Equipping Eve: You Choose, God Changes (Part 2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Well, hello ladies and welcome to Equipping Eve, I am your host Erin Benzinger and you know what we do at this show, we seek to go to God's Word and find out what the truth says about a thing, about the world, about what we can expect from the world and sadly what we can expect from the professing church and then to take that truth and that knowledge and build our foundation of our faith and go out into the world and proclaim the gospel and live as Christ calls us to live in light of that truth.

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You can check us out on Facebook, just go to Facebook and type

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Equipping Eve into the search engine there and you should be able to find us that way, go ahead and like the page and that will allow you to keep apprised of the latest episodes and anything else

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I decide to post on there when I decide to actually go on Facebook, which is not all that frequently.

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But you can most definitely find the most recent episodes posted there every other week as soon as they are available.

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So ladies, last time on the last show we were talking about church signs, weren't we?

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Everybody loves the old -fashioned church sign and of course nowadays we have some far more technologically advanced church signs and they tower above freeways and they flash their messages at us on our daily commute.

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And I was talking about a couple of signs that I saw recently here in the

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Christmas season as I record this. One of them was the notion that wise men still seek after Christ and we refuted that notion largely with Romans 3 where Paul writes, there is none righteous, not even one, none who understands, none who seeks for God.

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Men do not seek after God. The only men who seek after God are those who have been granted the regenerating power of the

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Holy Spirit and that is the only wisdom that seeks for God. It is the wisdom that is from above and that can only be given to us from above.

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It is not wisdom that we attain on our own here by worldly means, worldly philosophies.

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And so we talked about that a bit in conjunction with another church sign that I saw that said something to the effect of, you make the choice,

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God makes the change. And so both of these signs and both of these ideologies work together and basically are saying the same thing.

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They're giving a lot of power to man in determining his salvation ultimately.

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And it's really important, ladies, that we understand the power of God in salvation and the monergistic power of God, the meaning that God sovereignly,

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God alone works salvation in the heart of a man or a woman. There's nothing we can do.

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There's nothing we can do as the evangelizer or as the one being evangelized.

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Now that might sound a little hopeless. And so I definitely want to come back to that at the end of the show today and bring this about full circle and talk a little bit about the implications of the sovereignty of God in salvation for our evangelism.

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But ladies, we have to acknowledge the sovereign power of God in salvation lest we overestimate our own power.

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When we tout ideas such as you make the choice,

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God makes the change, you've given yourself all the power. You made the decision to follow Christ, to pray the prayer, to ask

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Jesus into your heart, whatever terminology you want to use. And now you can pat yourself on the back for getting yourself saved.

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Do you understand how twisted that is? Do you see, ladies? I hope you see. And I say this with a heart of compassion because for many years, that's the mindset that I lived in.

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Now, I was not saved at the time. And so of course, I wanted to have the power over my own salvation.

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And I thought I had made the choice. And I was just waiting then for God to decide to make the change, thinking all along that regardless of what my life looked like,

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I would still be going to heaven if I died, when I died, because I had made some sort of nebulous, worldly -defined decision for Jesus.

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And so there's a danger when we share ideas like this.

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There's a danger when we live by ideas like this and give unbelievers this power to save themselves.

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If we look back at Romans 3, ladies, and I didn't give you a lot of time to turn there when I started reading it a few minutes ago.

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Go back to Romans 3, verse 10, where Paul is saying there's none righteous, not even one.

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None who understands, none who seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together, they have become useless.

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There is none who does good. There's not even one. Ladies, keep going. Look at this description.

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This is mankind without Christ. Verse 13, their throat is an open grave.

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With their tongues, they keep deceiving. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.

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Ladies, this was you. This was me before we were saved by Christ. Their feet are swift to shed blood.

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Destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. And here's the key, ladies, in verse 18.

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There is no fear of God before their eyes. This is mankind without Christ.

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And so, think about this. We're approaching an unbeliever who has no fear of God.

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If he or she did, he wouldn't be an unbeliever. If he or she feared

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God, he would be serving the living God. And so, there's no fear of God before their eyes, and now we come to them with a gospel that gives them all the power.

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It says you just need to pray a prayer. You just need to go to the altar at the right time, when the right song is playing, just as I am, you know, the 15 ,000th chorus of Just As I Am.

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You just need to write your name on the card. You just need to make that decision, and then you're saved.

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So now you've given someone who has no fear of God, you've given them all the power. What motivation do they then have to fear

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God? You've given them a false gospel. And ladies, I know so many of you who are listening who understand exactly what

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I'm saying, and so when I say you and I'm speaking so directly, I don't mean that to sound accusatory.

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I'm using it in a very broad manner, so please understand that. But this is a problem within professing

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Christianity today, and I know so many of you ladies see that as well. I believe that I ended the last show with a quote from Martin Lloyd -Jones that is commenting on these verses here in Romans 3, and I'd like to refresh your memory, ladies, with this idea that Lloyd -Jones gives us, and he's talking about these verses that are saying that there is no one who seeks after God.

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And Lloyd -Jones writes, This is a blank contradiction of the scriptural declaration that there is none that seeketh after God.

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Man by nature, mark this ladies, man by nature is a God -hater.

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I'm going to interrupt here, ladies, that's strong language, but it's true. Man by nature is a

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God -hater. And that reality is right there in those verses in Romans 3, as well as other places in scripture.

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Going on with the quote from Lloyd -Jones, he says, He is at enmity with God.

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He is dead in trespasses and sins. Show me a man who can say honestly that he is seeking after God, and I will show you a man who has been quickened by God's Spirit, whom

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God has sought. We love him. Why? Because he first loved us. Left to ourselves, we would never seek him.

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We would remain permanently at enmity with him. You can see now that these quotations, which the apostle brings together here in this great catena of evidence, are all of tremendous significance and importance.

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Never rush over them. Look at them, examine them, give them their full content and see the inevitable deductions that must be drawn from them.

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End quote. And ladies, this goes back to this church sign, you make the choice,

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God makes the change. No ladies, God makes the choice. God makes the choice, and God makes the change.

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And as Lloyd -Jones says, if you show me a man who's seeking after God, well then I'll show you a man who's been quickened by God's Spirit, because as I said at the start of the show, it is this wisdom granted to us by God.

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The wisdom from above, that is the only wisdom that seeks after God.

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The only wisdom that seeks after God. And so God first does the choosing.

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We see this in so many places throughout scripture, don't we? We see

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God's sovereign choice throughout scripture. We see it back starting in the Old Testament with his choice of Israel as his chosen nation.

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God is sovereign over all things. God ordains all things. God created all things.

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God gets to choose, and he is good and righteous and just and holy and pure and perfect in every single choice he makes.

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But you say, well, it's not fair, why? Why is God deciding, why is

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God choosing then that some will not be saved? Ladies, the very fact that God chooses even one person be saved means that he is good because we have sinned infinitely against an infinitely holy

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God. We deserve wrath and condemnation. God would be good if he had chosen to save only one.

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God would be good if he had chosen to save none. And these are hard and difficult concepts to grasp, and I know we've discussed them previously here on other shows, and so I encourage you to go back through the archives and listen to some of the other teachings on this.

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But we see God's sovereign choice all throughout scripture, and we see a lot of this language in the epistles.

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You know, Paul very often is talking about those who are beloved and chosen of God. If you look at 2

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Thessalonians 2, verse 13, Paul says, But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved by the

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Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation. And then this last half is interesting for what else we want to talk about today.

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God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.

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There's language throughout scripture of God calling his own people. It's right there in the same chapter, the very next verse, it was,

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For this he called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. And also, ladies, keep this in mind as we go through this show.

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He, God, called you through our gospel. That is the means by which God calls his people, through the gospel.

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And this is all tying in then to our evangelization. So, ladies,

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God makes the choice. God has made the choice from before the beginning of time.

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God also makes the change. That half of the church sign is correct. God makes the change when

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God calls a person, when God chooses someone and saves that person and empowers them and indwells them, and gives them the

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Holy Spirit, indwelling them. God transforms that person.

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Our hearts, our minds, our affections, and by consequence, our behaviors are completely altered.

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Now, do we still sin? Yes, yes. But God is sanctifying us, and we are active participants in our sanctification.

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But it is God who works in us. And by changing all of our affections, all of our desires, we suddenly go from serving the master of sin to serving the master, the

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Lord Jesus Christ, the one who purchased us with his blood, the one who deserves to be served well.

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And how do we serve him well? We serve him well by pursuing righteousness and holiness and Christlikeness.

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I want you to think about the familiar passage of Ephesians 2. If you start in verse 8, we're all very familiar.

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I'm sure most of us have memorized verses 8 and 9. For by grace you have been saved through faith, not of yourselves.

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It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. Verse 10, don't leave this off when you memorize these verses.

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For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which

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God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Think of all the language, ladies, in the

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New Testament, of walking in a manner worthy of the gospel, walking in a manner worthy of the calling by which we have been called.

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What does that mean? Those are the good works. We were created in Christ Jesus for good works, which

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God prepared beforehand. And through the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, we perform those good works, not as a means of attaining our salvation.

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That is a gift. And when we are saved, we stand justified, fully justified before God. But those works are how we serve

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God. Those are a means of serving him and displaying our salvation.

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That is the fruit of our salvation. Ladies, when we are saved, we are saved for the glory of God, for the glory of Christ Jesus.

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We are saved to bring him glory. It's not about you. Your salvation is not about you.

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It is to bring glory to God. You get an amazing byproduct.

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You get all of the blessings and inheritance that are promised to you for eternity. You get

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Jesus, but you are saved for his glory. Titus 2, verse 11,

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For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires, and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great

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God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, gave himself to redeem us from lawless deeds, and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds.

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Saved for his glory, and that is demonstrated by good deeds.

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Hebrews 13, verse 20, Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the eternal covenant, even

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Jesus our Lord equip you in every good thing to do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever.

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Amen. Working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, to do his will.

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Consider 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 3, For this is the will of God, your sanctification.

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And then Paul goes on in that verse and describes more specifically, that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion like the

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Gentiles who do not know God. And that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter, because the

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Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you.

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For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.

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Now, this is the will of God, your sanctification. The Puritan John Owen has said,

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Sanctification is a fruit of that peace with God, which he has made and prepared for us by Jesus Christ.

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And he references 2 Corinthians 5 .19, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

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God, by sanctifying our natures, writes Owen, keeps that peace which we have with him. It is holiness that keeps up a sense of peace with God and prevents those spiritual sins which still tend to break out from the corrupt nature still left within us.

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So God, as the author of our peace, is also the author of our holiness.

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He will sanctify us completely, that is, entirely. No part of us will be left sinful or under the power of sin.

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Our whole nature is the subject of this work. He will make holy every part of us. And this work will eventually be perfected.

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And ladies, of course, doesn't that remind you of verses like Philippians 1, verse 6, where Paul says,

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For I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

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When Christ reappears or we go to glory, we will be glorified. We will always sin here on this earth, in this life, but there is coming a day, ladies, when we will not sin, when we will be as Christ is.

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Not God, but we will be holy. All of those commands in scripture where we see, be holy as I am holy.

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You must be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. We cannot attain that in perfection in this life, but at the same time, we are to strive for holiness.

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We are to strive to be more and more like Christ. And if we could not do that, then we would not have been commanded to do that in scripture.

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And so how do we do that? We do that by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the power of God.

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It's right there in the verse we just read in Philippians 1 -6. He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

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As John Owen says, God is the author of our holiness. In fact, let's go on with Owen a bit more.

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He continues, Sanctification then is the direct work of the Holy Spirit on our whole nature.

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It proceeds from the peace made for us by Jesus Christ. By this peace with God through Jesus Christ, we will be preserved blameless or be kept in a state of grace and continual acceptance with God according to the terms of his covenant to the end.

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But before we go any further, he writes, we must realize that there are two sorts of sanctification.

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There is that sanctification by which people or things are dedicated, consecrated, or set apart for the service of God by his appointment.

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Such persons or things are in scripture called holy. There is also that sanctification, which is a ruling principle of holiness imparted to our natures, resulting in a life of holy obedience to God.

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And that is the sanctification of which we speak here today, ladies. Owen goes on, because he said it so well, why should

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I try to reinvent the wheel? He goes on, he says, What then is holiness?

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Holiness is nothing but the implanting, writing, and living out the gospel in our souls. The gospel is the truth which is according to godliness.

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Titus 1 .1 Jesus prayed, sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. This is the truth that shall make you free.

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Evangelical holiness is a fruit wrought in us by the spirit of sanctification. Holiness, therefore, is a mystery to fleshly reason.

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God makes the change. John Owen goes on, he says,

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We must not be deceived by a false holiness. Holiness is not just a reformed life.

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Holiness is not only for this life, but goes on with us into eternity and glory. Death has no power to destroy holiness.

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The activities of holiness are indeed momentary and transient, but their fruits last forever, and their reward, holiness, lasts forever and enters into glory with us.

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Holiness reveals something of the spiritual and heavenly glory even in this world. A true believer is all glorious within.

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Holiness, then, is a glorious work of the Holy Spirit. Going on, and then

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I promise I'll stop quoting, and I will link to this, ladies, because it's a wonderful piece for you to read.

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Owen continues, God's first purpose in and by the gospel is to glorify himself, his wisdom, goodness, love, grace, righteousness, and holiness by Jesus Christ and that forever.

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But the gospel simultaneously reveals the love and grace of God to lost sinners, which is brought to us by the mediation of Jesus Christ.

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And it is only by Jesus Christ, as God incarnate, that God will be glorified and sinners saved.

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The purpose of the gospel is also to persuade men by the preaching of the truth and the encouragement of the promises to renounce their sins and all other ways of satisfying

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God. And to receive by faith that way of life and salvation, which by the gospel is preached to them.

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And so then, ladies, this leads us into, if God is making the choice and then

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God is subsequently making the change in our lives, why do we evangelize?

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Why do we bother? Hey, God's already chosen who he's going to save, and so I'm just going to sit back, let go, let

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God, and, you know, just not worry about it. Why do we share the gospel?

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Well, as Owen says, he says that the purpose of the gospel is to persuade men by the preaching of the truth and the encouragement of the promises that can be theirs in Christ Jesus alone, who is the only means by which

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God is glorified and sinners saved, and God is glorified when sinners are saved.

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Yeah, but still, what's the point? What's the point? Why do we share the gospel?

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No, no, no, let me rephrase that. Why do we proclaim the gospel?

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The gospel is not something that we should be merely sharing. It's far too soft of a word.

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It is something we are to be proclaiming. It is a command to men and women everywhere to repent and believe upon the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Not everyone will obey that command, but we proclaim the gospel.

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Why? Why? What's the point? What did

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Paul say? Romans 1, 16, For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

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To the Jew first and also to the Greek, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith.

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We proclaim the gospel because it is the power of God unto salvation.

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The power of God unto salvation. Not your choice unto salvation, but the power of God unto salvation.

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We proclaim the gospel, ladies, because we are commanded to do that if we have been saved.

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We are to go out and proclaim the gospel so that others may be saved.

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Look with me at Luke 24, verse 44.

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Now he, Jesus, said to them, These are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.

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Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, verse 47, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

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You know, we so often get the Great Commission from the Gospel of Matthew, and that is good and right and true, but I love those verses in Luke because they emphasize the need to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins that is available in Christ Jesus alone.

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And of course, Matthew 28, we know it so well. Verse 16, The eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which

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Jesus had designated. When they saw him, they worshipped him, but some were doubtful. Verse 18, And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying,

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All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father and the Son. and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.

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And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

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So why do we evangelize? Why do we bother to evangelize? God makes the choice.

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God makes the change. Why are we doing this? Because we're commanded to do this because people are saved by hearing the gospel.

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They aren't saved by your good works. Yes, you are to live lives of holiness, seeking and striving for righteousness.

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But your life, without a verbal proclamation of the gospel, will not save anybody.

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It will not. Your life is not the gospel.

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There is only one gospel. That is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is only one life that saves, and that is that of the

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Lord Jesus Christ and his perfect life and his atoning death and his subsequent resurrection from the dead.

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And if we don't proclaim that, nobody will be saved. Romans 10, 14, How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed?

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How will they believe in him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent?

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Just as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things.

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How can someone call upon the name of the Lord unless they first hear the gospel?

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How will they believe in him in whom they have not heard? And so ladies, yes,

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God makes the choice. We saw that last time. God makes the change. We saw that here.

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We see the sanctification, the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And if you've been saved, even for a week, you've seen that work of the

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Holy Spirit in your own life. You know that you are not the same person that you were before God saved you.

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God did that. You didn't do that. There is an element of a practical outworking of our sanctification on our part that we ourselves are actively seeking that holiness and that righteousness.

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But we are only enabled to do so because we have the Holy Spirit. And that's very important to remember, ladies.

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So that we don't start to see it as a legalistic thing or as a means of works salvation.

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But God in his great sovereignty and God in his great providence and great design has ordained that the means by which men and women are saved is by the proclamation of the gospel.

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And that proclamation must come from those who have already been saved by the gospel.

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God uses the imperfect vessels that we are to grow his kingdom.

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We don't do the saving. It doesn't matter if you've prayed the prayer with 50 people.

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You didn't save them if they were actually saved. God did the saving. But if he used you to proclaim the gospel to those people, wow.

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What a privilege. What a privilege. You don't know, I don't know who has been chosen before the foundation of the world for salvation, for the glory of God.

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So who are we to sit back and say, well then, hey, I'm just not even gonna bother. No, we are the means by which the gospel is heard.

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The word of God. The gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Power of God unto salvation. But how will they hear without a preacher?

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I'm not telling you ladies to go out and become pastors, but I'm telling you to go out and proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ and salvation in him alone.

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I'm telling you that. I'm not encouraging you to do that. I'm telling you to do that. And I can tell you to do that because the

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Bible tells us to do that. We just read it. All right, ladies, time has flown by quickly.

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So until the next show, get in your Bibles, get on your knees, and get equipped.

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Thanks for listening. You've been listening to Equipping Eve, a No Compromise radio production.

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If you'd like to get a hold of Erin, you can reach her at equippingeve at gmail .com or you can check out one of her two websites, do notbesurprised .com