24 - Salvation, Part 2

Well, welcome to the Striving for Eternity Academy. This is a ministry of striving for eternity. I am your host or instructor, Andrew Rapoport. You can find out about this or any of the other classes or syllabuses that we have at strivingforeternity .org.

This is our School of World Religions, and in this School of World Religions, this is specifically a class that we have on an introduction to the major Western religions. This specific lesson is lesson number 11.

Salvation, Conversion, and the Need for Repentance and Faith

This is a lesson where we will be covering the doctrine of salvation. Now if you've been with us already, you know that we have been, did a half of the class has been on what these world religions believe, and now we're in a Christian response.

And so we're looking at the doctrine of salvation. Salvation meaning how do we get right with God, and if you were with us last week, I said that in the last class, we provided an objective and absolute way to know which religion was true and which was false.

In other words, which one is God made and which one was man made. And we had said that any religion that adds a human element to get it right with God was proof that it's man made. And so with that, there was only one religion in the category of divine, in other words that God did all the work and man does none, and that is the religion of Christianity.

And that's what we're looking at now. If you want to get a syllabus for this class, you can get the syllabus. If you have your syllabus, go get it, get it out, get ready. If you want to get the syllabus, just go to the store at store .strivingforeternity .org.

You could pick up the syllabus there. You can also pick up my book, What Do They Believe? there as well. Now, last class, we, as a just a quick review, we looked at the doctrine of election and we described what that was.

We also looked at the doctrine of regeneration, if you remember that, and that's where we talked about regeneration was the idea that God changed us, that God does a change within us that gives us new life, gives us a new heart, all those different things, adopted into His family, indwelling in the Holy Spirit, all of those issues that happen at regeneration.

Now, we said last class, and we have to reiterate that there's many things that happen simultaneously that at that point that we call regeneration, and we will also talk about that point as a point of conversion.

And that's what we're going to pick up in your syllabus this week, conversion. And we're going to talk about this because conversion has two elements to it. And within this, you see the tension that so many talk about with this doctrine, within Christian circles at least, because remembering that Christianity is the only religion that teaches that God does 100 of the work.

So what you have is you have the case that we realize that there's this element where we believe and yet there's an element where God is the one that chose us, and there's a tension there. So let's look at that.

If you look in your syllabus, conversion is man's voluntary, that's your blank there, man's voluntary turning from sin to God. Now some of you are going, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, Andrew, Andrew, please.

Man can't voluntarily turn to God without God first regenerating them. Now, if you're struggling with that, it's because you have the dilemma of thinking that God is bound by time or something. God is working all these things out through us so that even when we voluntarily turn to Him, it's because He's already regenerated us, but not in a time order.

Now there's a difference between logical priority and chronological priority, okay? Now if the regeneration of man is necessary in time to get a person to convert to Christ and choose Christ, then you have a chronological priority.

That's not what we see in the Bible. What we see is what would be called a logical priority. These things are logically ordered, not chronologically, but often because, well, we're humans, we end up talking in terms that make it sound like it is all chronological.

So conversion is man's voluntary turning from sin to God. Conversion is a two-fold turning. First, from sin, and second, to God. So it's what we turn from and what we turn to. Conversion is man's confession and belief.

Let's look at Romans 10, 9, and 10. Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

Romans 10, 9, and 10. And so what you see is the element of our confession, our belief. It's necessary. There are two characteristics that describe conversion, though, and this is where we end up seeing this repentance and faith.

Repentance and faith. Both aspects. Excuse me. So what you want to know is that we need to pay attention, we need to talk about repentance, not just faith. This is why there's some gospel tracts that I often will see, and those gospel tracts are like, they don't want to talk about repentance.

They don't want to talk about sin. They don't want to talk about the punishment. But what is someone turning from then? If you don't share with them the bad news, they have nothing to turn from. And this is the problem.

When you look at other world religions and you do this comparison, what you see is they believe in a works system. So how can you tell them to turn away from a works system to a works system? You can't.

They can only say turn away from doing bad things to doing good things, but they have the dilemma that you can't do good things. So what do they do? Well, like Islam. Well, if you do one good thing, one good thing counts for ten bad.

Really? I mean, it really doesn't make sense because it shows how little we understand of the sin that we do, the violating of God's law. God says that the most important, the first and foremost commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your mind, heart, soul, and strength.

In other words, make every decision you make, make it for God's glory. How many of us do that? When we make 10, 20 ,000 decisions a day, we don't think about God in most of them. We just decide. And that's the thing.

We often have a very light view of our sin. So repentance is intellectually, emotionally, and volitionally turning from sin. That's your blank there, sin. Notice I did not say sins, but sin. It is turning from your sin nature, your pride, that which you trust in your works to be good or yourself as a good person.

You need to turn from that and trust God, trust Jesus. If you say that we have to turn from sins, plural, we have to repent of sins, then you're saying you need to repent of works, deeds that you do. You got to turn from those deeds and turn to Christ?

That's the problem with other world religions. Christianity says you can't turn from those deeds. You turn from your sin nature. You turn from your pride and turn to Christ. At the fall, man became corrupt intellectually, emotionally, and volitionally.

Even his will was affected by the curse. The turning to God must also involve all three. Because that is the entire makeup of man. This is usually the cause of contention with some. In fact, they believe that man cannot repent until all three parts of man are regenerated.

However, due to the reality that regeneration and repentance occur simultaneously, the intellect, emotion, and will are all regenerated at the same time of repentance. Many people can intellectually understand that they need to turn from sin, and some even have an emotional desire about it, but only those whose volition, whose will is changed, regenerated, will experience salvation.

Repentance is God's desire for all men. And this is the thing. Let's, uh, Acts 17. There we go. Acts 17, we see that the time, it says here, the times of ignorance, uh, sorry, the times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He will, He commands all people everywhere to what?

To repent. That's Acts 17 .30. So you see here that every, all people everywhere are commanded by God to repent. We also see this in 2 Peter 3 .9. The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

So what you see there is that God commands us, all of us, to repent. Will all of us repent? No. Some of us are, well, disobedient. Okay? So, the thing though is that repentance is necessary. I say that because so many people want to avoid the repentance because what comes with repentance is the question, what are you turning from?

Repentance is a change of thinking. A change. That means you have to change from one thing to another. What are you turning from and what are you turning to? If you're only going to talk about heaven and positive things, you're not going to talk about what people have to turn from.

You're only going to talk about what they turn to and you're only giving them half of the message. And that's why so many people think they're regenerate and think they're Christians when they're not because they didn't turn from sin.

They just want to turn to Christ and think that they have life. The other aspect is not just the idea of repentance but also the idea of faith. Faith is the intellectually, emotionally, and voluntarily turning to God.

So, repentance, it's turning from sin. Faith, turning to God. You see both aspects of it now? And so it's turning to God. Some would believe that faith is capable within natural man. That man is capable of turning to God on his own.

This stems from the false view that affects the fall of man. Man cannot within himself turn to God intellectually, emotionally, and voluntarily. Many people can intellectually understand their need to turn to God.

And the Gospel. Some even have the capacity to have an emotional desire for it. But only when those whose volition, their will, is changed in regeneration can they experience salvation. Many people such as Pelagius struggled with this concept of total depravity that man's will was marred by sin and affected by the curse of sin.

And because man is able to at least intellectually and or maybe emotionally understand the Gospel to some level, he assumed therefore that man can turn to Christ without the need of repentance. That's a problem.

This is the view that every other world religion will have that are false because they think that man has to do something. Man has to be the one. His works, his choice, something about man is what does it.

Justification by Grace Through Faith Alone

That's not what saves us. God saves us completely 100%. Okay? Now, let's look at, if we could, at justification. Justification. In this, justification before God is an act of God by which He legally declares righteous those who through faith in Christ alone repent of their sins and confess Him as Sovereign Lord.

So, let's look at some verses. It's an act of God. Okay? Romans 8 .33. For who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is, what's that say? It is God who justifies. It's God who justifies. And that's what we're saying.

It's God who does the work. Now, let's take a look at Luke 13, verse 3. And you see here that this is where we must repent. He says, Now I tell you, but unless you repent, you will likewise perish. We see this in Acts 2 as well.

Acts 2 .38. And Peter said to them, Repent and be baptized. Let every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and that you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Also in Acts 3 .19 Repent, therefore, and turn your back, that your sins may be blotted out.

Acts 11 .18 When they heard these things, they fell silent, and they glorified God, saying, Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life. So what you see there is the importance of repentance of sin.

We also have confession of our Lord and Savior. We looked at Romans 9, 9 and 10, that we must confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord. Justification is being declared just. No longer condemned. It is the declaring of one's righteousness.

This is a legal act. It's a legal term. It means that we are declared just and righteous by God. It does not change one's spiritual condition making one righteous. In other words, being perfectly righteous in this present age.

It doesn't mean that we're perfect. Some make that mistake and some world religions try to argue that. That we must be perfect in our deeds. No, it's a declaration of righteousness. This righteousness is apart from any virtue of man and involves the imputation of our sins to Christ and the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us.

So let's look at this. We say here that this righteousness is apart from any works of man. This is known well in Romans 3, 20. For by works of the law no man, no human being, will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Also Romans 4, 6 says,. Just as David also speaks the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works. So you see here in these two, you see that the righteousness that we get is the righteousness that doesn't come from works.

We can't get this righteousness from works. We mention that it involves the imputation of our sins to Christ. This is Colossians 2, 14 which says,. By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, this he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

That's Colossians 2, 14. 1 Peter 2, 24 says,. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. You see that? It's our sins.

We have to have our sins imputed to Christ. We have to die to those things. And what we get in return is Christ's righteousness. This is best seen in 2 Corinthians 5, 21. For he who knew no sin became sin that we might become the righteousness of God.

That is the strongest text that explains both. By this we mean that God is enabled to be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. That's Romans 3, 26. That God is just and the justifier.

Only God as judge can declare one just. You and I cannot declare ourselves or anyone else to be just and righteous. God is the judge and he's a just judge. And so he will be the only one that can declare someone as just.

And he doesn't do it based on our works. I hope you're seeing that. I'm going to keep hitting that because this is the objective way of knowing the difference between a true and false religion. Between a divine religion and a man-made one.

The only religion that has God doing 100 of the work and no element of man is Christianity. Every other world religion adds some element of human effort. This is why we say that Roman Catholicism is not Christian.

And if people get upset with that, but Roman Catholics condemn to hell people like me that believe in salvation by God's work alone. Their documents, and I know some Roman Catholics tell me, I can't say that because I don't understand Roman Catholicism.

They do. The reality is that when, as we had this past week, someone said that they, I said, I'm quoting the Roman Catholic Church, their documents. And he says, I know my faith. And it's like, no you don't.

Because the Roman Catholic Church says you don't have the right to private interpretation. You can't have your own personal faith. You have to have the one that the church interprets for you. And their interpretation is that those of us who believe in justification by grace, by God alone, through faith alone, is condemned by hell.

That's not the same message. You can't sit here and say that I can't say that you and I, if you're Roman Catholic, are different. Roman Catholics want to say that I can't say that they're not Christian.

They're not. They're Roman Catholic. They have a different standard of how to get right with God. Same with the Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses. They say they're Christian, but they're not. They add works.

That makes them different and wrong. So let's look at the next section. Next section is sanctification. Sanctification is the growth of the implanted new nature. It follows regeneration. I said this in the last class.

I want to stress it again in this class because a majority of people I know that either Christians that struggle with different doctrines or unbelievers, those who don't believe in Christianity that struggle with their religion, is because they don't understand the difference between regeneration and sanctification.

So I want to say this again. I want to make it clear so that we understand. Because when Roman Catholics talk about works necessary for salvation, any of the passages that you'll see them quote, they quote passages that are talking about the sanctification process, and they want to use that to refer to regeneration.

This is where I say that there's a logical fallacy because of the fallacy of equivocation. They're using the term salvation two different ways. So that's why I'm being really specific here. Regeneration, sanctification.

Regeneration is a past event for those who believe in Christ. Sanctification is a present reality for those who believe in Christ. And glorification is the future reality for those who believe in Christ.

And all three of those elements are talked as, in the Bible, as salvation. The question is, is it past, present, future? So when you see those works mentioned, those are works that proceed regeneration.

So you're regenerate not by works. You're regenerate. You come to faith based on what Christ does alone. You're regenerate. Now that you're regenerate, now there's works. Those works don't save you. Those works don't regenerate you because you're already regenerate.

Regeneration now is a past event. Now you're sanctified, and those works work to make you more like Christ. Okay? It is natural to all things to grow after they're born. That's your blank there, grow.

We expect growth. We expect growth from a child. If a child is born and does not grow, we call that abnormal. Not normal. The natural thing is growth. The same is true in the spiritual realm. This is a continuing consequence with the union with Christ.

Therefore, there is a logical and a chronological, in this case, order to sanctification. Okay? Where I mentioned all those things in the past, the repentance, the faith, the conversion, regeneration, all of that simultaneous act.

But now, and there's no chronological ordering there, but now there is. After regeneration chronologically and logically, now you are sanctified. Now starts a process where you're being made more and more into the image of Christ.

Something must be born before it can grow. You can't grow until you're conceived and born. You can't have spiritual growth until you're born again. You first need to be born again. So sanctification is a continual process of the believer developing to be more like Christ.

This process is never complete until the death of the body. Until you physically die, you are going to keep growing in the sanctification process. Sometimes it's more painful than others. Every believer is sanctified.

Sanctified, by the way, means set apart unto God. Every believer is set apart unto God by justification and is therefore declared to be holy, because that's what holy means, to be set apart and identified as a saint.

Yeah, that's right. You don't need a Catholic church to make someone a saint. Everyone who is a believer in Christ is a saint because that's what it means to be a saint. It means to be set apart, to be holy.

And so we are all saints that know Christ because we're set apart unto God, and that's the process of sanctification. Sanctification is positional and it's declared to be holy. Sorry, I read the wrong line there.

Sanctification is positional and should not be confused with progressive sanctification. It's instantaneous. I think I skipped that word. Sanctification is positional and instantaneous. So the moment that we are regenerate, we're immediately justified and we're in a position of being sanctified, okay?

And this process begins. Now, we're immediately called sanctified. Immediately. We have to remember though that the sanctification process, though we're declared instantaneously a saint, holy, and set apart, there's a process of sanctification that continues, alright?

Sanctification has to do with the believer standing, not his present walk or condition, okay? So there is this notion where we can say, and this is important because when people think you can lose your sanctification, you can lose your salvation, we're declared holy and set apart not because of the things we do, but because of a declaration God has made.

Now, will we fail in this sanctification process? Yes, we will, okay? It doesn't mean that we lost our salvation, okay? So let's look at some verses. Acts 20, 32. Acts 20, verse 32. And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among those who are sanctified.

Notice the tense there. They are sanctified already. Let's look at 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 2. To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place are called upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.

So you see, to those who sanctified, notice the tense, they're already sanctified. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30. And because of Him, you are in Christ who became to us wisdom of God, righteous and sanctification and redemption.

Then 1 Corinthians 6, verse 11. And such were some of you, but you were washed, you who were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God. Notice those are past tense.

You see that this sanctification is something that happens in the past. You notice that? So this is how we see, the process continues, but the actual declaration of sanctification is past event. There's a bunch of verses in Hebrews, but let's not go there.

There is also the work of the Holy Spirit is a progressive sanctification. So we have this positional sanctification. We are declared sanctified. That's a declaration that God made. That's at the moment instantaneous with regeneration.

But then there's this progressive sanctification that I keep talking about, by which the state of the believer is brought closer to the standing that the believer personally enjoys through justification.

This means being made more and more in the image of God. It is that working of God through us in such a way that we become more like Christ. Through obedience to the Word of God and to the empowering of the Holy Spirit, the believer is able to live a life of increasing holiness in conformity to the will of God, becoming more like the Lord Jesus Christ.

I do not believe that we will get there perfectly. I don't believe in a sinless perfectionism. I don't believe, as some try to say, that once we're sanctified, we're going to be absolutely perfect and not sin any longer.

Scripture does not hold to that. It means we're going to be in a process where we're made more holy, but we're not going to be holy in that sense. We're declared holy, but we're not actually going to be holy until we die.

Many people will turn to 1 John to make the case for a sinless perfection, that they can live sinlessly. The problem is 1 John was dealing with Gnostics, and those Gnostics was another false religion that said that you can sin in your body as long as you don't sin in your flesh, and you are okay.

So they were redefining how you can sin to justify it, and that was one of the issues that was being dealt with. He says, if you say you have no sin, you lie. You make God a liar when He says that all sin.

So when you try to say that you don't sin, you make God a liar, and God's not the liar, therefore you're the liar. Let's look at some passages here. John 17, Sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth.

So what is it that God uses to sanctify us? According to this, it's God's word. Just two verses later, John 17, 19,. And for their sake I concentrate myself that they may also be sanctified in truth. Again, you see what is it?

It's the truth that sanctifies. 2 Corinthians 3, 18 says this,. And we all with unveiled face behold the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another therefore this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Notice, you see that this is a transforming from one image to another, being made more into the glory of Christ. Alright? Let's look at, last one we'll look at is 1 Thessalonians 4. 1 Thessalonians 4, 3 -4 says,.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor. Notice how he's saying here, this is a process.

This is the will of God, that you continue to do this. We also see in 1 Thessalonians 5, 23,. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and your soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Do you notice there, it's a process. In respect, in this respect, every saved person is involved in a daily conflict. The new creation in Christ is doing battle against the flesh constantly. This is, I don't think I, did I put 1 Peter?

Okay, 1 Peter 2, 11 talks about this warring against the flesh, warring against the soul. But we're constantly doing battle against the flesh. And so, even though we're in a position, okay, to be made, we are in a position of sanctification, it makes this process by the Holy Spirit is provisional for us to have victory, only through the power of the indwelling Spirit over sin.

But it doesn't mean we're going to conquer it. The struggle nevertheless stays with the believer through this earthly life and is never completely ended. All claims to the eradication of sin in this life is unscriptural.

Eradication of sin is not possible, but the Holy Spirit does provide victory over it. And that's the thing. We look at these passages that talk about us having victory over sin and make this mistake of thinking that we can actually conquer it.

And that's the thing. So let's look at Galatians 5. Galatians 5, 16 to 25. But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Okay, so that one verse is, that's explaining the overall argument here.

Okay, that we must walk by the Spirit and then we won't gratify the flesh. That's how we do it. Now as believers, and only as believers can we do this. So, verse 17 now. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit.

And the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now, the works of the flesh are evident.

Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, ineminent, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, reveries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love. Joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ, Jesus, have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If we live by the Spirit, let alone keep in step with the Spirit. Now, that one passage really covers the gamut of what we were just saying. You see both the warring of the flesh, you see the process, you see the things to put off, the things to put on.

Perseverance of the Saints and Eternal Security

It's all there. And so, there's more passages you can look up if you have a syllabus. So, you can go through those. Let's move on to the last element, that's perseverance. Perseverance of the saints, or what some would say is eternal security.

This is the idea. This is an element of this process of sanctification. Perseverance is the voluntary continuing of the faith. That's your blank there, the voluntary continuing of the faith. Now, this is where it gets kind of interesting because it's a voluntary thing, but not really.

You can't lose your salvation, and that's how some try to think of it. Is that, well, if you stop living for Christ, you somehow lost your salvation. Again, 1 John 2 .19 says, That's all. Perseverance is the human side of sanctification.

So, sanctification is the work that God does through us. God is working in us to do those things that make us more like Christ. And this is our side of it, where we're working. We're doing the work. We're trying to keep, not really keep ourselves saved, but to keep obedient.

And that's the important distinction. Many people try to argue that we have to keep ourselves saved after God regenerates us. And that's not true. God saves us apart from anything we do. You think that He isn't all-knowing and didn't know the sins you'd commit after He saved you?

He knew those and saved you anyway. But this is the idea that we work to be made more in the image of Christ, more sanctified. So, likewise, perseverance can only occur after regeneration, just like sanctification.

Where sanctification measures the degrees of maturity, perseverance measures the degrees of yielding, and the assurance measures the degrees of confidence. So, tied with perseverance is assurance. So, the idea here is, when we're sanctified, we're declared right, sanctification shows that the sanctification process displays how spiritually mature we are.

Perseverance shows how much we're yielding to Christ, how much we're giving up of ourselves and giving over to Christ. But that assurance of salvation, that shows the confidence. We might be saved, but we don't feel it.

We don't have the confidence that we're saved because we're doing some sin. That's where assurance comes in. Assurance is the feeling. Sanctification is the declaration. All of the redeemed, once saved, are kept by God's power and are thus eternally secure in Christ forever and will persevere.

Even if we don't feel like we're going to persevere, we will persevere. John 5 .24 says, Now, when did He pass from death to life? That's past tense. It's when He believed. He already has eternal life.

Look at John 6, verses 37 -40. I will never cast out. So who is it that's going to cast out? Jesus will never cast them out. He's the one that holds them. It is now verse 38. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He's given me, but raised it up from the last day.

For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life. Past tense. Have eternal life and I will raise Him up in the last day. So you see, it's Jesus who's going to do that.

Not us. It's not our works. And then lastly, John 10 .27 -30. I give them eternal life and they will never perish. And no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand.

I and the Father are one. So what you see is it is a privilege of a believer to rejoice in the assurance of salvation through the testimony of God's Word. Which, however, clearly forbids the Christian to use his liberty as an occasion for sinful carnality.

Just because we are eternally saved does not mean that we can turn and say, Well, I'm saved. I can do whatever I want. I can sin. I can... No, you can't. The reality of it is that when we look at this, as a true Christian, we realize the price that was paid for our salvation.

The price was Christ's death on the cross. A true Christian is not going to look at the death of Christ on the cross and belittle that and look down on it and think, Well, I can get away with sin. I can do what I want.

No. No, no, no, no. No, a true Christian looks at the death of Christ and goes, Lord, please forgive me for what I've done. I'm so undeserving. And because of that, they don't want Christ to have suffered.

And so the reality is that a true Christian is one that will persevere, but he perseveres because God is doing a sanctifying work within his life. So that is the doctrine of salvation. If you have questions about this or anything else with this, please email us at academy at strivingforeternity .org.

Academyatstrivingforeternity .org is the email to email us any questions, comments, anything else that you have. Again, you can go to store .strivingforeternity .org. You can buy the syllabus there. That's one of the things you can get there.

Many other things you can get there. One of the things you can also get there is my book, What Do They Believe?, which is a systematic theology of the major Western religions. You can also go on and host a Bible Interpretation Made Easy seminar.

I strongly encourage this. The Bible Interpretation Made Easy seminar is a seminar where we teach you in one weekend eight hours, six sessions on how to interpret the Bible. And then lastly, what I have for you is Ohio Fire, which is coming up.

Please consider attending the Ohio Fire, April 8th and 9th, 2016. Phil Johnson will be speaking. Thomas White will be speaking. I will be speaking. The topic this year is the Word of God. And with that Word of God, we will be discussing different aspects of God's Word and its importance, how it influences and affects the Christian life.