was the person in the Barney suit? Thankfully, not me. My head wouldn't fit in.

I thought for sure, I'm the Barney. Anyway, we had this little, it was a small business, but you know, you could make $100 a weekend.

Anyway, I just got the phone call today that Mark went out, took a walk, fell over, dead.

49 years old. I was in the Czech Republic, as you know, not that long ago, and I'm starting to have that reaction to the hazelnuts, and I can't breathe, and I'm thinking,

I'm going to die in the Czech Republic. 53 years old. My father died at 55.

He died of cancer. I'm going to die of hazelnut poisoning. So I said to my host,

I'm going to die! I said to my host, I think

I'm having an allergic reaction. You can see my face is all puffed up. We better get into the hospital right now. It's about 15 miles away.

It's midnight, so at least there's no traffic outside of Brno, Czech Republic. He said, here, quick, take this pill, because at least it'll help you a little bit.

And so I couldn't really swallow the pill, because my throat was expanding, and I'm sitting in the front seat, and I said to myself,

I think I've told you the story, but this relates to this. I thought, do I text Kim or don't

I? Okay, I'll text Kim. I know this is going to make you upset.

I'm basically going to die. And it's all my host's fault.

And I just said, I don't want you to worry, but I want you to pray, because Kim is a prayer. She's a prayer warrior.

And I thought, you know what, I need her prayers, because the righteous prayer, right, the fervent prayer of a righteous man or woman, what?

Accomplishes much. I didn't hit send right away, because I just didn't know if I wanted to upset her.

So finally I hit send, and then I began to think. And here's what

I thought. And again, I'm just like you. I have my own struggles, and God has granted me certain things.

And you'd think that a Thomas Watson quote would come to my mind. You'd think maybe

Paul's letter to Romans would come to my mind. Nothing shall separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus, neither death nor life.

You'd think maybe a John Calvin quote would come into my mind, John MacArthur quote, or maybe an

S. Lewis Johnson quote. I mean, somebody give me a good quote while I'm going to die. And the only thing

I could think of that kept running through my mind, and by the way,

I'm with my student. I've taught him several times at the European Biblical Training Center, and I just taught him that week.

And so I'm with my student, Roddick. Roddick is about 30. I'm thinking, this is class.

How to die 101. Hope the guy's taking notes.

Anyway, long story short, I kept thinking of John Wesley's quote, which to me is the exact opposite of the person who commits suicide.

John Wesley said, Christians die well. Christians die well.

And isn't that your desire as well? One day you're going to die, and then stand before God.

All your loved ones are going to die. But you know what? Whether we eat or we drink or we die, don't you want to live to the glory of God?

Don't you want to go to Sarah DiPietro's room today, Steve, and have her say what? I'm ready to go.

I've fought the fight. I've run the race. I'd like to see my

Savior face to face. Isn't that a good testimony? To just die well. It doesn't earn your salvation.

But in light of what God has done for you, isn't that the exact opposite of saying, you know,

I'm in a lot of pain and a lot of trouble and everything else. I think I'll just kill myself because my theology at least informs me that I can't lose my salvation, so I just need to get out of here.

If the question is, does an innocent person in Africa who's never heard the

Gospel, if they die, do they go to heaven? The answer is yes. But there are no innocent people in Africa.

If a Christian commits suicide, do they go to heaven? All Christians go to heaven because God won't let one of His elect fall through His fingers.

Nothing shall snatch them from My hand. And you said, well, you can jump.

Then Romans 8 says that not one created thing can be lost. Are you a created thing?

If God has saved you, it's sealed. Romans chapter 8, glorified, past tense, and you're not even in glory.

Why is it past tense in Romans 8 .30? Because it's a sure thing. You'll probably meet someone who has a family member who's dealt with suicide.

And the best thing you can do is be super sweet to them, kind to them, and love them. And you're the religious one and they're probably going to ask you a question.

And then you give them your kindest demeanor and answer. And then you talk about the great

Savior. It is 7 o 'clock. Our next question is going to be on cremation.

And the next one is, why do we evangelize if God's already chosen people? But I'm going to keep my word to the 45 -minute sermon.

Let's pray. Father, thank You for our time spent in Your Word tonight. I'm super thankful for these dear people at Bethlehem Bible Church.

They thrill my heart. They thrill the elders' hearts as they want to learn and grow. They want to be biblical.

God, You're such a precise God. You're such an exact God. I think about Leviticus, how important worship is in the

Old Covenant to be exactly prescribed by You. We're to think about You exactly and only as You have revealed.

And that these dear people would want to learn and grow and then minister to others. What a joy it is to a pastor.

What a joy it is to an associate pastor and elders. I pray that You'd bless them. I pray that You'd give them opportunities in the middle of life and death circumstances to minister to the

Word, to be good ambassadors of Christ Jesus. Father, for those that are here tonight that actually struggle with their assurance,

I pray that You'd help them to be Christ -centered. Father, I pray that tonight that You would help us to be focused on Your Son and what

He's done. Give us opportunities this week to speak well of Him. In Christ's name we pray.