Equipping Eve: What Does Total Depravity Mean for the Christian?

Is the church today doing everything it can to provide women a firm foundation of truth in Christ Jesus?

Well, it's true, there's no shortage of candy -coated Bible studies, potluck fellowships available to ladies.

But beyond Sunday morning, are Christian women being properly equipped to stand against the same deceptions that even enticed

Eve in the garden? In an attempt to address the need for trustworthy, biblical resources for women,

No Compromise Radio is happy to introduce Equipping Eve, a ladies -only radio show that seeks to equip women with fruits of truth in an age that's ripe with deception.

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

Well, hello ladies, and welcome to Equipping Eve. I'm your host, Erin Benzinger, and this is the show that seeks to equip you with fruits of truth from God's Word.

We go to God's Word because it is the only objective, knowable truth. Everything else is subjective, right?

Our feelings? You can't trust those. You know, you get a warm fuzzy when you hear something you like, but in reality, maybe it's not something that's good for you.

Let's consider our feelings when we're being disciplined, right? As adults, disciplined by God.

As children, disciplined by our parents. That's not a good feeling, but a loving father, which our

God is, disciplines us for our good to continue to conform us to the image of his son.

It's part of the sanctification process, but it doesn't feel good, right?

So that's why we go with objective truth. Things we know to be true, and God's Word is the only objective truth available.

So here at Equipping Eve, we don't rely on our feelings. Hey, I like it if you are having a good day, and you feel good, and you're laughing, and something's funny.

Funny is good. Laughter is good. Emotions are good, but we cannot judge truth by them.

Now, God gives us a conscience, yes. God gives us maybe some instincts about certain things, you know?

I'm going to be honest. There have been times in my life way back to when I was a kid, I remember vividly an instance where I just had a gut feeling about something, it was not going to be good, and I was right, you know?

And that's just one of the many millions and millions of graces that God gives us. But we have to judge things by the

Bible. That is our plumb line. And that's what we like to do here at Equipping Eve. So check out the website when you're done listening, unless you're listening on the website, in which case, hey, thanks for visiting.

EquippingEve .com or EquippingEve .org, both of those addresses will get you to the same place.

The website, we post every episode, every podcast episode is posted there. There's a blog that's not updated as frequently as I would like, but it's there.

I like to write there once in a while. You can find some resources that might be helpful to you there at EquippingEve .com.

There's a Bible study, there's information if you want to contact me, whether you just have a question, an idea for the show.

If you have a request for a speaking engagement, please feel free to contact me. All of that information is there.

If you are a social media person, check out Facebook, Equipping Eve, Twitter at EquippingEve.

It's not difficult to find me. Just Google Equipping Eve. There you are.

That's kind of like the obligatory announcement stuff, I feel like I have to do almost every show.

I'll do it for a few and then I'll completely forget. And then some poor person will stumble upon the podcast and not know how to find us.

It's EquippingEve .com. Okay. So there you go. So let's start today, ladies, with...

Here's a throwback, but I have a purpose. So here's a throwback to the

You're Already Amazing calendar. Some of you longtime listeners may remember this.

So You're Already Amazing is a book written by author Holly Gerth. I've not read the book, full disclosure,

I have not read the book. Based on the calendar and the title, it's probably very seeker -sensitive, very much me -centered, very man -centered, woman -centered, if you will.

It's all about you and you're so amazing, right? And so I was flipping through this calendar, and it gives a little thought for every day or whatever, and happened upon the entry for April 12th.

This is not April 12th. I am recording this on October 15th. So there you go. Very much not

April outside at all, but that's okay. So this is from April 12th.

It says, there might be some part of you that God has said is fearfully and wonderfully made from Psalm 139, but you're just not quite sure about that yet.

Women seem to be pretty good at agreeing with God, unless He's talking nice about us. Can I get an amen?

So this is saying, don't put yourself down, don't think that God only says bad things about you, because you're already amazing, right?

And we've talked about this in the past, you know, we're sinners. Are we awesome? Not as awesome as we think we are.

However, if you check the hashtag on social media, justbeawesome, I think

I'm the only one who uses that, and some listeners. And we just use that as a little joke.

So if you're new to the show, justbeawesome, hashtag justbeawesome, that's kind of an inside joke.

So now you're in on it. There you go. And we kind of use it in terms of, you know, how awesome are we?

Some of these writers talk about how great we are, and it's all about you, and God just can't do anything without you because you're so fantastic.

And, you know, there's a few ways to look at that.

And we so often look at, you know, we're sinners, and you shouldn't say anything like that, and yada yada, but at the same time, we want to be mindful that we aren't constantly putting down God's creation.

Stay with me. I know, I'm losing people here. We are sinners. Yes, absolutely.

The Bible tells us in Isaiah that even our good works are like filthy rags before the

Lord. And that is why, ladies, we need the righteousness of Christ. Can I get an amen on that?

That deserves an amen. We need the righteousness of Christ because we have no righteousness of our own.

You can be the nicest person. You can give, tithe your money, and then some, and volunteer at a soup kitchen, and donate everything you own to charity, and live in a shack, and still be hospitable, and whatever.

You could just be the most humble, amazing person. It doesn't matter. It's not good enough to get you to heaven.

It's just not. I'm sorry. There are a lot of really nice people who are going to hell.

Because their niceness can't pay back the debt that they owe

God for their sins. Because they're still sinners. We're born sinners. That's just the way it is.

So even everything good that we do, it's still like filthy rags before the Lord. Christ came to earth, kept that law that we can't keep, right?

We're sinners because we've broken God's law. But Christ, Jesus, never broke the law. Not once.

He was perfect. He was fully God and fully man. Never broke the law. So he lived the life that we would have to live if we wanted to get to heaven, but we can't.

And then he died the death that we actually deserve. He bore the wrath of God for sinners. And then

God raised him from the dead three days later, saying, I accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as an atonement for sinners.

So when we stand before the Lord, if we've been saved, ladies, when we stand before the

Lord, he doesn't see our filthy rags, because that's all we have to offer. He sees the righteousness of Christ.

And so that deserves an amen. And so I want to be really clear on that. At the same time, as women, as human beings, we are made in the image of God.

So we do have value. We do have worth. If we didn't, God wouldn't have sent his son to make a way for salvation, right?

So that's kind of my backdrop.

It's not a disclaimer. I don't know what it is. So that's all my thoughts for the show all cobbled together into one blurb.

All right. Now, back up, because I want to talk today about total depravity, which is why

I thought this little calendar entry was an interesting one to look at. Now, a lot of writers, and potentially even the writer of this calendar, might say, you know, take this, and then they run with it.

You're so amazing. And God has all these wonderful things to say about you, because he's just crazy mad, head over heels in love with you.

And that's just ridiculous. God doesn't need us to do anything, does he? No, he doesn't. It's his mercy and grace that lets us breathe another breath.

But we can also take it too far the other way and say, you're nothing but a worthless worm.

You don't deserve anything, which, you know, we certainly don't deserve salvation. That's why it's a free gift.

That's called grace and mercy. But, you know, we can just put ourselves and people in general down to the point where it's like, wow,

I'm really depressed now. And the gospel doesn't even seem uplifting because you've put everything in such a weird downcast light.

And so I want us to find a balance today. And I'm kind of talking in circles around myself, so I should probably stick to my notes.

So I know, if you see the title of the show and it says total depravity in there and you're thinking, ugh, now we're going to talk about how awful we are.

No. And we're not also going to sit here and talk about how amazing we are. Or hashtag just be awesome.

We're not going to do that. The funny thing is, I think there is a group of people in Christendom, in evangelicalism, who actually kind of like talking about how awful they are.

Now, I don't know about you. I don't know if it's something that happens when you kind of start to discover the doctrines of grace or what.

But then, you know, you kind of get caught up in this, like, all you talk about is how awful you are.

And that's kind of weird, too. There's kind of this weird tendency amongst this little subset of evangelicals.

It's almost like a self -flagellation, you know? Just, oh, I'm nothing but a worthless worm. And they love to hear sermons about, you know, hellfire and brimstone sermons all the time.

I'm not saying there isn't a time and a place for those, if that's where the text brings you, go for it. Because that's the truth.

That's in God's Word. And we teach and preach the whole counsel of God. We, as women, don't preach.

But we can certainly teach ladies and children. So, okay, there's my... If you take the sound bite out of context,

I'll just point you right back to the rest of it. All right. You know, but there's... It's like, you know, we just want to beat ourselves with the bad news, and then you never get to the good news.

And that is just a terribly depressing way to live. You know, I'm such a sinner.

I'm just a wicked wretch. I'm such a worm. There's a time and a place for that, but it doesn't stop there.

And I think that's where we err. I've done it. I've been there. And, like I say, there's an element of truth to that.

But I think we need to be careful of how far we take that. Now, the doctrine of total depravity, total inability, whatever you want to call it, it's a thing.

That's in the Bible. That means it's true, because it's in the

Bible. And we just talked about that at the start of the show. Total depravity basically says each and every person except Jesus, like we just talked about, is a sinner.

You are affected by sin. Your mind is a slave to sin.

Your heart tends towards sin. You are enslaved in bondage to your sin.

Because of Adam, when he fell, as our federal head, we'll talk about that another time, we are all fallen sinners when we are born into this world.

So we are, by nature, sinners. We have a sin nature when we are born into this world. Because of our nature, we can't be contrary to that.

So then we sin on our own. We don't need Adam's sin, because we sin on our own as soon as we can. So here's a quote from Charles Hodge.

I found the quote on the CARM website, so that's the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry.

I don't agree with them on everything, but they have a lot of really good, helpful information. So I'm going to use this quote from Charles Hodge here.

Hodge says, quote, by total depravity is not meant that all men are equally wicked, nor that any man is as thoroughly corrupt as it is possible for a man to be, nor that men are destitute of all moral virtues.

The scriptures recognize the fact, which experience abundantly confirms, that men, to a greater or less degree, are honest in dealings, kind in their feelings, and beneficent in their conduct.

Even the heathen, the apostle teaches us, do by nature the things of the law. They are more or less under the dominion of conscience, which approves or disapproves their moral conduct.

All this is perfectly consistent with the scriptural doctrine of total depravity, which includes the entire absence of holiness,

I think that's important, the want of due apprehensions of the divine perfections, and of our relation to God as our creator, preserver, benefactor, governor, and redeemer.

So there you go. And because we are totally depraved, we can't even choose

Christ on our own. So we're free to choose, if you will, but you can't choose contrary to your nature.

So unless you're given a new nature in Christ, you can't choose Christ, and so there you go, there's that free will issue.

And now I just lost a bunch of people. So I'm trying to tackle too many topics in a short period of time.

Put a pin in that, we'll come back to it another day. So total depravity is a biblical doctrine.

You will not convince me otherwise. So I'll just say that up front.

You can feel free to send me your emails. But I'm just telling you.

Good luck with that. Because it is in the Bible. The Bible teaches it, therefore

I believe it. It's the way it is. Romans 3, 10 through 12.

There's none righteous, not even one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside.

Together they have become useless. No one who does good. There's not even one. Romans is a great place to go to find verses for this.

Romans 5, 6. While we were still helpless at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. And I'm actually reading some of these verses from the

Karm website. So it's probably in ESV. I typically use the NASB, but I took a little shortcut here.

Since he had such a great list here on his website, I figured I would just go with it.

Ephesians 2, 1. You were dead in your trespasses and sins. The Bible doesn't say, and you, just you people there in Ephesus, were dead in your trespasses and sins.

But some of the rest of us weren't. No. Everybody is born a sinner.

1 Corinthians 2, 14. A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

So, Jeremiah 17, 9. The heart is wicked, desperately sick, deceitful, wicked.

I have all my translations mixed up. Desperately wicked. Who can understand it? So, we have no good in and of ourselves.

On the subject of man's need for salvation, Charles Spurgeon once said,

Until I know how much all my powers are debased and depraved, how thoroughly my will is perverted, and my judgment turned from its right channel, how really and essentially vicious my nature has become, it cannot be possible for me to know the extent of my guilt.

The whole extent of my guilt. So, to paraphrase Spurgeon from another quote of his,

Sin affects every particle of our being. We can't escape it as we are born.

So, before we come to Christ, yes, we are wretched, wicked sinners. But what about after regeneration?

We aren't instantly perfect, that's for sure, but I fear that we can tend to stop with this depravity, this total depravity, because we don't want men and women to think too highly of themselves.

So, we talk about the need for grace because of our inability to save ourselves, but the effects of grace seem to stop there in our teaching sometimes.

And we err if we do that. We get saved by grace, and then suddenly we come under the impression that we must sanctify ourselves.

At least, that's the implication that I hear in some teachings. And really what

I see is the fruit of some ministries. But didn't

Paul talk about that just a little bit? Turn with me, ladies, to Galatians.

Let's get you opening your Bibles. Turn with me to Galatians, and now I will be reading from the

New American Standard. Chapter 3. Paul writes,

Paul's making the point, you didn't get saved by grace and then have to keep your salvation by works of the law and sanctify yourself by doing your own works.

That's not going to work. If your works didn't work before, they're not going to work now. We have a new nature, yes, and we're going to talk about that.

But that's all of grace. And so we can't stop talking about total depravity, and this is why you need a

Savior, and Jesus will save you and forgive you for all your sins. There's so much more, and it's all part of the good news.

And that's kind of the point, right? It's not just about that instant moment of salvation.

It's about the good news that goes for the rest of your earthly life and then into eternity. Instant perfection?

No. Wouldn't we all love that? That would be amazing. If we could be instantly perfect.

But it'd also be really annoying to be around people who aren't perfect, because it'd be really hard to have grace, right?

If you're perfect, but then you wouldn't be perfect anymore if you didn't have grace, because you'd be sinning, so there you go. It's this cycle.

But by God's grace, we aren't made perfect here in this life, because we can see

Him working as we see Him changing us. About these verses in Galatians, Spurgeon says,

The first thing that God the Holy Spirit does in the soul is to regenerate it. The next thing is to teach the soul that it is utterly incapable of saving itself.

That's really important, ladies. It's not off topic, but it's a little side note. Get that order down.

The first thing that God the Holy Spirit does in the soul is to regenerate it. The next thing is to teach the soul that it is utterly incapable of saving itself.

The Holy Spirit next applies the blood of Jesus to the soul, gives the soul the grace of faith, whereby it lays hold of Jesus, and gives it an anointing of holy consolation and unction of assurance, whereby, casting itself wholly on the blood and righteousness of Jesus, it receives joy, knows itself to be saved, and rejoices in pardon.

When the sinner has thus believed, then the Holy Spirit brings all the precious things to him, the blood of Jesus, the righteousness of Jesus, the covenant of adoption.

But I cannot rejoice in my adoption until I receive the spirit of adoption, whereby I may be able to cry, Abba, Father.

So you see, every point that is brought out in the experience of the newborn Christian, every point in that part of salvation that we may call its beginning in the soul, has to do with God, the

Holy Spirit. And then, complete by the flesh, that text in Galatians 3 .3,

Spurgeon says, Surely the way in which the Christian life begins is the method in which it is to be sustained.

As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, the Apostle says in another place, so walk with him.

If you have begun in the flesh, go on in the flesh. But if you really know that your beginning was in the spirit, then do not go back to the flesh.

So, that kind of teaching that wants to dwell on our sinfulness to an extreme, is erring in that it then almost has us sanctifying ourselves, preserving our salvation by means of the law, by means of the flesh.

So what should we do with the doctrine of total depravity in terms of being a

Christian? And I never really thought about how this could be kind of a point of, not contention, but just a point of confusion, an issue to really talk about, until I saw an article pop up that I just thought was really, really good and really, really helpful.

So we'll link it at Equipping Eve with this podcast episode. So go to the website that I babbled about at the beginning, and look for the link to an article at the

Things Above Us blog, and the article is entitled Total Depravity Misapplied.

So this article was written on October 12, 2018 by Michael Coughlin, and I consider

Michael a friend. So thanks to Michael for writing this awesome article.

So Michael writes, The photo to the right made its way around the internet and into my email. The gist is clear.

It's designed to exhibit that everyone suffers from total depravity. So since you don't have the article in front of you right now, unless you're at your computer, the picture says if you don't see the number inside the circle, you may suffer of schizophrenia, and you can see a number very clearly.

Developmental delay, you can see a number clearly. Neurosis, you can see a number clearly. And then there's a circle with no number in it, and it says total depravity.

So you get it. No one can see the number. Everyone suffers from it. So Michael says, you know, this is fun.

It reminds us that total depravity does, in fact, affect every person except Jesus. But is it true that every person who sees this meme is totally depraved?

Or do some Christians actually throw around this term meaninglessly? Has this important doctrine of the church become so well understood that it means literally what it does not mean?

Let's take a look. From a reform perspective, total depravity is an attribute of every man, woman, and child who was not conceived of the

Holy Spirit as Jesus was. It describes our fallen state as completely corrupted by sin to our very core.

The idea is that every part of us has been so affected by the fall that we are unable to discern spiritual things.

1 Corinthians 2 .14, we read that before. Led by the power of Satan, Ephesians 2 .2.

Actually dead in a very real sense, even though our physical body hasn't died yet. We also read that from Ephesians 2 .1.

And unable to exercise faith toward God through Christ because we're so desperately wicked from the heart. Jeremiah 17 .9.

These are a few of the necessary consequences of belief in total depravity, and they are all confirmed by scripture.

The list above is not meant to be an exhaustive demonstration of the effects of our total depravity, but a representative list.

The point is that totally depraved people will not and cannot see Christ as Lord and Savior and are considered dead in their trespasses and sins.

The problem I see is when Reformed believers apply total depravity to situations involving

Christians. Take the photo above, for example. It was sent to me by a Christian friend. The implication is that literally everyone who looks at it is totally depraved.

But is that the case? Am I totally depraved by the Reformed and biblical definition of the doctrine?

I have been granted new life in Christ. I am no longer dead, but I live, per John 11 .26,

Ephesians 2 .5, Colossians 2 .13. I follow Christ as my master, not the devil, Romans 6 .6.

And I have exercised faith in Christ unto salvation as the result of God the Holy Spirit regenerating my heart.

We just looked at that from Spurgeon from Galatians. For me, or anyone for that matter, to put on Christ and believe in Him, that person cannot be totally depraved by its definition.

And I just thought that was fantastic. He goes on, he says, The doctrine of total depravity forces us to conclude that a person cannot and will not come to Christ by faith while totally depraved.

The very act of believing in Christ is the first evidence that God has changed someone's nature so that they are no longer totally depraved.

So what's the big deal? The issue I see is that I hear of Christians doing wicked things or even little sins, and I hear the phrase, well, that's total depravity for you, or the heart is desperately wicked, who can know it?

But since these are misapplications of this doctrine, it actually does more harm than good to the church. And I just would like to give an amen to that.

And I've done it. I've totally done it. So if you're sitting there and you're thinking, oh my goodness, that's totally me,

I've done this, so have I. I've probably done it on an episode of Eve here. Because we don't think things through.

We don't always think things through the way we should. And that's why I think this article is so great. It's so important.

He goes on, he says, But since these are misapplications of this doctrine, I already read that, it actually does more harm than good to the church.

Believers who are struggling with sin should not be directed to their total depravity as the explanation for the sin, for total depravity can't apply.

Christians must be directed to the battle between spirit and flesh that rages in the life of a person who has been made alive in Christ.

Check out Romans 7, right? Believers in Christ should value truth above convenience.

I submit to you that it's rather lazy to throw the term total depravity at a situation of a believer failing. It's unhelpful and invalid to apply

Jeremiah 17, 9 to a situation where a child of God sins. Why mix falsehood and misapplication of scripture into your life at all?

So what should we do? Now I've explained why I think many of us are mistaken in how we throw around the phrase total depravity.

I've explained situations where it seems to be misapplied. But the question remains, what should we be doing? How ought we explain a believer's sin?

As I've written, do not apply total depravity to explain a believer's life. No, dear Christian, do not deny there is a fundamental difference between your nature and your unbelieving neighbor's nature.

You would not deny that there is a difference in your own nature and your own previous nature from before you knew Christ as Savior. We must believe what the

Bible says about us, that although total depravity kept us at enmity with God, God quickened us.

That is, he made us alive so that we could and would see Christ and his gospel as beautiful. Our total depravity was removed, and we now dwell in this wicked body of flesh from where we await deliverance.

But until that time, we recognize that our choosing to sin against our God is no longer the result of our status as being totally depraved.

Nay, worse than that. It is our living soul's willful rebellion against the one who died in our place and rose again.

It is, in a sense, a treason higher than the sin of the most wicked pagan who does not look forward to eating at God's table.

Let us repent and mourn our lack of dedication to our great Savior and strive to obey him henceforth.

And then he has a little postscript. I'm not saying there's no lingering effect of the fall or even our own depravity after regeneration, only that all that the doctrine of total depravity encompasses cannot rightly be applied to the

Christian experience. So there you go. That's this awesome article. It's currently my favorite article that I remember reading in the recent past.

Or the distant past. It's really good. I just think, after some of the things that I've seen and lived through, in particular over the past couple of years, that this just hit a nail on its head that I didn't know needed to be slammed with a hammer.

It was so good. So that's why I think it's important for you to please, please, please, ladies, go read this article again.

I just read it to you in total, but please just go ahead, read it again. Think it through. Think it through for yourself.

Because the point being made in this article is spot on. And it's, as I've said a bazillion times now, it's so important.

And it's funny, providentially funny, that providentially, my pastor recently made a similar point.

And it really stood out to me while he was preaching that Sunday morning. Because I'd never really heard teaching on the

Christian's new nature so clearly and rightly explained. And he said something to the effect, and I don't have a transcript in front of me, because there are no transcripts, but it was something to the effect of, he was just emphasizing that we have a new nature in Christ.

And so, yes, we're tempted to sin, because we are warring against that sin nature.

We have the constant battle of our flesh versus our new nature that is ours in Christ.

And he's saying, you know, when that temptation to sin comes along, you have to think to yourself, no, that's who

I was. And I'm a child of God now. And that is not what I want to do.

That is not the desire of my heart. And when we take that approach, that biblical approach, ladies, it changes it from a life of do's and don'ts and law to reminding ourselves of who we are in Christ.

And Christ reminding us that Christ has changed our nature. Whoever is in Christ is a new creation.

And reminding us of that and bringing us back to that, to who we are in Christ, not bringing us back to our total depravity, like Michael was saying.

That's not helpful for a Christian who's sinning. Bringing you back to who you are in Christ, because that's a higher treason than to commit that sin.

And it just takes what is so often taught by so many as just law, and we shouldn't do this, and if you're not doing that, you're probably not a

Christian, and bum -ba -bum -ba -bum -ba -bum, this pounding, this hammering. And instead, you're seeing it as, oh my goodness, by sinning, by doing that thing,

I'm committing this treason against my God, and I don't even desire to do that thing, because my

Jesus bled and died for me so that I could have his righteousness, so that I could be transformed.

Why would I do that? And we will still sin, ladies. Hear me, we are not perfect. We've been there, right?

We already discussed this. You're not going to be perfect this side of heaven. It's not going to happen.

But we must live in light of who we are in Christ.

We have a new nature in Christ. We'll still struggle against our flesh, but if we've been saved, we've been born again.

We've put off the old nature. We've put on the new nature. Sound like Ephesians 4? And so that's how we need to start looking at sin as Christians.

Now, when we're evangelizing, when we're witnessing to unbelievers, they need to understand their total depravity.

Probably throwing those words at them won't help them. They need to understand their sin. They need to understand that they're incapable of doing good before God, that they cannot earn their salvation.

They need to hear that, and they need to hear the good news, and they need to hear the good news as it applies to the totality of the

Christian life. Not only are you given forgiveness and salvation in that moment, but you're given a new life in Christ, and a new nature, and new desires, a new heart, a new mind, a transformed mind.

And you live with that in this life, and you'll still struggle. But you have forgiveness in Christ, and then in heaven, oh, glorification.

We will be perfect, right? New bodies. No sin.

That's all part of the good news. But we need to rightly look at the doctrine of total depravity for the

Christian. Because I agree with Michael here, that I think we're doing the church more harm than good by misapplying it, and kind of throwing it around incorrectly.

And I know I'm guilty. So I'm not even going to pretend that I'm not, because someone will find an article or a clip that shows that I'm guilty.

So there you go. Guilty as charged. Most of us probably are. Which is why

I really appreciated this article, and the way it just brought that into focus. And of course,

God and His providence had me hearing that sermon as well. And I just, I thought, this is important for me to hear, and to be reminded of this proper focus for Christians.

Ladies, I thought maybe you would benefit from it too. So I hope you have. Because this is good news.

This good news, this grace in Christ, this new nature, this who we are, this

Holy Spirit who lives inside of us, this is what restrains us from that willful rebellion. And we can be in communion with our

God, growing in grace, growing in knowledge of Him, if we're communicating to Him in prayer, and listening to Him by reading

His word. So ladies, until next time, get in your Bibles, get on your knees, and get equipped.

Thanks for listening. Is the church today doing everything it can to provide women a firm foundation of truth in Christ Jesus?

Well, it's true. There's no shortage of candy -coated Bible studies, potluck fellowships available to ladies, but beyond Sunday morning, are

Christian women being properly equipped to stand against the same deceptions that even enticed

Eve in the garden? In an attempt to address the need for trustworthy, Biblical resources for women,

No Compromise Radio is happy to introduce Equipping Eve, a ladies -only radio show that seeks to equip women with fruits of truth in an age that's ripe with deception.

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