Episode 7 - Freedom Part 3

Tim 00:00:23 So freedom being what it is I'm gonna freely move forward, Ajai, last time we were together, we mentioned something that I think we all said, that's a, that's a whole episode unto itself and that is freedom from the idea that we can lose our salvation. And I think this is, you know, while it's fresh in our minds, but this is a topic we should explore. This may be an entire episode. It may not. It it's one of those things that there's a lot of contention in the entire Christian world about whether or not you can lose your salvation and after, after reading a whole lot of verses over the last couple years, I'm convinced that we can't. But can we back that up? Mark 00:01:05 One, one thing I'll add just as the preface to this whole conversation is I really, really feel this contention, if you will, disagreement, argument is based on a law mentality. It's mankind so used to living by that law, that it puts that seed in you that if I don't fulfill that law well enough, I might lose my salvation. And to me, when you take that system, that law completely out of the picture and go completely to what Christ has done for us, it becomes less about us and what we can do to lose it and more about what He did for us. Plus, I would, one of my thoughts would also be why do people always go to the absolute worst-case scenario, lowest denominor, denominator. Even if you could lose your salvation, I'm never going to <laugh> because I love the Lord and everything He's done for me and know that I'm firmly in His hands, but we're about to discuss why scripture teaches us beyond the shadow of a doubt that it's impossible for me to lose my salvation. Ajai 00:02:26 Yeah. You know, I think it's also important to understand, you know, why it is important to understand that, you know, we cannot lose our salvation. We cannot really serve God. You know, we saw last time, you know, the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost and they that, so the Lord in these things will be approved of God and acceptable by men. So really, you know, we cannot what this fear of losing our salvation, right, t's the biggest fear you could ever have. I do not really understand those who claim themselves to be Christians, if they truly in their hearts believe that they can lose their salvation anytime, you know, I don't know how they can sleep every day. If it were for me, you know, if I were to lose a salvation, if I do something on that particular day, I cannot go to sleep. And 24 7 I'll be at this one job only making sure that I am not doing anything that will cause me to lose my salvation. So, first of all, I think, you know, most of us who say that they can lose their salvation, they give lip service to that because this is like, one of the things like the confession of sins, right, you confess to get forgiven, right, and most of us sin several times a day, so our whole business in life would be just to confess and get forgiven and go through that because that is the most important thing. And even with salvation, if we believe that we can lose a salvation, we should be at it, if we are serious about our salvation, we should be at it 24 7, just trying not to lose our salvation, walking on eggshells or whatnot. So, it's very, very important to understand that, you know, unless we kind of settle this, there are certain truths, especially the truths that we are discussing on this podcast. Before you could walk with God, right, before you could bear fruit, and before you could serve God and serve others, we have to settle some truths in our heart. Until then, you know, we cannot really even think about serving God in any way or form shape. So, one of those things is, the firm conviction in our heart set, we cannot lose our salvation. So, there are several scriptures and I think we can look at it from several angles, right, like Mark already touched, you know, if you have a law mentality, right, to begin with, you know, people are thinking that, you know, I have been saved by the law by something I did, now I have to keep myself by something I did. But if salvation is by grace, if I am saved by freely, without my contribution to it, right, if there is, if I did nothing to save myself, there's nothing I can do to unsave myself, so to speak. So that is kind of the logical argument, but there are several scriptures to it. Tim 00:05:22 Well, be before we jump into those, I wanna back up a little bit to what Mark kind of started out with was that this idea that you can lose your salvation is, comes from a law mindset, standing in a cathedral in the kremlin in Moscow looking at this big mural on the wall it was a picture of God holding scales and I asked my interpreter who happened to be a Cantor in the Orthodox Russian church to explain it to me and he goes, “well, you, you know what, you, you are a collection of your deeds throughout life, and, and when you die, you go to judgment”. And a lot of people, you see the, there are judgments listed in the old, in the revel, in the book of revelations and stuff and I think they've been very horribly misinterpreted. We may get into that on another show, but he said, ‘your good deeds have to, outweigh your bad deeds”. I said, “well, if you living your life, how do you know where you stand”? He goes, “you don't, that's why you gotta keep doing good deeds”. What the idea is, if we've been saved from all of our sins, we no longer have to work to, you know, and, and have everlasting life, we don't have to work to do good deeds all the time to keep ourselves right and all these things we've kind of covered in the past, but that definitely puts this whole idea into that law mindset and I don't think it could be made any clearer than that picture on the back of that church. Ajai 00:06:46 Yep. Yep. Mark 00:06:47 Yeah. I think another question that's very closely tied into the question of whether a believer can lose their salvation is whether a believer could know that they really are saved because I know, I know one woman who's been a, probably, been a believer for well let’s see she she's in her nineties, so maybe 75 years. And even after all those years, I've heard her say things that belie the fact that she's not, she's still afraid she might go to hell. She's not afraid of losing her salvation. Ajai 00:07:28 She's not even sure. [Yeah.] Mark 00:07:30 She's not even sure. And so that's a really good place to that we all need to start with too, because scripture is clear that once we are saved, we cannot lose that. And we'll get into some of those scriptures. Tim 00:07:45 We'll back up that with scripture in a minute, but I want to just keep talking about that one point, Mark, first of all, you have to be saved, right. Saved, and I think we've used this term among ourselves saved rightly right. And I think, I think we need to define that just enough to put the basis, you know, our grounding here into once we have that, we can't lose it, but we have to know what is that first, right. So what is saved, rightly? Mark 00:08:12 Ajai, why don't you number all the conditions that we have to fulfill for us? Would you? Ajai 00:08:18 <laugh>? Yeah. All the conditions is basically zero. So when we understand that there are no conditions, right, simply by receiving the gift of salvation and receiving the gift of righteousness, right, we are saved. When we understand by simply believing in the Lord, Jesus Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, we are saved right, there are no works there. When we understand that, I think, you know, we actually, you know, keep ourselves from several errors, you know, we don't fall prey to several errors and teaching when we are, you know, like, rightly saved so to speak. Tim 00:08:52 So when these evangelists go out to football stadium crowds, and thousands of people pour down to the front at the end and say the sinner's prayer and accept Jesus in that number are people who are saved rightly because they just believe. [Yeah.] But there's gonna be a lot of people down there that still don't get it, they're following somebody else down, cuz they're walking down their, their flip lip syncing the prayer [Yeah.] they don't really believe it. They're not really rightly saved, [Yeah.] right? [Yeah.] Ajai 00:09:22 Yeah. In fact, you know, most of the preaching is like, you know, come walk down the aisle and make a commitment to follow Jesus. So, repent of your sins or accept Jesus as your Lord, then you'll be saved. So, some of the conditions are very subtle and they seem actually good, but the problem is that, you know, you're putting a condition that we cannot perform, so no matter how small or how great the condition, if you put a condition that you cannot perform, that person cannot be saved. So that's one of the reasons, right, you know, most of us, I am so particular about the true gospel preaching, the true gospel. If you, if you start on the right footing, right, your journey as a Christian also will be, much more smooth, smoother and less shaky. Mark 00:10:12 And the nice thing about starting on the right foot and the term rightly saved is that it's not making things more com, more complex, it's not saying you have to believe this, that, this, you need to add that, that that's not what we mean by rightly saved. What me, we mean by rightly saved is the pure gospel, Faith alone in Christ alone. That's it, that's rightly saved, because sometimes the term rightly means you've gotta have all your ducks in a row. That's not what Ajai means, it means on depending upon nothing but Christ himself. Yeah. I like to read the scripture here that I love. What I love about this scripture is it not only answers the question about whether we can lose our salvation it's simultaneously and simultaneously answers the other question about knowing whether we are saved and rightly saved. And that is in Ephesians 1 starting at verse 13. And it says, apostle Paul talking, “and you also were included in Christ. When you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who was a deposit, guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of His glory”. So first of all, Paul saying, when you believed, the moment you believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit, you became God's possession. So, first of all, they didn't have to first repent of their sin, clean up their lives, they didn't have to go to the front to an alter. There was nothing else they had to do except believe. And I heard a great phrase today by a pastor who he said, when you believe into the Lord, Jesus Christ. And I just love that way of putting it. [Yeah.] And, and, and the fact that God himself has, who is the judge of whether you are saved or not preachers of this denomination preachers from that denomination, the voices in your own head. No, nobody can decide that except God himself and He has marked you with a seal and He says, you are now My possession, who is gonna be able to steal God's possessions out of His hands. [Yeah.] Who's got the P enough power to do that? Nobody! [Yeah.] And then I love the word here he says that that Holy Spirit and that seal are a deposit, just the deposit guaranteeing, it's a guarantee, it's a done deal. It's a lifetime warranty and beyond by God Himself, there's never been a greater guarantee in the history of creation. [Yep.] Tim 00:13:14 All right. So that's a good foundational start. We now know there's only one requirement to be saved, to be [yeah], under, you know, to, to have the gospel message, you know, and have it straight and that is belief in Jesus Christ alone. And Mark started to allude to it's forever. It's a guarantee. And you can't be taken away from you, Ajai. Mark 00:13:36 This is not the only place Paul uses that wording. There are two other places he writes about the holy spirit as a deposit guaranteeing our future is, one of the lines he uses in another scripture. “Your future is guaranteed.” Ajai 00:13:53 Yeah. In fact, you know, that scripture alone is enough to, you know, guarantee that we will not lose our salvation. But you know, in several places, you know, the Bible clearly says, in fact, there's this scripture not very well known by many people. I want to read that it's John 3:16. I was just joking. Oh, Mark 00:14:16 Are you the guy with the, are you the guy with the rainbow wig and that sign in all those football games, Ajai? <laugh> I thought I recognized you from somewhere Ajai 00:14:24 <laugh>. So, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son”, these are the words of Lord Jesus Christ himself, you know, sometimes we forget that. Lord Jesus talking to Nicodemus. He himself said that “for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son and that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. We say, Lord, Jesus Christ said himself about himself. “I am the way the truth and the life.” So, so there is no way Jesus can lie because he's a truth himself and the one who cannot lie, in fact, the Bible also says in Hebrews chapter 6, it is impossible. That is a, in fact, in the Bible, I do not believe where it says something is impossible for God. It says it is impossible for God to lie. And the one who cannot lie, and it is impossible for him to lie. He is saying that whoever believes in the Lord, Jesus Christ will not perish but have everlasting life. So will not perish means will not perish, right period. There, in itself, the most popular verse in the entire universe, throughout all time, clearly says we will not perish. What does that mean? We will not lose our salvation. And do you believe that? And hear the condition again, right, you know, there's nothing, whoever obeys me, whoever does everything right, you know, whoever stops committing sinning. None of the conditions, whoever is the law and whoever loves his neighbor, nothing (just)“whosoever believes in Me will not perish should not perish, but have everlasting life. That's the plan of God, right? The plan is such that, you know, God gave his Son and the motivation for God, giving us Son is a love of God, He loved everyone, not just you or me, Right? It's everything is covered here. He loved the world. He does not say he loved the elect. He does not say he loved the chosen. He does not say he loved the Jews. He loved the world as a people. He loved the entire world that He gave his only begotten Son then here, whosoever believes, right, it's open to all, everyone who believes in the Lord, Jesus Christ will not perish Mark 00:16:38 [Period] Ajai 00:16:39 But have everlasting life Mark 00:16:40 [Period] Ajai 00:16:42 And, yeah, go ahead, Mark. I have a few more scriptures, but I would like you guys to pitch in Mark 00:16:46 There's another scripture. I believe it's John 15. Maybe when you can back me up where Jesus says “I will lose none of those, the Father has given me”. Ajai 00:16:58 It is actually John 6, Mark 00:17:00 John 6. Okay. I was in the right book anyway. Tim 00:17:04 <laugh> yeah, the Bible. Ajai 00:17:06 That's one of the scriptures I wanted to also bring up, but we can look it up Mark 00:17:11 John, 6 39. “And this is the will of Him who sent Me that I shall lose none of all those He has given Me, but raise them up at the last day”. [Yeah.] That's even more powerful because He's saying it's the will of the Father who sent Him. That He will lose none. Tim 00:17:33 That was John 6. What? Mark 00:17:35 39. Okay. Ajai 00:17:37 Yep. Tim 00:17:37 We encourage everybody to look at these verses for themselves. Mark 00:17:41 That's a double whammy there, He's saying the reason the Father sent Me is it's His will that everybody He gives Me will be with Me to the last day. [Yeah.] You know, the guarantees in here [yeah.] are powerful. That one in that we, we already talked about in Ephesians 1 about being sealed with the Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing and here Jesus Himself is saying, I'm not gonna lose any, it's not just my will, it's the Father's will. You know, how much more straight and powerful can it be put, and yet people still doubt it. And like I said, I think it's the law mentality, creeping in to bring doubt. Ajai 00:18:24 And in fact, this, John 6, right? You know, if you read the whole passage, surrounding the words that you said, it's all about, you know, Jesus guaranteeing that whoever believes in him, nothing in fact will have it on our life. In fact, in verse 47, “I tell you the truth” He is emphasizing again, right, in, KJ, which is “varily I say, unto you” and in new living translation says, “I tell you the truth” or “most assuredly I tell you” in another translation, “anyone who believes has eternal life period”, right? [Yep.] Just by believing, we have eternal life and eternal life is the life of God Himself. And in John 5, it says, you know, “he that sees the Son and believes on Him. He has eternal life and has passed from death unto life. And he will not come into judgment”. So, all these guarantees are from the Lord, Jesus himself. Mark 00:19:20 Yep. Here's another one in John 6. He says, “all those, the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me, I will never drive away”. Ajai 00:19:32 [Yep. Yep.] Tim 00:19:34 Wow. Powerful. That one is. [Yep.] But Ajai, you got some more. Ajai 00:19:39 [Yeah. Yeah.] So again, you know, John 10 as well, right, if you go to John 10, I believe it's 27. Again, the Lord Jesus is saying, he says, “you know my sheep here, John 10 27, My sheep hear My voice and I know them and they follow Me: And I give them eternal life and they shall never perish again, neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given me is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand and I and my Father are one”. So here He is saying, you know, no one can snatch you out and, you cannot perish by yourself. So sometimes, you know, people make this argument, oh, okay, no one can snatch, but I, myself can jump out of Father's hand. But if it jumped out of Father's hand, then you would perish, right. Lord Jesus is saying, regardless of the cause whether you try to perish yourself or someone else snatches you, you will never perish. So it's Lord Jesus, who is saying that, so if you take him at His word, [yeah], Mark 00:20:42 Go ahead. And Jesus has really good hands. Even if you jump out, he's gonna catch you. Ajai 00:20:48 [Yeah. Yeah.] Mark 00:20:49 He already said, He's not gonna lose any of the Father given me so you can try to jump, but His love is gonna catch you. Tim 00:20:57 So that's a point that I struggled with for a while, even after coming to the grace message, and we all know that we're all in different levels of our understanding and acceptance of things as we grow, but I was hooked on the idea that sure, God would never forsake me and the world can't separate me and you know, nothing, principalities, powers, nothing can separate me, but me. And I always thought that if Christ's gift of salvation is a gift, I can receive it, but if I can receive something, I can also reject something. Now I can under, you know, I've come to understand that that's true as a sinner, before I am saved, I can reject the message and never be saved. But once saved, it took me a long time to come to grips with, and I had to go through a lot of these scriptures that you guys are reading right now. The fact that I couldn't after I was saved, even by my own actions and deeds and belief system ever separate myself. Ajai 00:21:59 [Yeah.] Mark 00:22:00 When a person comes to Christ, even though it sounds simple, I believe I'm given the Spirit, I'm saved, so much more happens at the moment of your belief. You're given the Holy Spirit. [Yeah. Yeah.] You're made a new creation. You are declared righteous, you know, I'll let, I'll let it go to, Ajai. Ajai 00:22:22 [Yep. Yep. Yeah.] In fact, I was exactly going to talk about that. You know what happens at salvation right, in John 1 verse 12, right, this is also, very popular scripture, actually from 11, “He came to His own and His own did not receive Him”, in verse 12, “but to all who did receive Him to those who believed in His name again, right, He gave them the right to become the children of God, children born, not of blood, not of the desire of the will of man, but born of God”. So, let's stop here, right, you know, how are we born, we are born by the will of our parents, right? Our parents decided to have children and then we are born. And after we are born and our parents only decide, oh my God, I change my mind now. I don't want this kid. Will, will we automatically go back into our mother's womb and vanish? That doesn't happen, right? Similarly, here, I think that is human will, by human will, when children are born, we cannot undo that. And now here, it says in verse 13, “children born, not of blood, not of the desire, not the will of God, but we are born of God”. So how much, you know, once we are born of God, you know, we in our salvation, what we agreed to or what we give the consent to is to be born again. So when we are born of God, our spirit is born again, so we cannot just give consent to God to undo it. Right? See when we are born again, it's not our power. God made us born again. His Holy Spirit came and we are recreated a new being in Christ. So just because again, you know, at some point we say, okay, no, God, I changed my mind, now make me not born again. That's not possible because it's an irreversible act like our natural birth our spiritual birth also is irreversible and forever. So that's what happens at our birth, right, so it's not just a matter of, you know, I think we kind of, equate salvation to, okay, you go to a friend and then he offers you a gift, right, a nice package and then you say, okay, you receive it, right, and you take the package home and then afterwards you change your mind and you say, okay, I'm going to go back to my friend here and tell him, “Hey friend, you know, it's nice of you. You gave me the gift, but take it back”. That's what people equate salvation to, but that's not what happens. During salvation, just as we are born, naturally, we are born spiritually and it is an irreversible act. And in fact, the Bible says in Romans “the gifts and the callings of God are, irreversible are without repentance”. So that is just one example, right, you know, just as we are born again by believing, we cannot unborn ourselves by not believing. That's one of the examples that are several scriptures. But Mark, go ahead. Mark 00:25:29 I was gonna say, I think, I mean, there are very, you know, probably many reasons why people ask this question and struggle with it but I think one is because they've known somebody that they've gone to church with for years who one day just walks away, stop going to church. Oh, did he, you know, he must have lost his salvation. Well, I would just say, unfortunately, churches are filled with people that are doing church, that are doing religion. Those very people might be serving in ministries, some of them might even be pastors, I'm sorry to say, but these people do not really know the Lord, Jesus Christ. They haven't been saved. I mean, I'm sure we could, all of, I mean, coming up, coming all of, all of us from different backgrounds of churches, I'm sure we've all been in churches where we've known people like that, that they go to church because it's the right thing to do. But in, we're not trying to be judgmental, but you seriously doubt that some of them really know the Lord. [Yeah.] and so I just think a lot of people, people think that when those people fall away from church, that's all they're falling away from. Because a lot of them never really did know the Lord. And Jesus talked about that a lot too, He said there will be people that say, “Lord didn't we prophesy in your name”, another fancy word for teaching the word of God. “Didn't we perform miracles and drive out demons and Christ will say away from you, evil doers. I never knew you”. You know, we can be doing lots of religious stuff that makes us look like Christians, but we don't truly know Christ. Just a little caveat there. I'm not saying that's the only reason, it's a valid question, but I think we've all known people who seem to have walked away from the faith, and my only question is, and we're, we can't judge that only God knows the heart of a man, but Tim 00:27:37 Let me flip that for the good side, just because I can, I've walked away from churches because I couldn't after so long, take the message that they were teaching, which was [sure], all effort, all works all, you know, to me, very flesh, it wasn't relationship. It wasn't the true gospel, and I would, you know, I mean, I was in a church for a long time where I, I was content to chew the bones and spit out or chew the meat and spit out the bones after, but after a while, I finally got to that point and I, I mean involved in this church, I was on the worship team. I was on the drama team. I was on the board of finances. I was, you know, I ran a, a youth group and I did this for years there, five and really did love the place, but the message eventually got to me and I just couldn't take it and I, I walked away from that church. I didn't walk away from God. I didn't walk away from my relationship, but I did walk away from that, that organized religion, big c church. Mark 00:28:38 Sure. And I, wasn't trying to intimate that everybody, whoever leaves a church is walking away from faith. Sometimes the best thing you can do is get out of a church if it's, if they're false teaching and preaching a, a perverted gospel as Paul would call it, apostle Paul [Yeah.] but you know, there are plenty of people who have walked away from the faith and own in it's clear if they really truly did walk away from the faith, they were never really in the faith in the first place cuz scripture is clear that you cannot lose your salvation. [Yeah.] Here's one more scripture I want to add to some of our proofs here, Romans 9:33 says, “and the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame”. So you'd have something to be ashamed about if you walked away, if you were able to walk away and reject your faith in Christ. Tim 00:29:37 [Yep.] So, Ajai, let's get back to some more of your proof texts. Ajai 00:29:41 [Yeah. Yeah.] So, I think one other beautiful scripture here, right, you know, we just talked about Romans , Roman 6 you know, most of the time, you know, we use it to, to say, to, talk about, you know, our, to share the truth that we are not under the dominion of sin anymore. But if you look at Romans 2, sorry, Roman 6 from verse 3, “or do you not know that as many as of us were baptized into Christ were baptized into His death. Therefore we were buried with Him through the baptism into death that just as Christ was raised from the dead, by the glory of the Father, even so we should also walk in the newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we should also be in the likeness of His resurrection” and look at this verse 6 “know, knowing that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with that we should no longer be slaves of sin”. This we'll talk about later, “for he who has died has been freed from sin. Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him”. And verse 9, this is the one I wanted to “knowing that Christ having been raised from the dead dies no more knowing that Christ having been raised from the dead dies no more death has no longer dominion over Him”. Right after saying that he says, “likewise, you also reckon yourself dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ is our Lord”. So he's saying that knowing that Christ having been raised from death dies no more likewise, reckon yourself indeed, alive to God and dead to sin”. What does that mean? Christ just like Christ was alive, we are also alive. Will Christ die again? No, he will not die. So that means likewise, we will also never die. Jesus having been raised from the dead dies no more. And we having been raised from the dead, we will die no more. So back to your point, Tim, you know, it's not a simple matter of, okay, I believe now by unbelief. So there is a huge, transaction, huge transformation happened the moment when we believed in Lord Jesus Christ, which cannot be undone. Mark 00:32:04 We've been given the riches of a glorious inheritance Ephesian 1 Ephesians 1 tells us. It also says here that when we believe He gives us the same power that He exerted when He raised Christ from the dead, a true believer has been given the power of the resurrection. [Yeah.] A person with the power of the resurrection how are they gonna turn from Christ? They've been given the very power of life of, of, you know, of the, of the life of Christ. [Yeah.] That's just not gonna lead to a, to a rejection. Ajai 00:32:40 [Yeah.] I'm going to quote one more scripture and there are many more, but I think this is probably now we are at time. So, from the same chapter, right, Romans chapter 6, I think it's important to understand, you know, what happened at our salvation. So Roman chapter 6, again, towards the end of the chapter from verse 15, “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace, certainly not. Do you not know that to whom you present yourself slaves to obey you are that one slaves to obey whether of sin leading to death or obedience leading to righteousness”. So we can talk about it later, but, but “God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart, that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And this is about sin. I want to bring our attention to, and having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness”. So, when we were born again, right, when we believe that form of doctrine, which is a gospel, which says that, you know, a man is justified by faith without the works of the law, everyone who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ will be saved. So, when we believe that gospel, the Bible says, you know, we have gone from being slaves to sin, to slaves to righteousness. So, by definition, a slave is someone who has no will of his own, even though whatever a slave wants, it cannot be done, even though if he wants it, right. A slave is purchased by his or her master, so slaves will, for all practical purposes, it does not count. So, whatever the master wills the slave has to do? So, we were slaves of sin and when we were slaves of sin, just because we will to be out of sin, we could not be delivered from slavery to sin. Similarly, now we have become from slaves of sin to slaves of righteousness, same thing. Now that we have become a slave of righteousness right now, if I want to go back to sin, I cannot do it because now I have become a slave of righteousness. It is actually, you know, kind of might sound a little negative, but what happened is we have become the righteousness of God in Christ you know our core nature has become righteousness. That's what it means, right? You know, we are a slave of righteousness in the sense we are slaves to gravity, right. We are on the earth, no matter how much we try, we cannot fly. Similarly, you know, we have this gravity towards righteousness now, no matter how much we want to go away from righteousness, we cannot. Mark 00:35:21 And, in Ephesians 2, just to go along with that, it says for the believer, “God raised him up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus”. When we put our faith in Christ, He seats us with him in the heavenly realms. Now, do I know exactly what that means? No, but it's a good thing and it means it's a done deal because you wouldn't just be walking away from the earth you'd be ripped out of the heavenly realms and he said that He seats us there with Him. I mean, God knows the future. He would not seat you in the heavenly realms at his side if he knew you, you, you know what I'm saying, it that's just not logical and it said the reason at the point of belief in salvation, he seats us with Him in the heavenly realms is in order that in the coming ages, He might show the incomparable riches of His grace expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. To me, that's just the doneness of the deal right there. We're already seated in the heavenly realms [Yeah.] as far as He's concerned. Ajai 00:36:33 Yeah. In fact, it says, you know, in heavenly places in Christ. So we are seated in Christ Jesus in heavenly places so, unless Christ dies again, or unless someone has a power to pluck us out of Jesus, there's no way we can be unsaved. And we ourselves cannot jump out of heaven to earth. Mark 00:36:55 When we believe we've died with Christ, we've participated in His burial and His resurrection. We've been raised (to) a life with Him as well. He can never die again. Ajai 00:37:07 Yeah, exactly. Mark 00:37:08 Which means we can never die again. [Yeah.] For us to turn our backs on Christ would mean He could die again because we're in Christ and we've been raised with Him. [Yeah.] Ajai 00:37:18 You know, one simple truth of the gospel is whatever, I think just to close it out, when we believe on Jesus, right, whatever happens to Him, happens to us. So, everything that is true about Jesus is true about us. So when we believe on Jesus, He died with him we died, He was buried with him we (were) buried and He was risen from dead and we are risen from dead. He is seated in heavenly places and we are seated in heavenly places. And now as we walk this Christian life, whatever is true of Jesus is true of us continually and if, if we were to lose our salvation again, Jesus has to die, like Mark is saying, and that is never going to happen. Tim 00:38:02 Amen. Well, that's been a really deep discussion today. I like it. But we will try and put, several of the, or several, if not all of the scriptures up that we've been talking out about here. And maybe some more that Ajai, I know, has still that he'd love to go over. But, like he said, we're at time. Thank you very much for joining us.