31 - The Initiation of Sin - Adam's Fall, Part 2

Well, welcome to the

Striving for Eternity Academy's School of Systematic Theology. We're going to have fun tonight.

I'm being told I'm in a playful mood. What they don't realize is

I didn't bring the timer. In other words, class could go really long tonight. I usually have this big timer that gives me,

I mean like this big, seriously, this big with numbers that just keep counting down because some people don't want me to go over time.

So, too bad, no timer tonight. I hid it. So, we're going to have fun.

Anyway, we are in our study. If you have a syllabus, you can feel free to grab a copy of it.

Grab your syllabus. If you need to get a syllabus, go to the website down there and pick one up from strivingforeternity .org.

You can enroll as a student in the school where we will send you a syllabus which has all the notes and everything else and some fill -in -the -blanks that you'll hear that we'll be filling in and that you can get that go along with the teaching.

Sometimes we have more in the notes than in the class. Sometimes we have more in the class than notes. It's best to get both, just saying.

So, we're going to try to stick to topic. I'm going to be careful. I'm probably going to get in trouble tonight because I just ...

Well, I'm headed out of town tomorrow morning and so it's a travel day. So, I get to actually relax.

I've got everything all prepped and ready after a week of stress and trying to get it all done. So, I'm ready.

But tonight we're looking, actually if we take a look, we are in book number two of our syllabus, book number two of what's going to be four books.

And book two we're calling God's Gift to Man. And we're specifically in a section called the

Doctrine of Sin. You know, that's that thing that no one ever wants to talk about in Christianity, right?

We are specifically in lesson number four, the Initiation of Sin. And let's do a short review.

We looked last week at Satan's initiation of ...

or the sin's initiation into the universe, which was with Satan. And we spent some time as review, just for review, we mentioned that this was

Satan who had first sinned. And that's sometimes surprising to people.

Again, it was not Adam or Eve that committed the very first act of sin.

It was Satan. He brought sin into the universe. Now with that, we went over some things last week that are very, very important to remember.

Because there are people who seem to get into things where they get mixed up with stuff.

So, the first thing we looked at was that God was not the initiator of sin.

God was not the initiator of sin. And we looked at some reasons. The first reason we said was because there was no unrighteousness with God.

There's no unrighteousness with God. A second reason that we used was ... that was a neat one,

I like that, having that pop up from down. I guess you're in a playful mood too, okay. God cannot do wickedness.

So not only is there no unrighteousness with God, but God cannot do any wickedness.

We also saw that God hates the workers of iniquity. He hates the workers of iniquity.

We also saw that ... that was another new one, okay. You are playful, okay.

So I'm not the only one in the studio being playful tonight. So God created man upright and perfect.

He created him upright and perfect. And the last one that we looked at was that God is holy.

God is holy. And so when we look at that ...

oh that was cool, okay. So we looked at these reasons why we said that Satan was the initiator of sin.

Satan was the initiator of sin. I kind of look thin when you start that, you know.

I kind of get thin over this side and then get longer, you know. I kind of like it when I'm in my thin stage there.

Yeah. But we were spending that time because we wanted to make sure we understood how

Satan fell. We spent some time in two key passages when it comes to the discussion of Satan and his fall.

Isaiah 14, specifically verses 13 to 17. And then in Ezekiel chapter 28, specifically verses about 11 to 19, that we looked at those and took some time to see how, yes, those passages do in the broad context refer to some people, king of Tyre and whatnot, but specifically refers to Satan who is behind the king of Tyre and shows how it couldn't possibly be referring only to the king of Tyre.

Now, I'm going to spend a little bit of time because this came up in some online discussions with some folks and that was when we look at something, how do we know that the two passages we just mentioned refer to Satan, okay?

Because it's mentioned that they refer to individual human beings like the king of Tyre. And so, how do we know that it extends beyond the king of Tyre to refer to Satan?

Okay, that's a fair question. Now, this is back to the school of biblical hermeneutics, which if you haven't taken that class, that's really the class you want to take first before the systematic theology, just saying.

But when it comes to hermeneutics, the way you interpret the Bible, you follow principles, rules.

We went through all those rules. One of them being is that in this case, we see that there are things mentioned of this individual that could not be true of any human being.

In other words, somebody who was in heaven, who was made perfect, who

God gave all the jewels and adornment and made him the most beautiful person, he was there in the beginning of creation, and he was somebody who had to have been around before the fall, had to have been in the throne of God, and had to have a desire for God's throne.

Now, most of those things can't possibly fit for a human being because we have to die before we get into the throne of God.

And when we get to God's throne room, we're not first rebelling against him because as humans, we either have already rebelled or we have already repented.

And if we've already rebelled, we're not going to his throne room. So because of that, the context can't possibly be a human being.

And so then we look at who would it be referring to? Well, it's the person who's behind that human being.

Now that's different than someone who will take something like what was going on with someone who took the book of Job and says the suffering of Job is a picture of Christ.

No. There's nothing in the book of Job that doesn't fit a historical person named

Job. And to extend that to Christ is like, I mean, you can make the Bible say anything you want if that kind of hermeneutic.

So just wanted to touch base on that because we don't want to just teach systematic theology in this class.

You know, we want to keep getting you back into seeing how we interpret the Bible, how these things should be properly interpreted as we go.

So let us look this week at the sins initiation into humanity.

Sins initiation into humanity. Now who, trick question, I'm telling you that up front.

Who was the first person to sin? Well, I hope you said

Satan. But now when it comes to humanity, who was the first person to sin?

First human being to sin? It's a little bit of a trick question. Reason it's a trick question is because many people want to say

Eve, but then they'll say, wait a minute. No, it's Adam because the curse didn't come until Adam sinned.

Hmm. So which is it? Who first disobeyed God? Well, Eve did.

Adam followed afterwards. When do we have the curse? Well that was with Adam.

We're going to go through some passages to look at that. But that becomes an interesting thing. Why is that interesting?

Well, if you remember what we talked about last week with Satan's fall, we got into a discussion of did

Satan fall and then shortly afterwards the rest of the demons, you know, the angels that became demons fell?

Or did they all fall at the same time? How exactly did that work? Some have tried to argue that Satan's fall and all the angels must have fallen at the same time because once that confirmation was done, it seems that they had no choice after that.

But we don't know anything about those details. We know from Adam and Eve that Eve ate of the fruit first and then

Adam. There was a time gap there and the curse didn't occur until Adam sinned.

So could it have been that Satan and the other angels, there was some time gap before God made the decree to permanently put the angels in an unholy state and they can never change from that?

Could be. No scripture that actually speaks to it. So it's one of those things that we can just, we can wonder, we can ponder, we could debate, really to no great value.

But some people love to debate over those things that are of no great value. But let us start.

One of the things that we're going to see is that both men and women were created in God's image, yet they fell by their own choice.

Now notice these truths concerning Adam. First off, concerning Adam, was that Adam, and this is your blank in your syllabus there,

Adam was declared good. All of creation, including

Adam, was declared good. We see this in Genesis 131, and God saw everything that he made and behold, it was very good.

And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day. So when

God created Adam and Eve, there was nothing in Adam's creation which programmed him or forced him to sin.

This becomes a thing where some people try to argue that God made Adam, not with an ability to sin, but with a sin nature.

In other words, even Adam was influenced by a fall that didn't occur yet?

How would that be? But the thing is that when God created

Adam and Eve, they were created good. Actually, very good.

Now had Satan fallen at this point? We don't know. I mean, what day was it that Satan fell?

We really have no idea. I mean, think about this. How long was

Adam and Eve in the garden before they partook of the fruit?

Well, we really don't know. I mean, we tend to think because we read through and it's like we're reading through Genesis chapter 1, and then we read right to Genesis chapter 2, and it seems to go in just a few minutes, right?

It doesn't take us very long to read it. Yet, when we look at that, and then we get into Genesis 3,

I should say. And when we look at that and we see how quickly that flows, we tend to think that maybe

Adam and Eve fell on day 8. Maybe even day 7.

Maybe they were, while God was resting, they were out kind of like the kids.

Mom and dad are away so the kids play, right? Maybe God was resting. So, He wouldn't notice.

And they were eating of the fruit they thought they wouldn't be able to notice because He was busy resting, you know?

I don't know about you. When I was busy resting, my kids used to see what they could get away with. So, the thing is that we don't know how long it was.

Was it day 7, day 8, day 9, three weeks, a month, maybe a year?

I mean, we don't know. Scripture doesn't say how long they were in the garden. How long was it before Satan fell?

So, what we end up with is we see that God created Adam and Eve very good, alright?

Let's look at the next point. Point letter

B in your syllabus is that temptation to Adam was external through Satan.

It was external through Satan. In other words, what I'm trying to say there is the fact that when we look at the sin of Adam and Eve, we realize that Satan came to them.

Why is that important? Well, it's important because of what we just said in the previous one, right? They did not, it wasn't within them.

It wasn't something from within them that they sinned. It was something external to them at that point.

Now, if you remember last week, there was something, must have been something internal to Satan where he had an ability to choose right from wrong.

So, we don't know how that was. Did Adam and Eve have that same ability?

I think, yeah. I think that they both were created with a truly free will that could choose right from wrong and they were then in that state.

Now, it brings up an interesting dilemma because some people use the argument, well, we don't know how long it was when

Adam and Eve sinned, therefore, gee, the universe could have been millions of years. No, because it had to have been before the fall.

They had to have fallen before Cain was born. So, you know, couldn't have been too long.

But, and Abel, Cain and Abel were born and we know that was just within, you know, 100 years or so.

So, one other thing that we see is that this number three or letter

C there in your syllabus. So, the blank in case I didn't give it, the first blank is that God, that Adam and Eve were declared good by God.

Your blank there is good. Letter B, temptation was external. That's your blank there.

External through Satan. And here, Adam was, Adam's sin was deliberate. Eve was deceived.

Adam's sin was deliberate. That's your blank there. While Eve was deceived.

Let's take a look at a passage that talks about that in 1 Timothy 2. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

Now, the importance there in that passage is that that has to do with what happened at the fall so that when it talks about God creating a headship, whether you and I like it or not, that God created a male headship and a role for men to fulfill.

Part of what happened in Genesis 3 is that the battle of the sexes actually started right there in Genesis 3 because God says that the woman's going to want the headship of the man and want the leadership role.

And the guy is going to abuse it in one of two ways. He's either going to be the dictator. I am the king.

You must listen to me. Or he's just going to like, yeah, go for it. Just be passive, completely passive.

Have you ever seen those kind of guys? I mean, you get the guys that are either the absolute dictators. They think of their home.

I'm the king of my castle. You know, if you ever watched The Honeymooners, Ralph Cramden, you know, and then he usually found out he wasn't really the king in those shows.

Right. But yeah, the guy that thinks he's the king of the castle. And then you get those that were, well, they just are very passive and they let the wife, they give up all their leadership role to the wife.

And the wife is more than happy a lot of times to take it. So what we end up with is we end up with the battle of the sexes that started all the way back there in the garden.

So we see it's because of this fall that God said that man was supposed to be the one to do that leadership role, that teaching authoritative role.

And it was because the woman was deceived. The man, however, was not.

Eve was deceived by Satan, right? Externally deceived by Satan. Adam had no excuse.

He didn't. He wasn't deceived. It was deliberate. Now, what was going through his mind?

Who knows? Did he think, hey, God said that if Eve did this, you know, or either of us did this, this would be the consequence.

And Eve's looking pretty fine. No, no consequences. I didn't see any. Maybe Satan was right. Maybe that serpent, when

I heard what she said, maybe he was right. Don't know. We weren't there.

So it could have been. But what we do know is that when Adam fell, it was a deliberate act.

It was a deliberate act. Now, let's take a look at this next one. We'll spend a little bit of time here because this needs some explaining.

And that is that all of mankind sinned in Adam. OK, let's take a look at a passage to go through this.

And I almost would be tempted to read for verse 12 to the rest of the rest of the chapter.

But I don't know if we're going to have time. But therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned.

Um, so what we have here. And actually, let me let me ask the question. Do we have we don't have the rest of that?

No. OK, so I'm going to ask you guys to get your Bible. I know you came to class without a

Bible. I know. Bad student. Bad. You don't come to class without your

Bible. So take out your phone and open your app. Yeah, I know.

I probably heard that student that was going, I don't need my Bible. I got my phone with me. You know, it's kind of funny when you go to church now and you get you deal with youth group and you tell take out your

Bibles and they're pulling out their phones. It's like, yeah, sure. You're not texting.

Actually, I could tell who was texting, who wasn't. The people that were texting would shove it in their pocket. And yeah, they do what

I call the pocket text. Pocket texting is where, you know, they feel the phones. And so they would they would shove their phone in the pocket and pull it out and kind of look down while you're while I'm preaching, look down so they could read the text and they shove it back in their pocket.

And they they just sit there. They know exactly where the where everything is just from from the feel of it because they had the letters memorized and they would text from their pocket.

And then they pull the phone out and look down like that. It's always funny because I could always tell who was doing it, which is when

I would ask them, I'd walk up to people. Can I see your phone right in front of mom and dad?

I just want to see who you're texting during the sermon. I wasn't texting. Well, then you wouldn't mind opening up your phone, would you?

But it is it is actually a thing that some of us old guys did. I said old guy.

Yeah, I know. I'm getting that point. Thanks. There's agreeance in the studio. So, you know, we kind of used to have, you know, you have a

Bible, you don't text. It was really a thing of being rude to be texting, you know, in church or to have your phone open,

I should say, in church. And and really, you know, we're in a very different generation where a lot of people now they use their phones and tablets for everything.

And so, you know, they take notes on it. I mean, they're they're they're they're it makes sense.

I mean, I had one young man who used to take very good notes. I mean, I read the notes because I first asked him if he was texting and I said, can

I see your phone? And he opened it up and he had some really good notes. But he said it was easier because then he doesn't have to type them in later.

He has those notes and they're there forever. And he can he can move it. So it's on any of his devices, his computer, his phone, his tablet.

It's kind of neat. We have to get used to that. We have to get used to it. You know, so I'm speaking to those older men and women out there that, you know, we just kind of get uptight when we see someone on their phone in church.

I got news for us. We got to get over it, OK? Just because someone has their phone out doesn't mean they're texting.

Of course, when you see them on their phone and they're hitting the keys and then they look over to the person that's sitting like two people over and that person's like this, probably are texting one another in church.

Just saying. All right. So I want to read this whole passage.

So Romans chapter 5, Romans 5. And I'm going to start in verse 12. And I want to read the whole thing.

And I want to go into this a little bit in a little bit more detail because there's a lot here that I would want to explain so that we understand this idea of what's called federal headship.

Because this is a key thing in understanding the scriptures when it comes to how we go about understanding the sin nature.

Now, we're going to look if we don't get to it this week because, yeah, I didn't have any of this in my notes for today and we're going into it.

So who knows if I'll finish up the lesson this week. But next part, next section, if you have a syllabus, you know where we're going.

It's going to get sticky. But one of the advantages of having a syllabus, you know where we're going to be next class if we don't finish it in this class.

But what I want to do is spend some time here because the idea of federal headship is a key concept to understand if you want to be able to have a good handle on some of the doctrines that we're going to deal with when it comes to the doctrine of salvation.

The reason is because these things build upon one another.

So always keep that in mind. We are building up to something. And so you can't just jump in as many people do on the doctrine of salvation without first understanding the doctrine of sin.

And this one is really dealing with the doctrine of man. And we're going to get into this in probably more detail in another class.

But repeating things is just fine because you aren't probably paying attention this time so maybe you'll catch it next time.

Or maybe this time it goes over your head a little bit and next time it makes more sense. Let's read.

Let's read together. You want to read out loud? Go ahead. I won't hear you. So I guess

I'll read out loud. How's that sound? All right. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.

Stop right there. OK. We're going to do some exegesis here. We're going to do some interpretation of this.

So what do we have? We have that sin came into the world through one man. Who is that one man? Well, that was the man

Adam that we read about in Genesis chapter 3, OK? Because we're going to see a reference to two

Adams here, the first Adam and the second Adam. The first Adam is

Adam. The second Adam is Christ, OK? So we see that the sin entered the world through one man, this man

Adam, and death through sin. In other words, the reason that we have death, physical death, spiritual death, and eternal death, it came from sin.

In other words, what was it that God promised to Adam? When you partake of that fruit, death is going to enter the world.

And many people go, oh, the death process began because Adam did not immediately physically die, did he?

No. And people go, oh, but the death process began. Well, yeah, that's kind of true, but I don't know if that's what

God was talking about. What did immediately happen when Adam partook of that fruit? He spiritually died.

Spiritual death entered in. Did the process of death, yeah, the curse had the effect of leading to physical death, but death itself entered into humanity, and it came through sin.

So death spread to all men because all sinned. So everyone is going to die, right, spiritually.

Is everyone going to die physically? No. We have a record of Enoch.

He didn't die. Of Elisha, he didn't die. So we have two people that we know didn't die.

They were just taken right up to heaven. If you believe in a rapture, then there's many people that won't die.

They'll be raptured. So what we end up seeing there is that this can't be referring to physical death, can it?

No, because not everyone died. And it says here that all men, death spread to all men.

So what was that death? I would say that's a spiritual death, okay, that spread to all men because all sinned.

In other words, we can't get around it and say, well, hey, it's not my fault that I sinned because I have a sin nature.

No, all sinned. And we can't say that, well, I don't have a sin nature, therefore I'm not, you know, for those that try to deny the sin nature, you sin anyway.

The reason you sin is because you have a sin nature. Just saying. We're going to see that. So verse 13, let's look at what it says.

Four, sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.

Now, this is an argument he's making. Remember where we are. We're in the book of Romans. He's speaking of this issue of the law given to the

Jews. When was that law given? Well, that was in basically during the Exodus and it was given to Moses.

And so what we have there is, really?

Okay, so I guess everyone in the chat room is chatting about my haircut. That's okay.

See, this is why I can't watch what's going on in the chat room, okay? So, yes,

I got a haircut. Clearly, the issue must be is I got to stop cutting my own hair because people seem to like it when

I get someone else to cut my hair. Because someone else cut my hair this week, all right? I didn't have time.

It was a stressful week. I actually went somewhere when I was in New York. I just went in real quick, got it done.

All right, some people. Where were we? Verse 13? Okay. So he's talking about the law, okay?

I actually think that some people just want to see if they could throw me off because they're as playful as I am.

And they want to see if I will lose my train of thought and track and where I am. Won't work.

Smarter than some characters. But what we have here is the case where this is talking about the law given to Moses.

Now, what's the argument there? Well, how do we know what sin is? We know what sin is. Okay. I know

I'm trying to be serious, but he just posted. Really? Okay. So someone's asking what

I have against Jersey barbers. That's right. I had to go to New York City to get a haircut.

Actually, I did find someone in New Jersey that, you know, a barber shop that was right by my house.

And I went in and they did a pretty good job. I liked it. I decided I was going to go back.

And I did because I was short on time and discovered they were closed. Gave me one haircut and they were closed.

I don't know. I should go back to New York. Maybe they're closed, too, by now. Okay. So, all right.

Enough fooling around. We got to be serious. Okay, so verse 13 talks about the law that was given by Moses.

He gives the law so that people would say, how do we know what sin is?

We know what sin is because of the law. The law reveals to us what sin is.

So we have, it's that mirror. Okay. And so it's a mirror that teaches us about sin so we can see what the law, the perfect law is and know what

God's standard is. And so what we end up with is, that's the context there.

So now verse 14, yet death reigned from Adam to Moses. Now do you see why it's important? The law came with Moses and yet death still reigned before Moses.

So it wasn't the law. It's not the law that was the issue that brought in the sin.

Okay. It's not that, you know, there was no sin before the law, but the issue is that the

Jewish people have a different, they're more accountable because of the law. All right. And so if you see here, he says, for death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who were sinning, even over those who sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

Now, this sin on Adam's part was unique because of the fact of he was the federal head.

Let me try to explain a federal headship. Okay. Federal headship in America, we really don't get this concept as much, but if you live in somewhere where there's a king, you'd understand this a lot better.

You have one individual who makes a decision and that decision is the law.

And everybody in that land must obey it, whether they had a say in it or not.

And so the way I kind of illustrate it for Americans is this, and it's not really a kingship, but because our federal head is not our president, but it's really our president with Congress.

But back a few years ago, when President George W. Bush was president, he and the

Congress at the time chose to go to war.

Now, I don't know about you, maybe you were in that Congress, but I wasn't. I didn't vote to go to war.

And this goes with any president. I mean, when FDR, with the Congress that was there, declared we were at war with Germany, right, and he, you know, declared war, we as Americans were at war with those countries.

We didn't choose it, but we as Americans, because our federal head chose, we are subject to that.

Well, Adam is our federal head and he chose, whether we like it or not, he chose for us.

Okay, now let's take a look at this, because now we'll take a look at the second Adam. We're seeing this, but verse 15, but the free gift is not like the trespass.

What trespass? That trespass that is, you know, from Adam, that unique one.

For if many die through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of one man,

Jesus Christ, abound for many. So, well, actually, let me keep reading, because we're going to see it.

And the free gift is not, this is verse 16, and the free gift is not the result of the one man's sin, for the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.

For if before the one man's trespass death reigned through one man, much more will those receive the abundant grace and free gift of righteousness reign in the life of the one man,

Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to the condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to the justification and life of all men.

For as by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience many were made righteous.

Now, the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

So that as sin reigned in death, grace also reigned through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our

Lord. Now, what we see there is we see here that Adam as our federal head brought sin into the world, and it is because of what

Adam did that all sin, because they have a sin nature, it is passed on from father to child.

This is important. The sin nature is passed on from father to child. That's why

Adam, when Adam had children, his children sinned. But this is why Jesus had no earthly father.

He had an earthly mother. So he was born human, but without an earthly father he had no sin nature.

Therefore, I hate to tell you guys, but if you're married, you know, you have kids and your wife says to you, honey, these kids of yours are acting up and it's all your fault.

She's right. The reason they're sinning is because of you. Sorry, dad, you're the one that caused, you're the one that gave them sin.

They have their sin nature from dad. I'm not saying mom's perfect. She got her sin nature from her father too.

But this is why the virgin birth or virgin conception, I should say, was so important.

Okay, that's why that becomes important. Because the second Adam didn't have that sin nature.

You and I have a sin nature that's passed on where it's inherited by Adam all the way back from our father, his father, father, father, father, all the way back to Adam.

And so Adam as our federal head, he is the one that brings in sin into the universe and death through sin.

And so that becomes the issue. We end up having this case where because of the one act that Adam did and people say, that's not fair.

It's not fair that I'm going to be punished for what Adam did. You're not going to be punished for what Adam did. You're going to be punished for what you did.

Remember what that said in that text, all have sinned. Yes, Adam brought that sin into the universe and he passed it on to his children.

But because of that, we have that sin nature. We all sin. And you and I are going to be judged because of our sin.

That's what we're judged on. Okay. And so we have to keep that in mind.

When we look at this, okay, it is not that we're being blamed for what

Adam did, because that's the argument that so many people try to make. And that's not how God's going to judge. God is going to judge us for what we did.

But there was a curse. There is a consequence to what Adam did as our federal head.

And his consequence has a long -lasting effect. You and I have consequences that things that other people do to us that we say, hey, that's not fair.

But we still suffer the consequences, whether it's fair or not in our eyes. Ultimately, it is fair in God's eyes.

And so we have to keep in mind here that we are under the federal headship of Adam.

And we suffer from that. We have that is what brought the curse into humanity.

Okay. And you can look at Romans 8. I'm not going to have time to look at that. But you can see that the whole universe was affected by that sin.

The whole universe is groaning because of the sin that entered into it.

All right. So I'm going to stop there because we'll pick up next class on the depravity.

Sin's initiation into the individual. So we started with the universe, big picture, into Adam and now into you and I.

Okay. The individual. Now, depravity. Oh, wait, that gets into that word.

Oh, we're going to talk total depravity. Oh, you're going to talk Calvinism. Well, why don't you pay attention next class and find out and see what we really are going to talk about because, well, you know, you're going to need to know what we actually are saying because a lot of people have misunderstandings of depravity, of the depravity of man.

And we're going to get into that next class. So let us remind you that if you have any questions, you can email us at academy at striving for eternity dot org.

Academy at striving for eternity dot org. We could take your questions and we'll seek to answer them, seek to give you the best answer we possibly can, which means we'll get someone other than me to answer it probably.

Yeah. But so. So let's know if we're going to talk more about my haircut next week.

OK, so. So we're not answering that question.

Oh, so someone wants to know if my haircut was a federal headship. Yeah, I got a haircut. So you all have to get a haircut.

So but all serious, in all seriousness, if you have questions, email us at the academy at striving for eternity dot org, or you can join our

Facebook group. We've had a lot of new people joining the Facebook group. We love to see that join in there, join the discussion that we have there.

We try not to make it really controversial, but we try to get some good discussion going, some good back and forth.

I'm sure from the sounds of it that there's going to be lots of discussion on my haircut this week. Who knows?

But one of the things that we always do, you know, this is the time of the end of the class where we bring up someone that we want you to encourage.

We want to encourage you to encourage others. Why? Because, well, quite frankly, we don't get enough encouragement, do we?

No, we don't. And so I'm going to do two things. Actually, oh, yeah, thank you. I forgot.

I got to mention the Ohio fire before I get into the brother or sister of encouragement.

The Ohio fire is May 30th and 31st. Registration is open.

I've already seen that people are starting to register. That's going to be in the Columbus area, Columbus, Ohio.

If you're anywhere within a 10 -hour drive, that's how long it's going to take me. So if you're anywhere, seriously, within a 10 -hour drive, come on out.

There's some really, really good stuff going to be going on there. So we got, well,

OK, yeah, I'll be speaking, but that's not what you're coming for, I'm sure. But I'll be speaking. We're going to deal with the topic of the family, by the way.

So this year, 2014, is going to be the family. We're going to deal with, Mark Spence is going to be speaking.

We could probably have him speak on how to handle having five, six kids. I think he's got way too many.

You lose count after a while. But Mark Spence will be speaking. We got Carl Kirby Jr.,

not senior, but junior. He's going to be talking about a very, very, very important thing that I'm telling you, if you can't make it to Ohio Fire, I'm telling you, you better contact us and buy the

DVDs, OK? He's going to be talking on video games and how they influence and indoctrinate with anti -Christian messages.

It will blow your mind when you realize what's going on in the video gaming. And we may have someone that is, that may,

I'm not putting anyone in the spot because I'm not mentioning names, but we may have someone that may give a personal testimony at the

Ohio Fire on how video games influenced him and what kind of effect it had on him.

But what we're going to do is at Ohio Fire, we're going to talk on the family. I'm going to deal with a very interesting topic.

I'm going to branch a whole bunch of topics. I'm going to deal with the same sex marriage issue and why it is such an issue against Christianity and why

God created marriage and what it is supposed to be symbolizing and why it is so important.

That's going to be a topic I'm going to deal with. So we're going to deal with a whole lot of things in there. I really encourage you to join for that.

So that is the Ohio Fire. You may want to make sure that you come out for that and sign up, register now.

And if you can't make it to the conference, there's no cost. We encourage you, please give. It costs us $40 to $50 per person who attends.

If you can give, even if you can't make it and you want to give, you can please, you can go there and you can give there at the website down here and just say it's for the so that we know that it would be greatly appreciated.

So the brother of encouragement, which allows me to also bring up another conference. So it's a twofer.

All right. So the brother is Blair Rainey. Now Blair is with heartsforthelost .com.

The conference that they're putting up, they're doing a conference very similar to our spreading the fire conferences.

They're doing a compelled conference. And you can get all the details right there at heartsforthelost .com.

I think I'm going down with about a team of six people. We're going to be driving. It is,

I think we calculated it was a 10 to 11 hour drive for us. We're all going to pile into my truck and we're going to go down on Friday and hopefully get there in enough time to relax at a hotel before the conference starts.

But it's a one day conference on Saturday, March 15th. I'm going to tell a little secret.

If you happen to go to compelled, you can meet Mrs. Rappaport. She's going.

Anyway, I'll get in trouble if she watches, but she will be joining me.

We think so far everything is looking good for that. Some folks know that the only time they get to meet her is in New Jersey at the

Jersey Fire, but we're going to try to bring her to Ohio Fire. We'll see. The reality of what we got is this, is that Blair is a brother who

I got to meet here in Philadelphia. He and I didn't know each other at all. We both were looking to save some money.

We were at a conference and we're staying in a hotel. We basically said, hey, is anyone out there looking for a hotel?

Need someone to join in a room? He and I got together. We spent a weekend together at a hotel together.

Really got to know one another. A great, great brother. Hearts for the Lost, they go and they do evangelism training to your church for free.

Yeah, that's right. You don't have to pay for them to come out. Of course, it's really nice if you do. They don't ask for anything and they'll do an evangelism training at your church.

They're putting on this conference. Again, just like spreading the fire, they don't charge for it. They're counting on people to donate to them.

Best way you can encourage them, go to the Compelled Conference. Blair puts together the

Hearts for the Lost newsletter. He puts the website together. He does the training that they do, but a really sweet brother.

He's got a heart for the lost, no pun intended. He is someone who really is a real humble guy, just real down to earth and is just using whatever spare time he has to basically serve the

Lord. Use whatever gifts he can. So, we encourage you to encourage

Brother Blair this week. You can go to the Striving Fraternity Facebook group.

You can find him in there and you can find him there or you can go to his website, heartsforthelost .com.

There's about five brothers that are part of Hearts for the Lost. Maybe at later times, we're going to mention some of the others at different times.

But we encourage you to encourage him. So, with this, we'll just remind you that next week, we're going to talk about your depravity, not mine.