Apologetics Session 20 - Sanctification - Part 1

Thank you everybody for coming up. This is part of the

What is Faith series that we had put together and originally when the first one was, we spoke about was basically what do we believe, like why do we believe, what do we believe and all that.

And then the second part to that was understanding that believership really is different in many different types of venue and people say that they believe in God, yet they live a paganistic type of life and particularly within the churches we called it tribal spiritualism and theolistic humanism and this whole idea behind all that, that for the sake of argument that the umbrella of being good or feeling good is enough that they have a relationship with God and our

Father. So that was basically the first two ones, but the one that I always wanted to talk about and we just never really talk about it is sanctification.

You know, and it's always a conversation of sanctification as a distant realm, something that's out there that people don't really understand or really know and there's kind of a couple different schools of thought when it comes to sanctification.

Of course, we look over here and hagemos, the

Greek means transformation or sanctification, it's obviously a very important concept within scripture, it's been used in 65 verses, using at least a derivative of sanctification from sanctify, sanctifying, sanctification in 17 different books.

So there's some relevance to what is going on with what sanctification means and how we as believers in Christ are accepting that.

Are any of those references in the Old Testament? Yes, they are. They are in the Old Testament.

And I guess the approach that a lot of churches talk about sanctification is a transformative work that happens when a person is in Christ, you know, that would be basically post when

Jesus Christ died, right? But we know that, just to your point, that sanctification did occur in the

Old Testament, which is associated with the Holy Spirit, so we know that there was an indwelling with the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament too.

And it happened with some of the Israelites and so forth.

So for me, this is a very fascinating subject because we really don't talk about it, and it's something that happens when we accept

Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, we have justification, and then we go into the sanctification and the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit. And it's being more like Christ and our conduct and our character slowly to the imaging of Christ.

Proverbs, it says, Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but its purpose of the Lord that will stand.

So there's actually an absolute purpose for what God is trying to do when he has the indwelling

Spirit coming to us, being in that. It's a relational type of manifestation that's happening with us.

It is for a holy God to try to get as close as he can to man and having appreciation from Jesus Christ and our justification to allow that relationship to exist with the

Holy Spirit guiding us. But I've been fascinated about it, and I was raised in the construct that we learn certain rules in life, and being child -rearing, learning a task, developing a skill, knowing how to care and love, becoming a team player in a game, even understanding what it is to be a friend.

And our imagination runs pretty large about all that. We have our Bibles, we have our families, we have our churches, we have our relationships, but we really don't talk about the transformation nature of what sanctification does in a person's life.

First Peter talks in 1 Peter 1, 17 -21, says,

If you call on him as Father, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourself with fear throughout the time of exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

He who foreknew you before the foundations of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, such that your faith and hope are in God.

It's an amazing statement in terms of describing the relationship that we develop through our lives as human beings in Christ until we have glorification and meeting with our

Father. And we accept the fact that he's our personal Savior, the Holy Spirit indwells with us, starts the process of changes that happens there.

And I can remember when I accepted Jesus Christ, I was brought to my knees as a sinner, saying to myself, okay,

I finally get it. It's not just checking off a box for me. It's like, I finally get that there is something happening there.

And so I ended up having questions, and I'm sure everybody here in the room has the same questions, like, why is it so hard to go through sanctification?

Why is it that I have some regrets in my life? Why is it that there has to be sin in the world?

Why is it that I fall down and I have to get up again? And this continues throughout our lives.

And it could be frustrating. We have this perception that sanctification could be a straight line that goes up towards heaven, but it's not.

It's a broken road that slowly becomes, and the testing of our faith really becomes and encompasses by really a lot of trials that happen, because we live in a dark world.

We live in a spiritual world. So in my humble opinion, the Church has done a bad job of explaining and encouraging people of what sanctification is really like.

It almost comes across like one size fits all, and it's not that way at all.

It's not. Each one of us has an individual journey and our different paths of how we get closer and realize

Christ in our hearts. Are you going to talk about the vine and the branches at some point?

That's going to be... Later? Yeah, that's going to be... We'll save that then. Yeah, save that, yeah. But this is really what

I want to try to accomplish in this session is kind of be real with everybody about what really is going on when it comes to this.

We talk about justification, which we need to talk about justification. And we talk about glorification, that we're going to meet

Christ one day and be in Christ, but we really don't talk a lot about that piece that we spend the rest of our lives in the middle of doing there.

And what happens is we fall into sort of a habit of we want to wear a

Jesus coat and put the Jesus coat so that all of us look the same, sound the same, be the same. It almost becomes robotic.

And God didn't make us robotic. He made us individuals with different types of gifts and different types of ways of expressing our love towards him.

And we want to be able to do that in a community which builds a church which is bright, which we will be glorifying him when we go and meet him.

And so it comes about to what is about truth.

You know, in Ecclesiastes, Solomon says, consider the work of God who can make straight what is made crooked, which is really true.

And that's really what happens with sanctification is trying to make straight what is crooked, what is happening there.

And we have the Holy Spirit in us and who is guiding us, trying to give us discernment.

We have our community that's also helping us and advising us. And we have our families and our friends that do that.

So to have a clear understanding of our salvation, we must adopt and live a life of understanding the reason why

Jesus Christ is our Lord. He is. He is our Lord. We said he's our

Lord. And he is merciful. He's transformative. And when we accept, adopt, and submit to this, the premise of sanctification comes about.

And Colossians 3, 9b says, seeing that you have put off the old self with his practices.

Now, one of the things that we fall against is that when we're reading verses like this, and I'm talking in general terms, we have a tendency to open our blinders and say, well,

I kind of need to be like you because I'm not really like that. And I need to be like you because I'm not really like that.

And we start doing this comparison of our faith, of where we are in our pathway of understanding the crisis of Christ.

And it's a dangerous presupposition to get into. You don't want to do that.

You want to be able to go ahead and let the Holy Spirit work in your heart and guide you accordingly.

Or else you're just, you're faking it until you're making it, and that's not the way to approach it.

So for too long, we moved from a perception of developing intellectual rigor and understanding our faith as grace alone and sanctification has little to say except that we must be good.

You go into church, we must be good. What does must be good mean? What do you mean must be good? I had lunch with a gentleman today, and we had this debate going on here.

And he said to me that I'm a believer in Jesus, but I was a better Christian when

I was younger than I am now. And so I can't stand myself because of that. And I said to him, well, why can't you stand yourself before that?

He goes, well, I feel like I'm not living up to what the standards was. I said, well, do you think it's the

Holy Spirit speaking to you about that? Yes, it could be, but I'm not listening well enough to that. And so I said to him, maybe it's a chance to reexamine what your path is, what is going on here.

Maybe that's the wake up call that you're thinking about. Because if you truly believe in Christ as your

Lord and Savior, you know that he will never leave. You will never leave. It's not going to happen.

So if you're wrestling with that idea, you must put in the idea that he's always going to be there.

He's not going to leave you. Yes. And just that alone is enough of an impetus to go ahead and say, you know, okay,

I need to readjust. I need to go ahead and really look at this critically. Philippians 1, 6 gave us that promise.

And he who began that good work in you will bring it to completion. Because we have to trust in God's promises.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So, you know, and Solomon struggled with this. He said in Ecclesiastes 2, 26, for to no one who pleases him,

God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy. But to the sinner, which we all are, he has given the business of gathering and collecting only to give to the one who pleases

God. This is also vanity striving at the wind. And basically, when you cut it down and really trying to figure out what we're really trying to do here is that God wants you.

He doesn't want the character of a Christian. He wants you, you know, and he wants the foibles, the bad as well as the good.

And it's hard for people to accept that, that they are sinners, which is really unbelievable when you think of the fact that you made the most important decision in your life, that you accepted

Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, understanding through repentance, that you cannot live in the present state you're in, in this sinful world.

Ivan, can I jump in real fast? Sure. With your friend there, I think we all struggle with self -condemnation, because none of us are ever going to be good enough.

Well, you know, I should be reading this instead of watching whatever, a game show, let's say, whatever. Oh, I got up too late.

I just, self -condemnation, I believe, is a trick of the devil. Absolutely. Because it steals our joy.

And so then the walk of, it's a drudgery instead of being a joy. And it says the joy of the Lord is our strength.

So ergo, we're weak because we're self -condemned. Now we can't believe to bring about the things of God.

Absolutely. So 1 John 3, 21 and 22. Our heart condemns us not. Yeah, and the great accuser does that.

That's one of the number one weapons to do that to a believer. Especially a believer who's trying to strive forward and really seek out what

God wants them to do in His will. You're going to get hit. And to think that you're not going to be hit, you're only fooling yourself.

You are an absolute target that you are going to be hit. And it could be through various trials of health, relationships, you know, work, whatever it is, you will definitely be hit.

And a mentor had told me years ago, and I think

I may have mentioned this the first time around. And he asked, like, how are you doing?

You know, the Lord said, oh, I've got all kinds of problems. He goes, amen, praise

God. And I'm like, what? And he goes, yeah, because you must be doing something right.

Because that's what's going to happen. Because the more you seek out, the more darkness is going to try to control and try to push you down.

Which, unless you bring the forces, our brothers here, Christ, scripture, you know, prayer, humbleness, lack of pride, you're going to lose.

It's not a question of marginalizing, you're going to lose. And so thinking about that, you know, as James said, you know, there is, have joy in the trials.

When I was, a few weeks ago or months ago, when we were, I was here and I was preparing and then

I had these different things that happened in my life, which, you know, there was a death and then I got sick, whatever else like this.

My first immediate thing was to go and pray about it and say, okay, Lord, what am

I going to do? Not have a pity party, although I did have somewhat of a pity party about it.

But then the second thing was to go to my brothers and talk to them and like say, hey,

I can't do this by myself. I can't. And that's what the church is for.

That's what this community is for, to help that. And that helps also within our sanctification inside there of what we're trying to do and accomplish.

Do you remember a couple of weeks ago, we were praying in our Thursday group and whatnot for the friends of ours who fell on, have fallen just in a bad way, mostly health, right?

But the problem was, is they came out of that whole health and wealth, Word of Faith thing, where they believe if they say it, they're going to be healed and they're going to be okay.

They're going to control God. But because they keep getting worse and worse and worse, they feel condemned because then it's their fault.

They don't have enough faith. That's why they're sick. That's why. And we told them and said, look, you got to get back to the baseline.

Like what is true and what you know is true. And he said, well, I know

I can't lose my salvation because that's in Jesus forever. So that's a great place to start.

He's not going to leave you nor forsake you. His love is going to be eternal forever. You need to start right there.

And sometimes we do need to get back all the way just to the basic gospel message to kind of be healed all over again on this, like from some of the things that go on in our life.

And that's a great point because I don't think it's just one time we do that. I think we do that a lot of times in our life where we got to say, whoa, and we have to get that on our hands and knees and say, let's start from the beginning again.

Let me let me get a grip on what what's really going on, the reality of it. You know, it's no surprise about, you know, me having cancer.

And and and then two months ago, it came back in a vengeance. And and I had to go to that place that what you're talking about, where I had to say,

OK, wait a second now. Let me get on my hands and knees and think about, Lord, what what are we trying to get out of this?

What's really happening here? Because I know you're with me through this and I know you're teaching me something through it. And I know that the one thing the devil would like to see is to me to really break down and do that.

And I am not an angel by any stretch of the imagination. But I know that his grace is enough to cover whatever things that I'm I'm going through.

And and I can't control that, you know. And so part of the sanctification process, and it took me years to really understand that part of sanctification process is to let it go.

Give it up. Give it to to him. That's what he's there for, to give that to him. I can't control that.

I can't control the things are when when pride gets into the way we want to put on Jesus.

We want to go ahead and think that we're, you know, having that on there and show people, you know, we're stronger than that.

You know, we can say all the right words, the right verses. But at the end of the day, we have to give ourselves up to our

Lord and Savior and allow the Holy Spirit to do this work. And that is a truth, you know, there's, you know, one of the things that's interesting is we have the

Ten Commandments. We can't live up to the Ten Commandments. There was a little bit of Levitical laws. We couldn't live up to the

Levitical laws. And that's a paradox, you know, that we can do that.

Again, Solomon said for for the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing and they will have no more reward for the memory of them is forgotten.

And that's the difference between people who are in Christ and people who are not in Christ. They will be forgotten.

They will be gone. You know, we have ascension to our Lord and Savior and we will spend eternity with him.

Paul exhorts in Colossians 3, 1 through 4, you know, therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed.

So now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my presence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is

God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Now, I love that.

Work out your own salvation. That doesn't mean work out cornerstone salvation. That means work out your own salvation.

That means every one of us have our own salvation that we have to work for, you know, and collectively as a group, individually, we have different nuances, but collectively, what a glorious sight that we're doing that as a community and working that all out.

I mean, what's the what's the Greek for this? What salvation? For salvation. Can you hear me?

Oh, now you're putting me on the spot. Okay, so life in its fullness. No, life in its fullness, right.

Yeah. So, because, I mean, that can be really confusing because you say, well, wait, Christ gave me, I thought I had salvation. Now it's saying work out my salvation.

We know salvation is not of works. So really, what does that mean? And it's. Well, Paul, Paul, well, no,

Paul, what Paul's saying is that, is that each one of us has has a pathway after we accept the

Lord Jesus Christ on how we're going to be used. And now we're not all supposed to be the same. And that's that's working out that salvation individually, not working out salvation as a as a group.

It's not working for salvation. Right. Working it out. You're working it out there. That's that's the working towards more wholeness.

Yes. Really. And I don't know, I don't know the Greek off the top of my head, Jim, but I know in 2nd Corinthians in chapter one, it says that we are saved, we're being saved and we shall be saved.

Right. So it's like, well, what is it? Right. And it's just this continual process of being conformed to the image of Christ with the end of the story being, you know, the salvation to be revealed at the end times is this is what the end product is going to be.

You know, you and I conform to Jesus. And that's so it's not in the sense that we we don't have salvation now.

But there's a there is a process in there. Right. Exactly. That's that's thank you for pointing that out.

There's a great segue into this. So so, you know, we have the three aspects of salvation, which is justification, the wrath of God against us and brought into pardon, reconcile, appreciation with God by grace, atonement.

That's in Romans. And we have the sanctification of being safe in the power of the personality, distorting effects of sin in two ways.

And and then we finally have the glorification. And this diagram shows the relationships between all of that from the reconciliation.

And I just there's just different words that they put there that people use. But basically, the sacrifice of substitution for our redemption leads into sanctification of what happens there.

And understanding that there is a relationship between God, the Father, Jesus and man with the

Holy Spirit is working there. So and that's continuous.

But it's happening. So when you think about it. So we know that salvation is saved from sin's penalty and the power that comes from us from sanctification and the presence is the glorification piece of it.

And if you look at the justification past, present and future, and you look at the difference between justification and sanctification, my state becoming what

I already am, you know, in justification, God's attitude towards us is changing. God is changing me.

And then justification, how God looks at me and then what God does in me. Christ dying for our sins on the cross,

Christ doing his work in me through the Holy Spirit. So and that's again an individual thing that's happening to each one of us that's taking place.

And so when we look at each other, it is really important to understand, to even ask the question, where are you at right now?

Like, what's going on there? And that's how our conversation started today at lunch. You know, I said, where are you at?

Just tell me where you're at. No judging, just where you're at. And he was forthright enough to tell me where he was at.

I told him where I was at. And as brothers in Christ, we should be able to do that. We should be able to go ahead and lay it on the line.

And we help each other and grow with that. And that's part of the sanctification. But there are, and I put 10 sanctification drivers that really point to the fact of what's happening internally with us.

You know, you have to understand there's the existence of God. There's, you can't get away from that. You have to accept the fact, and this becomes, when you measure this against what you're seeing in the churches around us, you've got to start questioning what's really happening.

You know, the onset of paganism within churches is very, very apparent and relevant today. And so a lot of the things that are happening that we're seeing now, you have to question the validity of someone's salvation if they're still continuing to live in that.

And that's not being legalistic or either informed. There's just basic tenets of salvation that you have to accept besides repentance.

The existence of God, divine inerrant nature of scripture. It was God breathed, Holy Spirit breathed that.

The authority of it. The big question on number three, the authority of scripture is being questioned all the time in the churches.

We should expect that outside the church. But in the churches, it's not acceptable.

The acceptance of our own depravity, which is what leads us into justification, and the necessity of Jesus Christ's death on the cross.

Some churches are even denying the fact of Jesus, who he is, and died on the cross.

The acceptance of God's grace and what grace is in our lives. The acceptance and understanding of the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit. If you think about sanctification in the sense that the Holy Spirit's always inside me, that should be a wake -up call already.

You're walking around, he's already inside you. There's a check and balance that is happening there.

We're not perfect, but that's a pretty good check and balance of what's happening there. The acceptance that sin is real, which, as you already know, in a lot of churches, they're slicing and dividing sin in many different ways there.

And there's no relationship with God apart from justification. It has to have justification for that.

It's not just being good. You have to understand there is no way you can have a relationship with our

Savior without accepting Jesus Christ. You can't have a relationship there. And his death was the reason for that.

And that faith is not by works, but sanctification shows God's work through our faith.

Which is kind of like an upside -down type of paradigm. But our sanctification shows our work.

And we don't have to try to have works. It's going to automatically happen.

A lot of people forget that. That you're going to be compelled. There's going to be a voice.

For me, there's always like this little voice that's telling me, don't go to the left, go right, you know, whatever.

Sometimes I don't listen, you know. But there's always something that's telling me of what is happening.

And that's part of the sanctification process. So here's the basic of what we're looking at of the justification and what happens to us with the spirit, soul, and the body.

And obviously the body will be going up there. But the sanctification main part happens within the soul.

And this changes because the Holy Spirit is now indwelt in us there. So this is always a wild card.

And you're going through this whole process of the flesh, you know.

And you're fighting the flesh every day. Does anybody have any questions so far?

Just commenting on that diagram. The unsaved person, the spirit is dead.

And that dead spirit permeates the soul, causes pollution of the soul, and pollution of the body.

It's only when it's made alive. Because it's right now in the unsaved person, they're dead in their trespasses and sins.

When you're born again, the spirit's made alive again. Right. Amen. So what are we saying about sanctification?

It's a process that sets us apart from unbelievers towards the image of God and by the

Holy Spirit. And increasing to us to overcome our desire to sin, which doesn't say we are going to be sinless.

Next week, we're going to talk about, there's five different views on sanctification, which

I don't want to get into the weeds today with all that. I just wanted to kind of just bring this part out there and really recognize what we're really talking about when we talk about sanctification.

And see if we come to agreement with it. How do we grow in sanctification?

And we're sanctified the same way as we are justified by faith alone in Christ alone.

And Galatians 3, 2, 5, Hebrews 11, 8 point towards that.

And of course, you must, the glue that keeps that all together is faith. Having the faith to have that happen.

But there are tenets there, like I said before, that if you know the Holy Spirit is in you, if you know that the promise is that God will never leave you, that is a great, great foundation for our faith.

That's a wonderful foundation to live by. Um, you know, what does God promise to be for us in Christ Jesus?

He promises that if we're looking to Christ to forgive us and change us and satisfy us, then through prayer,

He'll provide everything we need. Not everything we want, but everything we need.

And orchestrates every offense in our lives in a way that we receive the greatest amount of heart, satisfying joy in Christ forever.

And, and, uh, I'll go back to the conversation I had today. Um, is, is it a,

I asked him, do you feel like it's a lonely road of what you're going through? You know, and he goes, yeah,

I feel very alone. He says, well, welcome to the club because it is, it is, you can be alone on that.

Then when you're, when you're going through the process of being sanctified and trying to be close to your client, you're going to, you're, like I said before, you're going to go through those struggles, but those struggles actually, when you learn from them are bringing you closer and closer and closer to what, what and how

God wants you to be. Um, so we look, we look to our

Christ by faith and we are motivated by our obedience towards that as best as we possibly can.

And in John 14, 21, 23, and in Matthew 6, 4 and 6, 18, they talk about the motivation that is there to go ahead and have us be in obedience.

If you want to please and you want to glorify and you want to, uh, uh, show honor to the holiness of God, you want to have that impetus of, of, of obedience.

And then there's the role of gratitude, which I think that sometimes we lose that. Um, I put this in here that, uh, the

Bible never says anything about gratitude should motivate us, but I think we should be having gratitude that we are in Christ, that we accepted the

Lord, that he was willing to send his son to die for us. And there's a great gratitude for that, to have that happen.

And that we're going to be spending eternity with him, that we're going to be spending eternity as brothers here with him.

It's, it's a wonderful thing. I have tremendous gratitude about that. And, and that's another reason why in the sanctification, realizing that is happening in our lives is another insular to go ahead and say, hey, it's going to be okay, no matter what's happening now.

And it goes back to what, you know, James was talking about joy in our trials doing that. Um, and we can't do it with our own willpower on, on what's going on there.

We have to let ourselves go to, to have a sanctification start.

So, um, and so we're always going to be tempted. We're always going to have problems with temptation with that.

Um, but we should be motivated by our obedience and merit. So, um, yeah, go ahead,

Joe. Oh, you're talking about motivation. And I was saying to Paul saying, be imitators of me as I am of Christ.

And we, what was Christ's motivation for the joy set before him? That's how, so once again, we go back to the joy.

Yeah. Amen. There's our strength once again. So it's keeping your eyes focused here. Not down here.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Heavenly mindset. And like you're a haggios most down there. I mean, the root word is haggios, holy.

So sanctification, we become more and more holy. Hopefully. Yeah, we are.

As we walk away. That's the working out your salvation and all that, as you were saying, right? That's the end goal.

And so, you know, and it's interesting. It's interesting that the next part about sanctification is like the falsehood of judging.

Um, and we fall into that trap of judging others who are in Christ. We do that.

And, um, define judging. Well, it's not judging.

It's not judging and saying you're wrong or right. But we're judging to to compare ourselves to other people.

And, you know, God knows our heart and knows our motivation. But we are called to judge one another.

Discern. Yeah, well, I mean, there's there's different words for judgment, right? Because you discern, you know, but the word is judge not lest you be judged.

It means to pronounce final judgment unto condemnation. We don't do that. Krinos. That's not our.

Who are you to judge another man's servant? No. That means condemn finally. But we are to judge by the word.

I mean, if somebody's out and they're, whatever, shooting up drugs and they're running prostitutes and stuff, we can definitely say we can definitely judge their actions.

Okay, so I was on that track. And if you see a brother that's committing a sin, not on the death, then you're supposed to go and write, you know, basically try to win your brother back.

Right. Reconciliation. You know, it's funny because you talk about missteps, temptation, but then the

Lord like teaching. Last night, I was just brain dead. I was just wiped out. And sometimes

I flip through. Usually I'm watching sports. But last night, a John Wick movie was on, you know, the John Wick series.

And I'm thinking like, that's probably isn't good, but I'm just gonna leave it on. Right. And I start seeing people getting cut up, shot up.

Like all this stuff. And I'm thinking like, Ivan's teaching on sanctification. It's like, holy cow.

You know, what am I doing watching this stuff? And I still watched it for a little while. And then finally, it's like, oh my gosh, just get this off.

But it's funny how the Lord will work differently in all of us in that way. You know, are you going to go to hell because you watch a

John Wick? No. But does the Lord want to do something in our lives, you know, daily?

Just, you know, doing things that are pleasing in His sight. And when we make a misstep or, you know, we sin against Him, He'll prompt us.

Yeah. Yeah. I got a comment on what Drew just said. Jesus said, it says in the

Bible to redeem the time. We can't get our time back. We have to use it wisely. And sometimes watching stupid sitcoms or whatever isn't using our time that wisely.

And coming from you, I heard a rumor that like your house is like one big library. I read a lot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is awesome, you know. I can say for myself personally, and don't use me as the guide, but there is an impetus to go ahead and learn more.

That should be, if you're in this sanctification path that you're going on, you should be wanting to learn more.

And you should be wanting to understand more and to have a better understanding of where you fit in the whole matrix of salvation.

And a lot of people don't take the time to do that. And they, as Paul says, you know, I can't even give you meat.

I have to give you milk. You haven't grown in that. And that's something that needs to be spurred on.

You have to allow that to happen. And that's, you know, you're putting other things in front. Am I going to point fingers to the person that doesn't read the

Bible or study? No, no. But that is part of the works that happens within you in sanctification.

You should be able, there should be a desire to learn more. To me, again, you know, in a logical sense and using that intellect that I have, limited as it is,

I made the most important decision of my life to accept Jesus Christ as my Savior. I sure want to know everything about it.

The most important decision of my life. You know, if you can't get to that place, and that's kind of, you know, blocking and tackling, so to speak, then you got to really question, hey, what's really going on there?

I mean, I just made the most important decision in my life. I want to know everything I possibly can, you know, to glorify

Him, to understand where I fit, and not to be in the weeds.

I want to be able to go ahead and learn and do that. One verse that has helped me a lot with that is

Romans 12, 2, which says, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Right? And how is that done? By reading, studying, meditating on the Word, right? So, I'm at the end of what

I was going to talk about, but I wanted to leave one thing, because next week we're going to talk about the way other views of sanctification is.

And you need to know it for your apologetics. Because, as I said the first time, which seemed to get some people upset about it, was we always think that our enemy is the outside world.

It really isn't the outside world. It's the churches. There's a lot of people who are walking around that are spiritual zombies, and they don't know the

Lord. And that's a mission field in itself. And it's so hard because they're in the construct of what a church is, but they do not know the

Lord. And to get them out of that is going to be a tough task.

And to your point, Jim, discernment and judging is a key to that. Because that really is the frontier of where we're at right now, because the churches are destroying itself.

And we, as believers in Christ, we need to help the church to come back and do that.

What's scary about that is the pastors, leaders. Did you see that? See the enemies within the church?

Yeah, it's when pastors are preaching that gobbledygook, that drivel, instead of true

Christian doctrine. And we can name names. You can name them, you know,

Adderall and so many others that slipped off the dark side. With your ten points there, that you had up there, the main thing

I saw was two and three.

They don't even take the authority of the Bible. Because they don't direct you to it.

They don't read it. They select what they like, what they don't like. So when you have the

Episcopalians ordaining homosexuals in their church, and they're applauding people, getting homos, getting engaged on their pulpit, and everything else, how on earth can you get past Romans 1, let alone

Deuteronomy? Or when the Pope says, you know... But they don't read it. The Pope says there's no hell and that a good

Muslim can be saved, right? I mean, the Catholics are getting it from the top down. Unfortunately, a lot are rebelling.

You see it. It's wrong. And we're in a time right now where there's a lot of shaking out between the wheat and the chaff, and it's shaking out.

And I don't know if you've experienced that, but even within our family, my family, there is a dividing line.

And it really comes to this, where before,

I think even as near as five years ago, this wasn't as prevalent as it is now, where now it absolutely is critical.

Because it permeates into everything you're doing, not just in your marriage, but in your work, in your school, and everything that happens there.

If this is not grounded, you're going to have a problem. But I'm guilty of this.

I've turned the other way because of family members, because of close friends. And that's part also of the lonely walk that you take in sanctification of doing that.

I'm not better than anybody else, but these are tenets that are absolutely critical for us in terms of our leadership and what is going on there.

So now, we've kind of talked through the whole sanctification, so I want to give you an idea of what we're going to be talking about for next week.

So, you know, we always talk about John Calvin and Martin Luther and how they're almost like god -like figures and everything else, but they were not perfect.

They had their dark sides too. They had a dark side. So I wanted to give some teasers about this, and we're going to talk about this more next week.

But Martin Luther, he despised

Jewish people. He did. Believing that they deserved persecution all the time. Right. He denied the candidacy of the books of Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelations.

Luther felt it was against the Protestant doctrines, such as sola gratias and by grace alone, and sola fide, by faith alone.

He believed that the candidacy was questioned by others earlier, and it should stay in that way.

It should never have been in the Bible. He also believed it was justified, even divinely ordered, that civil disobedience be punished severely within the church.

So if you broke church, whatever rules there, that you should be beaten.

Heretics should be put to death, particularly referring to Anabaptist at the time.

He believed in writing in anger, using profanity, shaming his enemies by name, and he felt that was all justified.

He believed that all physical ailments were the work of Satan. He ridiculed, gossiped, and disparaged his opponents during the

Reformation, and called them out in front of magistrates. And he hated to use the word church for Ecclesia.

And this is what I kind of believe. Mainly, he believed that the New Testament Ecclesia is incorrect, and the current institution of church was quid pro quo.

So that just gives you a little glimpse about what Martin Luther was thinking about. John Calvin believed that executing unrepentant heretics was justifiable, and he actually went before the magistrates and had it happen.

He actually testified against it. He believed that the Eucharist provided the undoubted assurance of eternal life, believed it was acceptable to lambast his opponents with vicious names.

He believed the Old Testament capital offenses should be enforced, always. Witchcraft, gambling, in modest fashion, frequencing into the taverns.

I believe the Jewish people were inauthentic, lacked common sense, and he would constantly go back and preach to Isaiah to point out why the

Jewish people were, you know, in his words, stupid. And then he believed that God did not create all human beings on equal terms, but created individuals for internal damnation, purposely.

Which is part of the argument against Calvinism. We know that predestination is a certain way of looking at this, and I'm not going to make a comment on this for or against, but he believed that God created people purposely to go to hell.

And that's there. That gives you a little teaser of the people that we looked up to, that, you know, we were looking at these forefathers that had brilliance in terms of doctrine, but they had their faults.

They had their problems just like we did. And it's, next week I'll have some on D .L.

Moody, on Augustine, and people that we always looked up to, and they have all their different little quirks and things that are just like we do.

Which takes it full circle that, you know, thank you for God's grace, that he's able to save someone like me, who doesn't deserve it, and allow me to serve him in my own way, just like in your own way.

And I wish more people could talk collectively about this and be able to share their struggles and share their triumphs on what's going on there.

Because it's important. It's important for all of us through our scientific process on what's going on.

So, next week we'll be talking more about the different versions that are being preached on scientification, which we really need to look at.

And some of the forefathers we're talking about, and also visit what

Paul was really talking about in terms of scientification, which was beautifully articulated in Romans.

But further through all the other epistles there. Do you have any questions?

I know Jim doesn't. No, no, no, no. Is that hand out? Is that sent out? I'm going to be, yeah,

I'll put this on there. I'll send a link out. I'll put that up there. I just wanted to ask. Yeah? You can send it out.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, was this helpful, by the way? Yes, yes. Okay.

Yes. I feel like you'd copy that. Yeah. Drew, do you want to end this in prayer?

Sure. Father, we heard a lot of encouraging things tonight. And we thank you,

Father, that you have called us on this path of sanctification. We're starting with the salvation given to us by Jesus Christ.

And Lord, I love the question that Ivan asked of himself and he asked of his friends.

He's like, where are you today? And I pray, Lord, that you would just help our hearts to really search out where we are right now, which would make us seek you more,

Father. We all want to be closer to you, Father. We all want to be more obedient to you. We all want to be more useful to you,

Father. And we thank you, Lord, that you have given us just wonderful teachers like Ivan to encourage us along this day,

Father. Pray that we would go in your grace, Father, and in your power. We pray these things in Jesus' name.