Gooding, David: 6 - Question and Answer Sessions

Well, we have, I'm sure, uh, more than enough questions to keep us busy for the next thirteen minutes or thereabouts. And the first one is, could you briefly say whether a believer can be lost? And the brief answer is certainly not. That is, I can say it briefly, uh, sir, a believer cannot and will not be lost. That is the brief answer. I suspect the question may have been provoked by certain things I said this afternoon, that since salvation is by faith, what happens if someone, having believed, found that tribulation arose so severe that their faith was destroyed, so that they weren't a believer anymore. And if they weren't believers, they must be lost. And that may have provoked in your thinking this question: am I saying that therefore a believer could be lost? And the answer to that still is no. Why not? Well, first we had the statement of the Lord Jesus: I give to my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone pluck them out of my hand. My Father that gave them me is greater than all, and none shall pluck them out of my ha- uh, out of his hand either. But for the next reason still, we, a believer will not be lost. His faith will not be uh, permanently broken. How can you be sure of that? Because of the intercessions of our Lord. I cite the actual example of Peter, when our Lord told Peter that he was about to deny him. Our Lord said to Peter, I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail. Christ didn't pray that his godliness didn't fail, that failed miserably. Christ did not pray that his courage wouldn't fail, that failed disastrously. Christ did not pray that his testimony should not fail, it was ruined. Christ prayed for that fundamental thing, Peter's faith. And as a result, in spite of the fact that our Peter denied the Lord, and that is serious indeed, yet underneath he remained a believer. When he said he didn't know the Lord and wasn't a believer, he was lying, in fact. And his faith did not fail. He remained a believer and came through. He owed it, of course, completely to the intercessions of Christ. Peter was not a special favorite to receive this benefit from our Lord's intercessions. Christ has no favorites. And the Bible says, therefore he is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him. How? Because he ever lives to make intercession for them. So where there is true faith, it will endure, and we are to know it will endure. The tribulation will work endurance. We are to know it. The way it is God is able to guarantee it is because of the intercessions of our Lord. Second question, does chapter two verse seven— and I'll read it just to, uh, save time, to th- to those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life. Does chapter two verse seven deal with those who have not heard the gospel? How do these verses fit in with the issues of God's wrath and the wreckage of Adam's sin? Well, there is great division of opinion amongst the Christian commentators on the point and purpose of these verses. Some say that they do apply to the vast millions that have never heard the gospel, never known even the law of God as enunciated on Sinai, and that therefore God looks at their hearts, and if he sees it in their heart, like the Cornelius's of this world, they're genuinely trying to please God the best they can. Then God will have mercy on them and save them, not because of their, uh, perfection of behavior, but because of the work of Christ. And he takes their genuine attempt to, to, to do the best they can and please God as an evidence of their faith, that their f- they, if they'd heard the gospel, they would have believed. So that's one interpretation. I personally think that that is not exactly what Paul is arguing here in this chapter. Here he is, uh, the drift of the chapter two is to show that it is not enough to know the law like a Jew would. If you want to, uh, be without charge before God, you must keep it. Secondly, it's not enough to preach the law to others and then break it yourself. To keep the externals of the law is not good enough. Be circumcised as a Jew, but unless you keep the law, the circumcision counts for nothing. And in that course of his argument, it seems to me he brings in these other people to show that sometimes Gentiles have behaved better than Jews have done, do see. For it's not merely having the law that counts, but, um, actual practice that counts. But all that within this context of showing that all, as he comes to the conclusion in verse, uh, uh, in chapter three, that all have sinned. There's none that haven't sinned and stand guilty before God, saved therefore not by their works, but by their faith. Understanding it so seems to me better to fit in with the flow of the argument. We can continue that one on Monday morning, I think. If we didn't sin in Adam, Romans five and twelve, in what way are we constituted sinners as a result of Adam's disobedience? Again, if I did not sin in Adam, when did I become a sinner? When I committed my first sin? And I think we can take this one with it. You, you mentioned the point of the tense in chapter three verse twenty three of the Greek eris tense should be translated into English as the perfect tense. Is it implied that we are as guilty of our own sin, sinning as of Adam's, therefore that we cannot only blame Adam for our sinful condition? Wish you well. That question is almost as long as the answer, isn't it? To be fair, the question stems from some hasty remarks I made this afternoon on chapter five, you'll see, verse twelve, which says, therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, for that all. And then came the crux of interpretation. How should it be, the Greek there be translated? Death passed upon all men on the grounds that all have sinned, or should you translate it as an erist, death passed upon all men because all sinned. Meaning, as some say it means, that when Adam sinned, the whole human race in toto and individually sinned, because they were all, so to speak, in Adam when he sinned, and therefore when he sinned, the whole lot sinned and were guilty of his sin. Now that may seem to you a rather remote kind of question. It comes to practical, uh, uh, uh, consideration, doesn't it? Because people say, well, about what about this baby then that was born and and and lived two days and then died. Why did it die? If you translate the verse, death passed upon all men for that all have sinned, are you meaning to say that the baby in that two days managed to get round to do some sinning? And if death is through sin, well, when did this unfortunate babe sin then? If it didn't sin in the two days it lived outside the womb, then people say, and there's a large number of very serious theologians that say, that it sinned when Adam sinned, because it was in his great, their great forefather, so to say. And therefore, in some real sense, the baby is guilty of the sin of Adam. Now, with all due respect, I personally don't believe that, as you'll see, and that is, I made some hasty remarks on that this afternoon, which were far from being clear, and perhaps had better not have been said. But, uh, let me take an analogy. Analogies prove nothing, but they help to enlighten us, don't they? In Malaysia, if you are caught with drug peddling, there is a mandatory life sentence. You are executed. Well, let's consider the case of this good lady who was caught taking drugs herself and drug peddling. The law condemns her to be executed, but discovers she is pregnant. What do you suppose they should do? Execute her and with her, her unborn child? Will you argue, well, well, the child was in its mother when the mother was guilty of drug peddling, so the child is equally guilty with the mother of drug peddling. So the child deserves to be executed along with the mother. Yes? I dare say if I took a vote, there are very few perhaps that would say the child deserves to be executed because it was guilty of the mother's sin by being in the mother when she's in. I think even in Malaya, Malaya they'd wait until the child was born, and then after suitable interval, execute the mother. Now, therefore, consider the child. It is altogether possible the child would be born with withdrawal symptoms, severely damaged in the womb by the mother's drug taking. While the child would not, in my understanding, be guilty of the mother's sin, it would have been wrecked by its mother's sin, and be disposed, even if it survives, to taking drugs itself when the opportunity arose. If then it was proved at birth to be defective and, uh, in part wrecked because of its mother's sin. The government wouldn't execute it for that reason. If the child thereafter, uh, uh, uh, engaged in the drug pushing, it would then be executed. Of course, it was given the impetus to start that life of actual sinning by being spoiled in its mother's womb. And that to me is a s- a little analogy. It doesn't prove anything as to what is the situation. Adam sinned. He trespassed. He broke a prohibition. All his progeny die, not because they have sinned in the way Adam sinned, breaking an explicit prohibition or command. They die in spite of that. Uh, do you see? One, because physically they are ruined by what Adam did, born with a ruined fallen human nature, subject therefore to death, but also because, as far as God's judgment's concerned, as each have grown to age of responsibility, without exception, apart from our Lord, they have all proceeded individually to sin. That is how I understand it. Why do we all sin without exception? Because we were ruined by what Adam did. We shall not be held accountable for what he did as though it were our fault. We shall be held accountable for our own personal sins. But we've received a broken nature that is, uh, liable to physical death because of what he did. We should be held accountable for our own personal sinings. That at least is how I understand it. Chapter six verse six, our, our old man. Does this refer to a single believer's old man, or does it refer to an old man which relates to that which all believers were when they were in Adam? And what, if anything, is the relationship of Romans six six with Ephesians four twenty two, Uh, briefly. Yes. And while you are just checking that, um, I have several more questions here, but time is running against us. Um, I know that the, the people who have asked these questions are very likely indeed to be here tomorrow, so perhaps we could carry them across to tomorrow. Is that all right? Because you're going to be... Oh, well, no, I mean, when are we due to finish this last session? Half past seven? Half past eight. Half past eight. Oh, we can take till a quarter past. You think so? All right, all right, yes, yes. Make your peace with the next speaker. Yes, well, we better start, I think, by reading Ephesians, or whatever it was. What was it? Four and twenty two. Four and twenty two. That says that you put away as concerning your former manner of life, the old man which waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit. Also. Where if we have to put him away, so he's still there, is he? Uh, Romans six appears to say that this old man was crucified with Christ. How do you reconcile those two things? Well, one way is to say that in Romans six, Paul is looking on all human beings as belonging to the race of Adam, the race as created by God originally and gone astray and become corrupt. And the whole bang shoot is the old man as distinct from that new race, that new human race that God has commenced, starting all over afresh with Christ our Lord, the second man, the Lord from heaven. So that God's way of redemption is not just to im- to put right the old race, but to start a new race. And now, instead of starting from Adam, going wrong and being repaired, you start with Christ, and all who are joined to him share his d- life that they derive from him, they're a new race. And in that light, the old lot, so to speak, were crucified with Christ. That's God's judgment on them. They were for execution because they were hopelessly wrecked and sinful into the bargain. God's judgment on them is, from start to finish, the whole thing. The only way to do with it is to execute it, uh, uh, uh, and bury it. And you start again with Christ. And in that sense, when you, we receive Christ, then his death is counted ours. That's the old, whoever it was, Mr. Smith or Mrs. Jones, finished. And a new entity, which is, uh, the new life derived from Christ. While that is so, if that is what it means, you still have the practical thing in Ephesians chapter four that we are to put off the old man, so he's still around then. And so here people say, well, the old man is the old way of living. What we have, the way we used to behave, the kind of person we were before we were converted, that we have to put off and put on the new way of living, which is, uh, the life and behavior of Christ. Yes? Do you have any observations on E. P. Sanders' new perspective on Paul, e.g. one, that Paul did not teach that it is impossible to keep the law of God. Shall we take that one first? Well, uh, I should like to comment, I think, on that. Uh, Professor Sanders is a most prolific writer. He's written a vast, detailed study of these matters. To answer him in a three-minute answer would, in the nature of things, be manifestly unfair to his argument. But if you ask me some kind of w- uh, general comment, Josie, uh, let's answer the best I can within those limits. And the question one, if we could have it repeated. That Paul did not teach that it is impossible to keep the law of God. Um, well, that depends how you look at it. In Galatians, uh, in Romans chapter ten, you see, Paul makes the remark, verse five: for Moses writeth that the man which doeth the righteousness which is of the law shall live thereby. Ten five. If you take that as a general s- statement of practical fact, uh, at the level of daily living, well, yes, keep the law, and it's good and healthy, you'll see. Uh, uh, and if you refrain from sinning as the law, uh, talks about it, you will certainly lead a more healthy life than if you engage in a lot of sinning. If you take it absolutely, however, and you attempt in that sense to keep law- Moses' law perfectly and thus to qualify in the absolute sense for life, then you will find it is impossible. Paul emphasizes that point again in Galatians, and he says, if there had been a law given that could have given life, Jews say, then righteousness would have been by the law. That is impossible. In the absolute sense, the verdict is that we all have come, uh, sinned in the past, and we do come short. In me, that in my flesh there dwells no good thing. And the object of the law, therefore, is to bring us to the point when we acknowledge we have broken it and cannot keep it, and our mouth is shut. Uh, in that absolute sense, yes, we cannot keep God's holy law. Number two, within that, uh, we make, it is suggested, too much of justification as a legal concept. Sanders seems to see it more as the restoration of a relationship. And yes, well, I cannot un- say I fully understand Professor Sanders' point at this juncture. Uh, it gets himself involved, as many others have in these past years, on what the Hebrew term for justifying righteousness means. And, uh, uh, that part of the question, my learned friend on my left, uh, should be made to answer, do you see? Uh, it is also, they say, in the sense of, uh, delivering and saving God's righteousness is his saving activity, his being loyal to the covenant that he made with Israel. It is seen in his restoring Israel to their covenant relationship with him, and it's altogether a relational matter and not so much a legal matter. And so far as that is true of the Old Testament, it isn't altogether true, of course, but let me leave it for the moment to come to our epistle to the Romans. It seems to me to be quite inadequate, uh, a- a quite inadequate explanation of what Paul is talking about in Romans. Just let me cite you Romans three f- uh, uh, and uh, 4. God forbid, yea, let God be found true and every man a liar, as it is written, that thou mayest be justified in thy words and mightest prevail when thou comest into judgment. The question is, is God true or is he a liar? If God were found a liar, there would be something more to be said than to say that he hasn't been faithful to his covenant relationship, God himself would be proved a sinner. The context, as you see, is the question of judgment. It is talking of God as judge when he comes to judge. If that isn't a legal thing, then I don't know quite what is. And when God judges, the question of the validity and legality of his judgment, its fairness and its justice will be at stake. They, to my mind, are all legal concerns. And in this context, therefore, it seems to me that this is the, uh, likely meaning of justification throughout, uh, these, um, uh, uh, passages of scripture. And to take one that refers to us in chapter eight: Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Once more, the terminology is legal. Who shall lay anything to the charge of? That is accusation in a legal, in legal terminology, and the answer to it is, no, none shall raise the charge, but even if they could, no verdict of condemnation can be secured because it is God that justified, and there is none to accuse because the only one who has the right to accuse would be Jesus Christ our Lord, and he will not accuse the believer. He is the one who died for them and intercedes for. Both those contexts are very heavily, by the nature of their words, legal contexts, and I, I myself am more inclined to believe that that is the predominant meaning of the term justify in the Epistle to the, to the Romans. A question about chapter six, one to fourteen, and the development of the argument there. Uh, death to sin, and then verse fourteen comes in this reference to the law. You are not under law. A little surprising, eh, as a sequel to verses one to thirteen. Would you like to comment on that? Uh, yes. The, um, passage, Romans six, one to fourteen, is of course very famous, and famous for the many different opinions that have been held of it. In particular, the exhortation that we are to reckon ourselves indeed to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God. And many have felt that it means that when sin knocks at the door, so to speak, we should say, I'm dead to that, I'm dead to that, I'm dead to that, I'm dead to that, I'm dead to that, and ignore the knocking of sin upon the door, and if we do that long enough, sin will give up and go away. Now, that may be in practical, uh, practical sense, a, a very good piece of advice, but when sin tempts us, don't parley with it, just ignore it and say, I'm dead to that, and get on with something else and positively present yourself to Christ. I was arguing this afternoon, and I repeat it somewhat un- uh- uh- uh- uh- unrepentantly here, that that is not perhaps what it means. First of all, there is the model given us. Even so, it- what do you mean, even so reckon yourself to death? Uh, well, uh, look at verse, uh, nine. Knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over him. The death that he died, he died unto sin once. The life that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Even so, reckon yourself dead. We are to reckon ourselves dead to sin in the same sense as Christ died to sin. So we first have to decide, in what sense did Christ die to sin? Was it that he was assailed by sin, like we are every day of the week, and had to keep on saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, until mercifully he died on the cross and wasn't assailed by sin anymore? Is that what it means? Well, surely not. What does it mean he died to sin? That once upon a time he was alive to it, and uh, mercifully the cross came and cut his life short, so he died to it? No, surely not. What it means in Christ's case that he died to sin is that legally he died the penalty of sin. And having died in that sense as a penalty of sin, he doesn't need to die again. Sin has no more dominion o- death has no more dominion over him. That's very important, because when he died to sin in that legal sense, he was dying for our sins, wasn't he? Now he's in glory. It doesn't happen that one Thursday afternoon he sees us sinning and says, oh, dear did me, I didn't die for that sin, I better go and die again. He died to sin once. That once was enough to cover the whole lot. He never needs to die again. That the whole thing is legal in its conception, you'll see from verse five. He that has died is justified from sin. If you have committed murder in a country that executes murderers, capital punishment. You were convicted of one murder, and they execute you, and after they have executed you, they find you've did done several other murders as well. They don't normally raise you from the dead and execute you again. It's enough that you die once and you pass out from under the jurisdiction of the law. So we, if we died with Christ, have died like he died. He died once, and that's the finish of it. We shall never have to die again. For because we died when he died, his death is counted ours. We have passed out of the jurisdiction of the law. And to be sure, if you could go up to the great accounting rooms in heaven, where the record books are kept, you know. I wonder whose name you'd look up first. So I'd be interested to know that preacher that came around, he made out he was such a tough guy spiritually. I wonder what the record says about him. Well, if you should open the book to the place where it is kept, you'll find an enormous screen of page after s- page in brilliant red, you know, of the things that I've done. You will then see it all stroked through. With a comment, case closed. The accused has been executed. You say, that's God, I saw him walking about Cambridge the other afternoon. So you may have done, but as far as God's law is concerned, when Christ died, I died, and God's law is satisfied, the penalty has been paid, and that's the end of it. It is in that legal sense that chapter six starts off. Now, many folks are a little bit unwilling to accept that, and I tell you why. It's for the very best of motives. They want to be holy, and what they want is not all this talk about legal things. They want some practical rules that help them on the aforesaid Monday morning. You'll see, when sin comes round assailing them, and if only it meant, you know, this is good tactics, when sin assails me on Monday, I say I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead, and reckon myself dead, then, uh, presently I shall die, or sin will go away or something. Now that is saying something helpful, whereas this legal so- stuff doesn't help. Oh, but wait a moment. We mustn't be so impatient. There's plenty in these chapters about the practical side, and when you come to Romans eight, oh, it'll be more than just saying I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead. It'll be the tremendous divine power of the Holy Spirit working within you. But this legal matter is important, isn't it? Well, at least it is for guys like me, I suspect for you as well. You're forgiven, you're justified, you say. Oh, lovely. Now you're going to be holy? That's marvelous. Oh yeah. Do go about it with all your heart and soul. Uh, how long do you propose to take about it? Are you proposing to be holy all at once? You say, what's that got to do with it? Well, it's a very important practical point. I mean, if you're going to be holy one hundred percent tomorrow, well, that's okay, you needn't worry. But if you're going to take some time about it, and in the process of your endeavoring to to perfect holiness in the fear of God, you are going, in all realism, to make mistakes, come short, sin, blot your copy book, and all those other things. I must ask you, does it matter? Matter. When as a believer you come short and don't achieve total holiness all at once. You want to say your sins as a believer don't matter? Well, of course they matter. Well, ah, now we're back where we started, aren't we? What about this then, the guilt of sin and the fact that it matters? If we were under law, that would be finished. I'd only have to do one sin, and that would spoil the lot. You would be finished. The law would clamor for your execution. It is because God is so practically minded and realist in the course of holiness he sets before you, in which you are unfortunately going to make many mistakes and fall and come short very often, that God has first to provide a solid legal background so that he can continue with you in spite of the mistakes. And the answer is he's foreseen all the sins right to the last day, and Christ's once, one, one death has paid the whole expense. That shouldn't encourage us to abuse his grace and go on sinning. At the same time, it means that when in the course of holiness I fail and come short, that's not the end. Sin doesn't thus far keep me down. I'm legally free to get up, and to put it crudely, to have another go. That's why the legal side of it in Romans, uh, the first half is so tremendously important. It's God facing our struggles to be holy in a realistic fashion and putting the whole business on a proper legal basis. We'll catch him for a few minutes, just for a few minutes, if we may. Thank you so much again. We have a few questions. So I thought you could have saved time yesterday, David, you said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. If you said no, no. Yes, that would have saved some. It would, yes. Yes, it would. Bear that in mind. Was Paul's experience in Romans chapter seven a reality at some point in his life, or is he describing a quote unquote hypothetical position in the absence of the Spirit's ministry, which is then described in chapter eight? Oh yes, that's the thing about where Paul says, oh wretched man that I am, isn't it? And they, uh, people debate about this, whether he is relating his own experience at some time or whether it's a hypothetical thing. My first reaction is to judge Paul by my own heart. That's a wicked thing to do, isn't it? That might be very wrong, but it's no hypothetical situation with me. I presume it wasn't with Paul. Perhaps, however, it could be that the vexed old question, was this Paul before he was converted or after he was converted, is a little bit beside the point. What we should be asking is, why does that chapter, that part about the, the good that I would do, I don't do, and the, uh, and the evil that I wouldn't do that I do, and oh, wretched man that I am, and all that stuff. What is that doing there in the epistle? Remember the old analogy of the hand? Do you see? We have to ask why that bit is there in the epistle. If it were merely to expose sin to the unconverted, why isn't it in part one of the thing where Paul is exposing the sins of the unconverted? Why has he left it till he's got nearly towards the end of his section on sanctification? And my answer to that, because it is doing a tremendous function there. If we are going to be truly sanctified, we shall presently need to know the damage that sin has done to us. We hear about our, our, our, what we can do, yield ourselves to Christ that we may bring forth fruit to God through his gracious power. That's all we have to do. Any believer who takes it seriously will tell you the mysterious thing that they sometimes don't do it. Why don't we? It is there that we have to face the damage that sin has done to us, and I, I understand is a very real lesson that all of us as believers have to learn. We're more damaged than we thought we were. Our intellect, our emotions, and our will are not by themselves able either to lead us to salvation or, when we're saved, to produce our sanctification. We all need more than a stiff upper lip, a stiff upper lip and determination to be a sanctified believer. Our only hope of holiness is in the Holy Spirit's power. We shall only learn to rely on him when we come to take very seriously God's description of the damage that sin has done to us, and that is exposed by God's holy law and our inability to keep it. Go. Romans eight twenty to twenty one. Will a delivered creation subsequently be destroyed, as in two Peter three, or is that the means of creation's actual deliverance? Oh. What questions you do ask at half past four on a Sunday afternoon? Well, that is a very intricate question, isn't it? Romans eight says creation shall be re- delivered from her bondage to corruption. Two Peter three says the world and its work shall be burned up or discovered or whatever, but burned up. Mm-hmm. How do you reconcile the two statements? Well, I have a prejudice that I have to s- confess. I start with a prejudice. If I had a cancer in my body, uh, and I was going to be delivered from this cancer, I hope it wouldn't mean that the bod- my own body would be destroyed as well as the cancer. What hope? One way of getting rid of the cancer would just get rid of me, of course. I hope that's what it wouldn't mean if a doctor put me on the table and said, when you wake up, you're fine. I delivered you from the cancer. And then I never woke up at all because he, he got rid of me as well. If creation is going to be delivered from her bondage to corruption. In that sense, it surely doesn't mean, can't mean that creation is going to be destroyed. And when you come to our universe and God's great promise of a new heavens and new earth, then I think we've got to think more deeply, even if we take it at its physical level. You'll say how you purify an earth, how you change it, that might involve great fires, even at the physical level, might it not? And the constituent parts of Earth be rearranged and new material made and all that kind of thing. Uh, the mind boggles, we're not told. I'm looking forward to seeing it and being allowed some time off from the heavenly sing song to go around and investigate what the new heavens and new Earth is like. So I try to hold both things in my head simultaneously. Uh, delivering creation may involve, probably surely will, a vast transformation. One kind of pattern I have in my mind is our Lord's body. It was never subject to corruption anyway, but not subject to corruption. It went through death and now is a body, but a very different kind of body from what he had before. Yet is it the same body? But by myself, therefore, I tend to take Christ's body as the example and a prototype of what the promises of a renewed creation shall be. Same chapter, Romans eight and uh talks about living after the flesh and dying. Question is, is this the experience of, quote, one who believed but stopped believing, or what is it? Well, if you take it as the experience of one who believed and then stopped believing and therefore died, you will have to remember that you're using the term believing in the sense, and our Lord used it in the parable of a sura. These are those they believe for a while, but when tribu- testings came, they fell away because they had no root. They never did have any root. They weren't, in that sense, true, genuine believers. John the Evangelist has one or two places in his gospel where he himself makes that distinction. Chapter eight, Jesus said to those Jews who believed on him, if you continue, you shall be my disciples. You'll know the truth, and the truth will make you free. Five minutes after that, he was telling them that they were in fact of their father, the devil, and they were picking up stones to stone him. They said they had believed. In some sense, they had believed, but when put to the test, they were found not to be believers at all, unregenerate children of the very devil. We'll see. I think the words, um, are to be addressed to us as believers. If we live after the spirit, we shall live. We live after the flesh, we shall die. Similarly, Paul says in to the believers in Galatia, if you sow to the spirit, you will of the spirit reap eternal life. If you sow to the flesh, you will of the flesh reap corruption. I take it, therefore, in that modified sense, we all as believers have eternal life. It's one thing to have life. It's another thing to give your energies time, thought, and your will and everything else to the Holy Spirit, in which case you will develop your eternal life and reap the investment of your time and energy in the blooming and harvesting that eternal life makes possible. Investing your time this afternoon, by God's mercy, investing it in his word, will surely, by God's promise, reap its harvest. If as believers, however, we sow to the fish, we shall reap it. If not in tears and broken hearts here, yet shall we eternally feel the result of wasted years, of works possibly that will not survive the criticism of Christ and shall be burned up, leaving ourselves saved, but our works burned up, saved so as by fire. The restrained term of scripture is that such people will suffer loss. There are consequences, just because there is no penalty for a believer of sinning, and there's no condemnation. There are consequences. Thank God there are consequences on both sides, so to the spirit you reap the benefits of your eternal life in its development and harvest. So to the flesh, you will reap in that extended sense, death, corruption, loss, damage, and that loss could be eternal. And lastly, from yesterday's agenda, uh, Romans ten fourteen says, how then can they call on the one they have not believed in, and how can they believe in the one of whom they've not heard? Uh, how do you explain the situation, for example, of a person in a sinking ship who is unsaved and calls out to God to save him or her? Will he or she be heard by God? And does verse thirteen apply to that? Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. I think the question particularly has in mind, how can they call on the one they have not believed in, and does that relate to the crisis as illustrated? I take it that the scripture, whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved, stands as a basic principle of the gospel. We have an example at the physical level of the kingly man, the courtier who came from Capernaum to Cana to our Lord, and asked him that he would come down and save his son. And our Lord replied, uh, except you see signs and wonders, you won't believe, will you? And the man said, don't stop there talking theology. My son is desperately ill. Look, come down and heal him, please, if you wouldn't mind. We can talk theology afterwards. And our Lord said, you've misunderstood me, my good man. Uh, your son is living. My son is living, he says? Yes. You asked me to heal him, didn't you? Well, I did, yes. Well, I've healed him. You healed him? Yeah, well, you asked me to, didn't you? I've healed him. What I was saying is, the trouble with you around here is, unless you see signs and wonders, you won't believe, but he's healed, old boy, and uh, that's that. You'll say, I've healed him, you asked me to, I've done it. Ah, you'll say, if you can't take my word for it, you're going to spend an uncomfortable twenty four hours before you get home. That's all. He's healed anyway. Yes, you say, but the man really believed, didn't he? Well, yes, he did. And it was a faith that worked. He repented of all else, left his dying son, traveled to, uh, Canaan, asked the Lord. It was in complete sincerity of heart. And if somebody on your hypothetical ship going down realizes that all his or her life he's been an unbeliever and a sinner, that there is a God. And calls genuinely on the name of the Lord for God to have mercy. I could not find it in my heart to contradict the verse that says, they who call on the name of the Lord to be saved. But you cannot treat God as a kind of an old, uh, grandfather with a beer, the genie out of the lamp, rub the lamp, and God appears and and does what you tell him to. And if people are going to believe, says Paul, at the other side, then they have to hear, don't they? Whether it be in the Old Testament, like Naaman hearing of a a prophet in Israel that could save, or a Jew in Christian times hearing of Jesus Christ. If a Jew says, no, I will not have Jesus, but I believe in God, of course he's... the thing is false, isn't it? Jesus is God incarnate. How will he come to believe on Jesus? He'll only believe that when he hears. In that fundamental sense. It's not just a formal application, so to speak, it's a response to God's invitation. So, uh, perhaps I haven't resolved your question. The learned doctors and pastors of souls could do it better, but that's how I would view it. Thankfully, we don't have to say a big and final thank you to David Gooding for all of his fun this weekend. We have another session at half past six. Uh, now the business is tea, and uh, we would welcome everyone here to stay and to uh, enjoy tea with us, even if you are going on somewhere else afterwards, that is to serve, to worship, whatever. Um, there may be some of you, and you, uh, very much would like the excuse to stay, uh, when you feel truly bound to go to a home church or something or other. We have young men who- here who would, I think, very happily disable your car for you or do something if you want an excuse to stay with us and enjoy the the final session, just drop a word in our ear, and, uh, we'll send the boys. There's one particularly bad one, as described earlier. I'm sure he'd be perfectly capable of such things. And we have the sorcerer's apprentice somewhere around too, or speaker's apprentice, was it? Yeah, please do, if, if you're free at all, do stay and enjoy tea and fellowship with us. Could I remind folk that we are looking forward to a time of prayer about six o'clock, other side of the kitchen, upper room area. Please make that a private place. Um, we're going to sing now a hymn, and let it be a prayer. And it's four hundred and sixty three. Four hundred and sixty three in Mission Praise. May the mind of Christ, my Savior, live in me from day to day by his love and power controlling all I do and say. Could I ask Mark, Mark Jones, after we've sung this hymn, Wakey Wakey, to to come. That's these hard-pressed medics. We we suffer with them, we suffer because of them. And if you guys, if you just say a short word of prayer after singing this hymn and, uh, give thanks on our behalf for the refreshment that we shall enjoy. Four hundred and sixty three, standing to sing The Fly Dressers.