The Pactum: The Lawmen

Conference Reflections on God’s Good Law

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. Mike Ebenroth here. Today, something special for you. If you listen to the Pactum with Pat Ebenroth and Mike Grimes, you've already heard this, but I was in Omaha at the annual Pactum conference, the anti-conference conference, anti-celebrity conference, and there was a panel on Sunday morning of that conference weekend that Pat and Mike hosted, and David Van Droonen, J .V. Fesco, and myself were asked a variety of questions.

I try to just listen to those other guys because I obviously was the dumbest one on the panel, but that's all right. I was the oldest one on the panel, so maybe I had more wisdom. And so today, if you, again, are familiar with some of those men, we had the conference on the law of God, and so we answered questions regarding the law of God.

So thanks to Pat Ebenroth for letting me post this. Enjoy the show. How cool would it be to listen in on a conversation about the law of God with the likes of David Van Droonen, J .V. Fesco, and Mike Ebenroth?

It would be very cool, and in fact, it's what we're going to be doing on today's episode of the Pactum.

Hello, and welcome to the Pactum. I'm Mike Grimes, here today joined with Pat Ebenroth, as per usual. Hey, Mike. Hey, how's it going? And we have some guests with us today. We have John Fesco, Dave Van Droonen, and Mike Ebenroth joining us here for the episode.

Thanks for joining us in our posh. Pactum studio, gentlemen.

Thanks for having us. Glad to be here.

Mike's not so glad. He's trying to think about it. No, I just want to say for the record, when I hear Mike and Pat, there's only one Mike and Pat.

This is true. It's you.

Mike Grimes, I think we might have a sponsor for the show.

We do have a sponsor. Today's episode is brought to you by Reformation Heritage Books. If you want to start reading the Puritans, but you don't know where to begin, Puritan Treasures for Today from Reformation Heritage Books makes the riches of these godly writers of old accessible to the modern reader.

They've got updated language, helpful introductions, and these classic works from guys like John Owen and Jeremiah Burroughs and more are the perfect starting point for the curious reader. You can learn more about Puritan Treasures for Today at heritagebooks .org slash Puritan Treasures and get this special code.

While you are at heritagebooks website, heritagebooks .org, you can use the code Pactum. That makes sense. For 10 off your order. All right, we're not going.

To do formal introductions for our guests today because whether it's Dave Andronen or Mike Abendroth or J .V. Fesco, they've been on the Pactum before. I would call them Pactum influencers. They are, yes.

And if it's the first episode you've ever listened to, you need to listen to other episodes because they've been on numerous times influencing, and we promote their books all the time. All the time. Uh-huh.

You're welcome, J .V. You're welcome, Dave. You're welcome, Mike. Okay. In all seriousness, we're on the heels of the 2024 conference called God's Good Law. We've had a great time together. We've learned a lot.

And so my question to each of you gentlemen would be, what has encouraged you throughout the weekend as you've been speaking, as you've been listening, as you've been engaging other people? Let's start with you, Mike.

What's been an encouragement at the conference? Well, it's easy. Free sweatshirts. Seriously, I'm probably most encouraged by the interactions I've had with you between sessions, during coffee. And what I mean by that is the level of theological discussion, talking about the Lord Jesus, how you're encouraged, what you're reading.

And so I thought, you know, what a blessing it is to talk to people that have been trained well, either at Omaha Bible Church or elsewhere. And so I think, Pat, that's probably the main thing that I've been encouraged by.

Maybe a sub-point personally, sometimes I'll go to a conference and I think, well, am I going to learn anything? But then listening to Dave and J .V., Dr. Van Drunen and Dr. Fesco, I thought, you know what?

I'd come and pay to this, pay to go to a conference like this to hear these guys. There's still time. You can still pay. You.

Dave, source of encouragement for you? Well, it's actually easy for me too, is that I've got to play two really nice golf courses while I'm here. And this is, you know, you're probably not going to give me a check for being here, but that was good enough payment.

We know the way to Dave's heart. I'm an open book. Yeah, I think, well, there've been a lot of encouraging things. It's nice to see some old friends here, both within the church and some other old friends, and that's been great.

And, you know, I think it's interesting for me. I think, you know, your background, sort of your theological journey is not mine. And, you know, I was raised in a basically confessional Reformed church, and I've been in that environment all my life and serving there.

And not only, I think, a lot of you at Omaha Bible Church, but a lot of people here at the conference coming from a similar kind of background from what you've had and just seeing this and talking to people who are learning some of these things.

And it's encouragement to see people who are excited about learning good theology and learning to read Scripture in really healthy and edifying ways. And it's not the sort of people that I necessarily am interacting with day by day.

And, you know, sometimes we get to very similar places in very different ways, and it's encouraging that the Lord obviously uses different ways to get us.

To where He will have us. Amen. Excellent. How about you, John?

You know, the hunger for the Word, which is really exciting to see when you're speaking and you see people really engaged and they're taking notes. That's really exciting and encouraging. Listening to the other lectures, you know, picking up things that you might not have thought of before.

And one of the other things that always warms the cockles of my heart is when you see people... The what? The cockles, you know, the inner parts, the inside.

We're going to put that on a Pactom t-shirt. The inner cockles? I don't know. I don't know.

I'll give you the catchphrase, books warm the cockles of my heart.

Okay. You heard it here on the Pactom.

So to see people walking out with stacks of books, not digital books, but stacks of books, and they look excited, you think, hey, that's amazing. And that's exciting to see people really wanting to dig into the Word that way.

Very cool. Before you go to the next question, Mike, I think the most encouraging thing I heard yesterday is I overheard someone after John's lecture on covenant theology and the law say, I think I might be a covenantalist.

There you go. Well, you four were the speakers at the conference, Pat included in this. Given that two of you are Presbyterians and two of you are Bible church guys...

Is this a joke?

No.

Do we walk into a bar?

I'm not that funny. I don't have a... So two Presbyterians, two Bible church guys, what would you say brings unity among the four of you? And how does that even happen? Anybody want to answer?

In one word, at least to begin with, the relationship started because of justification, right? Because a commitment to the doctrine of sola fide, grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, and just learning from these men.

And you do the deep dive. And before you know it, imputation is super important. Christ's obedience to the law, covenant of works. That's really what started the whole thing, I think, for me.

Also shared love for the theology of the Reformation. I think we have that in common, and it brings us together. And that though there may be differences in some areas and some points of ecclesiology, obviously, that nevertheless still gives us so much to agree upon and so much to be able to talk about.

And so in that sense, I think it's always encouraging. One of the phrases that somebody once said of someone else that I've always enjoyed using for myself is, I may have narrow convictions, but I have wide associations.

And it's when you get into the wider church that you can see people agreeing about so much. It gives me hope and encouragement that, hey, there's a lot of good going on in the wider church.

Yeah. Anybody else? Well, Dave just said to me, there's only one letter difference between OBC and OPC. So obviously, law gospel is related to justification. And I just think that's one of the driving forces in terms of just thinking clearly categories.

And maybe that's probably what I like the most, how to think about categories clearly, and that binds us together in so many ways.

Theologians Who Shaped Their Thinking

Yeah. Out of curiosity, just another kind of question for everybody. What theologians have had the greatest influence on your thinking and why? That'd be something our listeners are.

Interested in hearing about. Dave? Well, I mean, I actually don't like questions like, who's your favorite theologian and all that. I've really...

We all know Dave has a shirt that says, Jonathan Edwards is my homeboy.

Yeah. Yeah. Jonathan Edwards probably wouldn't make the short list, but... I mean, I think if I was picking out a sort of a line of influence for me, I mean, I think Augustine, certainly, and Augustine's City of God is just a great theological work that I think in certain areas in which I've found very...

It's been very important. I've actually spent a lot of time reading and writing about and teaching on Thomas Aquinas. And as I kind of joked when I made a brief mention of him yesterday, he's not a law gospel guy the way...

I breathed a sigh of relief when you gave a qualifier, so that was good.

But in a lot of ways, his theology of law has been very influential, and there are a lot of things about it that the Reformed adopted. And certainly, I think for someone like me of my generation, when I was being theologically educated in sort of my young theological years, it was really...

It was the time when there was this burgeoning of interest and translation of Reformed scholastic, Reformed Orthodox sources. And I think, I'm sure John would say something similar. If we had been in a previous generation, people weren't even interested in reading people like Francis Turretin, and Hermovitzius, and Franciscus Junius, and you've got...

But you've had all this stuff that's been translated, the Van Maastricht volumes being translated. And I think being able to see some of the... Just the great theology and the riches of the early Reformed generations has been very...

I think it's been very eye-opening for like my generation, and especially we sort of lived on the transition of the time when people were very anti-scholastic and didn't really know about the early Protestant tradition other than maybe Calvin.

And so I think that's been exciting and influential. And certainly, I've been influenced by what you might think of as like the Gerhardus Voss, Meredith Klein kind of line of covenant theology, redemptive historical, hermeneutics, and that's certainly been influential on me as well.

Sure, yeah. Anybody else?

I have a whole slew of questions, so yeah. I was just going to say,.

One of my students got me a mug that says, Turretin is my homeboy.

That's better. That's better, right? That's good.

What Is God’s Law?

We've been doing a conference this weekend, God's Good Law, and let's just say you're in the elevator at your hotel maybe this weekend, or maybe you get an Uber driver, whatever it is, and you have to give them the elevator pitch on what God's law is.

What would you say?

Mike Ebendroth, you're up. Timer's going, starting now. Am I in a Manhattan elevator? Omaha. Oh, Omaha. Rats on the west side, bedbugs uptown. I'd probably talk about creator, creature. I'd probably talk about who God is and how we see him, certain attributes in nature and what he requires.

I might even kind of go from this perspective, who makes something and doesn't dictate what that made thing should do. Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein, and so God has made us, therefore he requires certain things, and he's revealed his goodness and his essence through the law, and this is what God requires for our good and for his glory.

I'd probably take that take. As I was talking, it didn't sound too good, but that's probably what I would do.

Anybody else? Elevator pitch?

Well, yeah, when you say elevator pitch, it might take a little bit more time than going from the first to the third floors, but... At the Hampton Inn. You know, yeah, right. Yeah. You know, I think it's really helpful to think of the law.

I mean, I think law in general, but including God's law as a kind of a moral order, right? It's not just a bunch of rules, but it's actually, you might say, even a way of life that God has set before us and that is built into our nature as human beings and makes sense of the world around us.

It's a way that God has called us to live, and this gets to some of my discussion of natural law in the conference, and I think I would want to... Well, for one thing, I think what Mike was...his answer was really getting at is the idea of authority.

Like, this is...God is the one who has made us, and so God has authority, so we need to understand God's law is deriving from God's authority. And then I would, I think, want to add that this is...His law is something that fits who we are, both as His image bearers, and now ultimately in Christ as those who are heirs of a new creation, and God's law is good.

I mean, I think that title of the conference is really nice because it gets at the idea that God's law really is good for us, and it fits who we are, both as creatures and as new creatures in Christ.

Natural Law, Total Depravity, and Common Grace

So, I have a question for you, John, as it would relate to natural law, and I know you're a fan of natural law as well. Dave is the one that spoke on it specifically, but help people who are Calvinists and who believe in the doctrine of total depravity, and yet we're somehow to learn natural law from other people who are unbelievers.

Unbelievers can do good according to natural law thinking. I thought no one does good, no, not one. And I'm posing the question to you because I think a lot of people who are new to the doctrines of grace, as we call them, and we are told people are totally depraved, and no one can do good.

So, there's no room for any kind of natural law. There's no room for any kind of general non-saving good. Can you help that kind of person, just introduce them to categories and ways of thinking about this?

Yeah, I think that when you read the Apostle Paul and what he says in Romans chapter 1, verses 18, 19, and 20, right around 19, the English Standard Version says that the unbelievers suppress the truth and unrighteousness, but I think the older King James translation is actually better, and it better renders the Greek, the underlying Greek, which says that unbelievers hold the truth in unrighteousness.

That's a very different image. It's one thing to suppress something, you see, I don't like this, I'm going to suppress it, versus no, I hold it, but I don't use it well. And so, if that's what Paul says about the nature of the unbeliever, what he's ultimately saying is that all of us, by virtue of being image bearers, we have and know the law of God upon our heart, and so that even the thief knows that it's wrong to steal.

Why? Because the thief comes at night, wears a mask, brings a baseball bat, a firearm, or something like that, because they know that it's wrong to do this, and so they take steps and make preparations to carry out their crime.

And then, of course, they will say, I know it's wrong to do this, but I'm going to still do it anyway, but don't you dare steal from me. So they still want to invoke that law of God that is upon them.

You see, you know, speaking to the order of things that Dr. Vandruna was just mentioning, too, there are also a series of common ideas that we all share in common, whether, you know, you can go to any culture and a smile means the same thing.

You can, you know, I use this illustration with my students in a classroom to say that you put an empty room, put a pile of toys in the middle, set an infant on the edge of the room. That infant is not going to circle the room.

The infant is going to go straight across to the toys. Why? Because the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. We all just kind of know these things. And it's because these are things that are built into us as image bearers so that when we go to the unbeliever, we're not betting or waging upon the prospects of them maybe knowing the truth.

We're instead resting upon the fact they are image bearers. And as image bearers, they hold the truth, even if they many times because of their sinfulness, reject it or want to ignore the truth. Okay.

And the image is still there,.

Right? Even though we believe in the fall, total depravity, all those kinds of things,.

It's still there. It's still there, but it's obviously marred, which is why, you know, I heard this. I was reading this book the other day. The existence of the police is an acknowledgement.

Of the sinfulness of human beings. That's good. A similar question I want to pose to you, Dave, and that would be in light of the fact that we believe in the sufficiency of Scripture, which we would champion, we would hold to, I know you would affirm.

It's confessionally true. Then if Scripture is sufficient, why would we need natural law? And I think this is a common way of thinking. So help us out of that bad way of thinking. I know lots of people who say Scripture is sufficient for everything.

Will you interact with that, please?

Yeah. Well, I think there are several things to say in response to that. I think number one is just a historical doctrinal note is that historically, sola Scriptura, sufficiency of Scripture, did not mean we don't need natural revelation.

What it meant is we don't need sources of special revelation beyond Scripture. We don't need a Pope in Rome. We don't need continuing prophecy. That's historically what the sufficiency of Scripture was getting at.

So I think that's just an important thing to note. And one way to understand why it doesn't make sense to say because we have Scripture, we don't need natural revelation, including natural law, is the fact that Scripture presumes that we have a knowledge of this world.

I mean, can you imagine reading Scripture if you didn't know anything about this world? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. What's the heavens and the earth? I mean, it presumes that we know what the heavens and the earth is.

It presumes that we know what horses are and where Egypt is, and like a million other things. So I think that's a really important point is that Scripture presumes that. And then, I mean, I think the other point is that also the sufficiency of Scripture has never meant historically, at least in like classic Protestantism, that Scripture gives us sufficient knowledge to carry out every task in this world.

And that if you want to be a pharmacist or an accountant or whatever, that Scripture is going to give you the answers. It's never meant that, right? So the way it's often put is Scripture is sufficient for Christian faith and life, not for every task.

And there are all sorts of things in which we depend upon natural revelation, the knowledge of this world around us, study of this world, experience in this world in order to do useful things. Scripture is still important for those things.

It gives us a big perspective on the truth and how to fit particular activities into our larger existence. But this idea that somehow Scripture and natural revelation are sort of almost competing sources and you choose one or the other, it just doesn't really make sense on a doctrinal, historical, or biblical level.

I appreciate that. And I think it's really.

Important for our listeners, people who listen to the Pactum, because a lot of us come out of a background of more of a fundamentalism kind of background, where supposedly the Bible is sufficient for everything.

And no one functions that way, practically, thankfully. But it is a problem and it's great to see, oh, the Bible does teach natural law. It says, learn from the ant. So there the Bible claims to be insufficient, which sounds blasphemous, but it's encouraging us to look outside.

And so as you listen, be thinking about these things. I would commend Dave's book, his new book on natural law, to think about these things. In addition to that, I think when you try to make the Bible sufficient for everything, whether it be mathematics or economics or whatever it is, what ends up happening oftentimes is now the Bible's not used for what it's intended to be used for.

It's used for everything, but it's not all about redemption in Christ and the glory of Christ and the things that it actually addresses specifically. Now we downplay those other things. So just an important note.

Law and Gospel, Antinomianism, and the Charge of Legalism

Mike, you talked a little bit about legalism and antinomianism at the conference. Why do you think those who promote a distinction between law and gospel are accused of antinomianism? Jealousy.

I just want to say for the record, just imagine walking a mile in my shoes right now. What would you do if you were me sitting next to these two guys? I was hoping I wasn't going to ask a question. I'll just sit and listen.

You know, what's my favorite part of Henry Dorley's zoo? That's what I was wanting the question to be. So say the question again.

Why do you think those who promote a distinction between law and gospel are accused of antinomianism?

Well, it's an age-old accusation, and I talked about it a little bit yesterday. And so when you're promoting and preaching and proclaiming grace, and you think what grace is, and some say it's unmerited favor, and many say it's demerited favor, and is grace really that good?

I remember when you first were saved and you realized, I cannot believe how wonderful this is. You know, it's the old song, the wonderful matchless grace of Jesus. I am forgiven for all my sins. And you mean to tell me that I'm so forgiven that I cannot be unforgiven?

I can't be unjustified? I can't be unreconciled? Propitiation can't come back? And it seems to be so wonderful. And I think that the real issue is, does grace motivate obedience, or does law? And so back to, you know, law is like a GPS, but grace is like the engine that helps you obey.

And I think they're afraid of what might happen if we tell believers, you know, you're safe and secure from all alarms. Sure, yeah. Someone asked me about theonomy. They said, okay, we really enjoyed Dr. Van Groenen's lecture on theonomy.

It made sense. But who is he talking about? So I said, well, Dave's just a scholar and a gentleman. He wasn't going to name names, but maybe John Fesco would, or maybe Mike Abendroth would. So who are we talking about?

Because it really is a concern and a problem. What names come to mind? Mike Abendroth. When you hear theonomy, who are the theonomists? I mainly think of Doug Wilson. Okay. Anybody else come to mind? Maybe in the history of theonomy?

See, Dave will play that game.

Well, yeah. I mean, you know, I think it's, you know, sort of the theonomic ideas that sort of I learned, not that I ever embraced it, but when I was learning theology, Greg Bonson is a name that was, he was probably the main defender of it back in sort of the 80s and 90s, really from like the late 70s up through his death.

I think he died in like mid 90s. And his book, Theonomy and Christian Ethics had a very, very big impact on the theonomic circles. And, you know, I sort of still tend to think about that as a classic attempt to defend, to define and to defend theonomy theologically and exegetically.

Okay. Well, it's interesting too, because Bonson denies law gospel. A lot of theonomists promoting Norman Shepard, right? Denying law gospel. And there's a tie in there, I think. So I think Greg Bonson's son wrote an article.

You can find it online. I don't have it in front of me, but I was just looking at it a couple of days ago where he says, my dad most certainly believed in justification by faith and works. So defending and defended Norman Shepard again and again.

So it's a dangerous game to play when you deny law and gospel and it runs hard in theonomic circles. So it is one of the reasons why it is a concern. Andrew Sandlin would be another name in that whole mix.

Is it Ezra Institute? They promote a lot of theonomy kind of things. Yep. Anybody else you want to talk about J .V. or not? Roussos Rush Dooney is another.

Big name. He wrote his, I think it's three volumes on the institutes of biblical law. So he would be another figure. There's a fascinating intellectual biography on Rush Dooney where it's published by the University of South Carolina Press, which is an odd thing.

You're like, what interest does this press have in that? But it was read by the Rush Dooney family and given the stamp of approval for accuracy. So it's absolutely fascinating to see the interactions with Bonson, the interactions with how Rush Dooney saw the interactions with culture and politics in the United States.

It was an amazing book from that sense. It was kind of like a spotlight or a cat scan upon the theonomic.

Movement and it was very illuminating. Mike, what do you think the draw is to the Wilsonites, Doug Wilson kind of stuff? Why are so many people drawn to them these days? Because it's really growing in popularity.

Any take? Guy in the leather jacket? Can you see that through your earbuds as you're listening to the pactum? I remember reading Credenda Agenda, Doug Wilson's magazine, during seminary classes in the 1990s.

He's smart, he writes well, provocative, kind of he's against the man these days. He's almost like the theological equivalent of a Trump-like figure, President Trump, who just maybe is antagonistic and I think maybe men want some laws and they want some rules in this lawless society where things are going berserk and they're attracted to that.

I think that justification by faith alone is so undertaught and just assumed, right? A seminary asked me years ago, what do you think we need to do to bolster our curriculum? I said there needs to be a seminary class on justification by faith alone and you need to read, I said Fesco.

I didn't say read that first though. No, I said Fesco, Calvin, Turreton, Horton's two volumes, and you've got to get justification by faith settled because if you don't have it settled, there's always going to be these competing things that are going to infiltrate and so that needs to get done.

Sources of Encouragement for the Church

And so I think a lack of understanding sola fide has contributed to some of that attraction. Okay, so we're getting close to the end of the time, right? So let's end on a positive. Let's talk about sources of encouragement.

We started there, let's end there. When you sit back and think about the state of the church and things happening, whether it be in the Reformed world or in evangelicalism, what's encouraging to you? What makes you smile and to say this is good, things are moving in a good direction?

I may be an amillennialist but I'm.

Optimistic in my amillennialism. I tell you for me, one of the things that I've been very excited to see over the years, say the last 10 -15 years, is that in the first part when I was studying theology, say I've been doing this for about 30 years and a lot of people were interested in Reformed theology.

Okay, this is good. But they didn't quite understand the nature of the Reformation to say that, you know, Calvin on the necessity of reforming the church says that the principal disagreements with Rome were justification, church government, and worship.

And what a lot of people missed in the, you know, say the first 15 years of my education was the catholicity of the Reformation. In other words, hey, we need to engage the medievals, we need to engage the church fathers.

I think most people were not interested in those things. So in the last 15 years, there's been such a massive pickup and interest in digging into the medievals, digging into the patristics. And, you know, one of the statements that sticks so firmly in my mind is that if the church fathers gave us the Chalcedonian definition, the Council of Nicaea and the Council of Chalcedon, things that we still profess as Protestants, Roman Catholics profess that, Eastern Orthodox theologians profess that.

If they gave us that, then shouldn't we study what they have to say? That doesn't mean that we have to agree with everything, but it's this renewed interest in the theology of the whole church and recognizing how much of the Reformation was still indebted to the theology of the whole church.

That's why the 16th century reformers called themselves Reformed Catholics, lowercase c. Not Roman Catholics, Reformed Catholics, lowercase c. And so that to me has been very encouraging to see this renewed interest in figures like an Augustine or figures like an Aquinas, especially on the doctrine of God, not on justification, but on certain topics.

So that to me is very encouraging.

Super. How about you, Dave?

Well, honestly, I don't spend much time putting my finger to the wind and trying to think about how things are going well or bad, and I just don't pay much attention to that. And I think maybe it's just my way of coping with life.

You're not on X?

I'm not.

You're not tweeting much these days, Dave?

No. I really try to keep my head down and do the work that the Lord has given me to do. And so what's encouraging to me is not that I have this sense of trends or something. I'm not being critical of those who are talking about that.

It's just not the way I operate.

We know, but we'd like to hear what you have to say, Dave.

You know, I think about sometimes if we're tempted or I'm tempted to be discouraged, you know, you think about, can you imagine being an Israelite about the time of the Babylonian exile? So here this is, you know, I mean, this is centuries and centuries and centuries after giving the Mosaic Law, and this is where we've come.

It's just a tiny remnant, and everything's falling apart. And, you know, God makes a new covenant promise and promises this greater outpouring of His grace in the latter days. And you think about the church of Jesus Christ starts in Jerusalem with a handful of people.

And you think now, think about there are believers in Christ all over this entire globe, and we number it. I mean, who knows how many, I mean, hundreds of millions, billions of people who confess the name of Christ, not just confess, but actually believe in the gospel of Christ.

You think, well, there's some reason to be encouraged. God has kept His promises. And I know just if, you know, if we are faithful, we don't know exactly how God is going to bring forth fruit, and when, and how, and to whom.

But even in a conference like this is encouraging in that there are, I mean, there are all sorts of people who have told me, you know, to me, I've read your book, or I've heard you, that's encouraging to me.

I had no idea these people existed. And yet, you know, so that's just, there's evidence that God's work continues to go out. And, you know, I don't think we should get overly, we need to address problems, but we don't need to get overly exercised about opposition, because the Lord is really in control.

And we believe that, right? Amen. Great answer. Mike,.

You're up. My knee-jerk is saying the recovery of the assurance of the believer. That is to say, I have noticed so many times that people have thought to themselves these days, I have assurance now. And when you think of the Reformation, the recovery of Sola Fide, and so much more, what about the will?

But St. Clair Ferguson has written, it was also a recovery of assurance of salvation, right? The sin of presumption, as Rome said, was assurance of salvation. And so many times I think people have been beaten down by the law, and not given the gospel, that they say to themselves after listening to a sermon, I don't even know if I could be a Christian.

And that's bad preaching. If you're preaching to Christians, and they walk out saying, I don't even know if I'm saved, right? You want to, you spank your children, and then you love them. And you confront people with the law, Christians, and then you give them the balm of the gospel.

And there are reeds that need not to be bruised. And so I love it that assurance is coming back up. People are certain that they're going to heaven. I went to someone, he was on his deathbed, and I went up to him, and I said, Ray, are you afraid to die?

He shook his head, no. And I said, good, because I know you've been praying for all the nurses. I know you've been hiding God's word in your heart here in the hospital. I know you've been praying right.

What did I say? I said, Ray, good, because the Lord Jesus loves you. He keeps his promises. He's loved you with an everlasting love, and there's no condemnation for those in Christ. Ray, you're safe and secure.