Justin Perdue:
Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast we take on the question, “How much can a Christian sin?” Or to frame it another way, “How badly and for how long can a Christian sin and not necessarily prove him or herself to be an unbeliever?” If you listened to the conversations in the evangelical world, you get the idea that if someone in the church sins really badly, then he or she is definitely not a Christian. Or if he or she continues in that pattern of sin for a long time, he or she is definitely not a Christian. We wrestle with those questions.
Over at the members podcast area, we talk about preaching, and the tone and tenor of it in particular, in light of these realities. We will also consider church discipline. We hope that this conversation is helpful to you.
Topic:
For how long and how badly can a Christian sin and not be lost, and not demonstrate him or herself to be unregenerate? Can Christians sin really badly for a long time and still be in Christ Jesus? This is something that we wrestle with in our experience because we’ve all seen people in our own local churches who have heinously sinned. They remain in a posture of sinning for an extended season of time. Or maybe even we ourselves have gone through seasons like that in our lives or are in one presently. And we think, “If you only knew what was going on in my life, in my mind, in my heart, or if you knew how long this has been a problem, you would question my salvation. Because I know myself and I’m certainly questioning whether or not I’m a Christian.” So those are the questions: Can somebody sin so badly that it means they are not a Christian? And can somebody remain in sin for so long that it means that they are not a Christian?
Jon Moffitt:
This is a good conversation. It falls into the whole theme of Theocast, which is resting in Christ and helping people find joy and assurance.
Jon Moffitt:
A lot of times, when someone is asking me this question, it’s not because someone wants to stay in sin. It’s not because they’re justifying their sin. We are not talking about unbelievers, to be clear, we are talking about people who are actually struggling with their sin; they don’t want to sin and they are sinning, or they have done something in the past and they don’t know. “Can God forgive me for this?”
This is a jump into the deep water right away, and I apologize if this is maybe a little too much, but I’ve had to deal with ladies who, before they were a believer, before they came to Christ, they had an abortion. It just horrified them when they realized what they had done and why they did it. They thought, “Can God forgive me for taking a life?” It was not a simple conversation, not an easy conversation. When we think Christianity is ABC, 1-2-3, clean-cut railroad tracks – there’s no debris or problem – then a tornado comes ripping through your life and now your life is not what you thought it was going to be.
I’m going to the London Baptist Confession, which is also taken from the Westminster Confession. It says in chapter 15.4, “Repentance must continue throughout our lives, because of the body of death and its activities. So it is everyone’s duty to repent of each specific, known sin specifically.” Meaning that Scripture makes it very clear. We know this from 1 John, 1 Timothy 1:13 and 15 that we are going to struggle with sin; we’ll get into this a little bit later with Paul and Romans.
The next point is helpful here – it says in 15.5: “God has made full provision through Christ in the covenant of grace to preserve believers in their salvation. Thus, although there is no sin so small that it is undeserving of damnation,” which is true – any sin against God is as if you make yourself equal with God. That’s why Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden. It wasn’t because they ate an apple, it was because they attempted to make themselves equal with God. Every sin is that attempt. It’s cosmic treason. “Yet there is no sin so great that it will bring damnation on those who repent. This makes the constant preaching of repentance necessary.” Of course, there Romans 6:23 and other passages that we could quote. The confession makes it very clear that if someone acknowledges that what they have done is a violation against God, and they are willing to confess that sin, it aligns with Scripture that there is no sin so great that it cannot be forgiven.
Justin Perdue:
A couple of thoughts. One, whenever people are battling sin or struggling with sin, I think the implication is that there is an actual fight going on, and there’s an actual struggle being undertaken. The question that I ask people – and I know you’ve asked this question to people too, Jon, and we’ve even talked about this on Theocast before – is not, “Are you sinning?” Because the answer to that question for every redeemed person from all time is yes. The question is, “Does your sin bother you?” The answer to that question for all the redeemed of all time is yes. That’s the reality that we live in. It’s not that we’re not sinning, it’s the difference between a believer and a nonbeliever, a saint and a person who is not trusting Christ, is that the sin of the saint bothers him or her.
So that’s a great diagnostic question. It doesn’t mean that it bothers you as much as it should, because none of our sin ever bothers us as much as it should, but are you okay with it? Or are you like, “I’m going to go on and do this and I don’t care what God says.” Like you’ve acknowledged already, even in your reading of chapter 15 from the 1689, repentance is a big piece of this conversation because repentance means a change of mind. A change of mind about what? God and salvation and God’s ways with us. But it also means a change of mind about sin. Whereas in our natural state, we love sin and embrace it. In the Lord, having the spirit of God in us, that change of mind has happened where we acknowledge that our sin is wrong. And that’s really where we are.
So if our sin is bothering us, we’re acknowledging that it’s wrong, and we are turning to Christ in faith – that is, looking to his merits and not ours, looking to his righteousness and not ours, looking to his atoning work to pay for, atone for, bear the wrath of God for, satisfy for our sin – there is no sin that is not covered, that is not dealt with in full.
I’m going to read a little bit more from the 1689. This is from chapter 13 on sanctification; I’m going to touch on a little bit from paragraphs two and three. This speaks to the reality of sin happening in a Christian’s life, where it comes from, and the fact that it could endure for a season. It reads this way: “This sanctification extends throughout the whole person, though it is never completed in this life. Some corruption remains in every part. From this arises a continual and irreconcilable war, with the desires of the flesh against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh.” Obviously, they’re referencing Romans 7 and Galatians 5:17 there, which we’re going to talk about more in a minute. They go on in paragraph three to say this: “In this war, the remaining corruption may greatly prevail for a time.” I’m going to read that sentence again. “In this war,” the spirit against the flesh, the internal war that every Christian fights, “the remaining corruption may greatly prevail for a time.” Greatly prevail for a time. “Yet through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, the regenerate part overcomes.” Eventually, right? “So the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. They pursue a heavenly life, in gospel obedience to all the commands that Christ as Head and King has given them in his Word.” That will be the end result. But for a season of time, which could be a long time, corruption and the flesh may prevail. It’s very clear that that is the experience of believers from all time.
Jon Moffitt:
I’ll read one more and then I’ll comment on it. Chapter 5.5, which is under Divine Providence, says, “The perfectly wise, righteous, and gracious God often allows his own children for a time to experience a variety of temptations and the sinfulness of their own hearts. He does this to chastise them for their former sins or to make them aware of the hidden strength of the corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts so that they may be humbled.” Romans 8:28 talks about this and the providence of it. The point of it is that God is very aware of our frailty; at times He uses it for our own benefit of seeing that we must not depend upon our flesh, but dependent upon something outside of us. Our faith has to be in a work that is outside of us because the moment you trust in your own sinful flesh, the end of Colossians 2 says it’s of no value is stopping the indulgence of the flesh with these rules and regulations that we make.
We often think of the big sins – the sexual sins, the crimes that can be committed. And let me tell you this: those are big. But when someone commits those, they receive the same amount of blood washed over them as the small sins. They’re both violations against God. And the problem is that people just assume themselves to be better than they are. Here’s the confusion: if we have the Holy Spirit, how is it that someone who has the Spirit can perform such horrible acts of sin?
Not only that, but they are repetitive acts. I’m just going to put this out there for someone who is listening and maybe struggling and judging us at the moment: there are several camps out there that are very quick to judge people who don’t overcome sin as quickly. Let me point out your acceptable sins – the sins that don’t bother you that you sin repetitively, over and over and over again. These are the acceptable sins: the sins of judgmentalism, the sins of laziness, the sins of a lack of faith, or the sin of gossip. Can I keep going? These are the sins that we throw out.
Justin Perdue:
One of the respectable sins that everybody commits, that everybody is pretty happy to admit, is the struggle with pride. When you ask a man to tell you what they’re struggling with, almost every person is going to say pride. It’s very interesting to me that in the circles that you’re pointing out where we’re very quick to tell somebody, the guy that says, “I’ve been struggling in a battle against sexual sin in the form of pornography for 15 years,” the response of most people in that scenario is going to be, “You’ve been battling against pornography for 15 years and you don’t have victory over that yet. Are you sure that you’re even a Christian? Because if you had the Holy Spirit in you, you would see victory over pornography by this point 15 years in.”
Jon Moffitt:
Man or a woman. The reality is that it’s not confined to gender anymore.
Justin Perdue:
I agree. I was just illustrating. It could easily be a female and not a male.
I would turn the tables right then at that moment. To the person that is saying, “How do you know you’re a Christian if you’re still struggling with porn after 15 years?” I would say, “How long have you been a believer?” Let’s just say he has been a believer for 20 years and he told me just a minute ago that he still struggles with pride. “You’ve been a Christian for 20 years and you don’t have victory over pride yet. Are you sure that you’re even a believer?” And if you’re in ministry, it gets even worse. If you’re a pastor and you’ve been in the ministry for 30 years and you’re still struggling with pride. My response there would have been, “You’ve been battling pride for 30 years and you’re not victorious over it yet. Maybe you should question your salvation. Also, you’re in the ministry. Maybe you should resign because God says that humility is a prerequisite.” If we want to really nail this stuff to the wall, that’s how we would talk. And of course, we don’t talk that way about respectable sins. Jerry Bridges talks about respectable sins. We don’t talk that way, of course, about respectable sins, but the heinous ones, we do – the sexual sins and stuff that are very demonstrable in public in nature. You should be looking differently than you are if you’re going to still continue to claim Jesus all the while battling pride, gossip, malicious talk, and all those things.
Jon Moffitt:
Or even anxiety. You’ve been a Christian for how many years and you’re still anxious? Do you still suffer from anxiety? Do you worry about everything?
Justin Perdue:
Jesus said not to worry.
Jon Moffitt:
That’s right. Be happy. Or anger or bitterness. I’m going to be the first to admit that there are greater consequences for someone who is sexually immoral than for someone who struggles from fear – we’re not saying that. The point of it is one is acceptable to struggle with and one is not and that is not what Scripture tells us.
I’m just going to go to Galatians 2. Paul, for all of eternity, because we know that Scripture will be bound up for all of eternity… We’ll make references to two believers who have said and done horrible things in the Old Testament. Abraham – homie was a hoodlum. I don’t mind standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Abraham because I don’t feel judged by him and I’m not going to judge him. Same thing with David; the guy murdered someone, took someone’s wife, and then lied about it for a long time until he got called out on it. Here’s the comment I typically get from the Calvingelical world: “But Jon, they didn’t have the Holy Spirit like we have the Holy Spirit. So it’s not shocking that they live that way.”
If you’ve ever read Galatians 2, Peter, who supposedly was the rock that Jesus decided to build the church on, is confronted by Paul for denying the gospel and treating the Gentiles in a way that he shouldn’t have treated them. And he had to get called out for it. Then Paul himself admits the things that he doesn’t want to do, he keeps doing them. Then that would mean that he’s not a very faithful pastor. And who knows what that list was that Paul had? Paul never tells us what the list is, but obviously it was more than one thing that bothered his conscience.
Justin Perdue:
The spirit of Romans 7 makes it seem like it was substantial in its nature when it leads him at the end of it all, crying out, “Wretched man that I am.” He’s acknowledging that, “I don’t do the things that I want to do and the bad things that I don’t want to do, I still find myself doing.” He talks about his corruption that remains. In Galatians 5:17, he uses the language quite explicitly about the Holy Spirit being at war with the flesh, and this resulting in you not doing what you want to do. We keep coming back over and over again to these passages – Romans 7, Galatians 5, and the like – because they’re so important for us to understand every Christian’s reality. The internal war is real. It produces a struggle that lasts the entirety of our days; until we die or Christ returns. And because of the remaining power and corruption of the flesh, we will find ourselves ensnared in sin. We will find ourselves doing things that grieve our Spirit. And it’s normal.
I want to be very clear. We are not justifying sin. We’re not condoning sin. We’re not giving sin a pass. We are simply acknowledging the reality that even though sin is never okay, it is sadly normal for those of us who are still in the flesh and trust in Christ. We are at the same time saint and sinner. And so we will find ourselves doing these things.
1 Timothy 1:15. It’s a verse that many people regularly cite, myself included. I was looking at it recently and I was referencing it in a sermon that I preached at CBC not long ago. I was struck by something. It says, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” I was just struck by the fact that Paul says, “of whom I am the foremost.” He doesn’t say, “of whom I was the foremost” as though that was something that used to be true and now it’s not anymore. Then he goes on to say, “But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” In other words, Jesus has been merciful and patient to Paul, with Paul being the foremost of sinners. And the reason that he has saved Paul as the foremost of sinners is so the other saints will look at Christ’s mercy and patience shown to him and they will be comforted. That’s a wonderful word. Consider the apostle Paul who says that he is the foremost of sinners and that Christ has been merciful and patient with him. And his word to the church is if Jesus has been patient and merciful to him, he will be patient and merciful with you. Because that’s who Christ is and that’s how he deals with us. Praise be to his name. It’s a great message of comfort.
Jon Moffitt:
15.5 , I had quoted this earlier, and it says, “yet there is no sin so great that it will bring damnation on those who repent. This makes the constant preaching of repentance necessary.” This is what we started in our church: every week we have a call to worship – I welcome, we read Scripture, and then right after the reading of Scripture, we corporately read a prayer of confession where we pointedly, at times, read how we can acknowledge ways that we have sinned against our God. We are openly, corporately praying a confession. “Lord, we confess that we are guilty of these things.” And it’s at those moments that we receive grace, we sing songs to the Father, and we then give offering as a response out of the grace received. So I completely agree with the confession that if a believer gets to a point where they’re not reminded they need to repent – and I’m not standing up there berating them. The congregation shows up and goes, “I’m ready. I know I have failed. I know I am vile. I know I stand with Paul. I’m the greatest sinner I know in the room right now. And so I want to receive forgiveness.”
Justin Perdue:
We’re basically, like you said, agreeing with Paul. We’re all saying in that moment, “Wretched men, wretched women that we are. Who will deliver us from these bodies of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.” That’s what we do. I know it’s what you do and it’s what we do at CBC every Sunday. We get together. We start from the welcome; whoever is leading the service welcomes people. We acknowledge right out of the gate our wretchedness and our vileness and our desperate need for Christ. That’s why we’re here and we trust that’s why you’re here. Welcome to church. And so you set that tone from the very beginning and it’s what permeates the entire service.
So, yes, repentance. It’s funny because there are many people in the evangelical world who are of the fundamentalist stream of evangelicalism. And then there are those who are in the Calvingelical world as well who will talk about repentance in a very threatening way all the time, even towards the believer. This is where we’re driving at: repentance for the Christian is not something where the preacher is standing up at the front like, “You all better repent.” It’s more of, “Brothers and sisters, here is who we are and what we have done this week. We’re in Christ Jesus, but here’s what we have done this week as sinners.” We’re still in the flesh. How we have struggled and broken God’s commands; we have not kept any of them. We’re struggling mightily against our corruption. We are in desperate need of the mercy of God. We need to acknowledge and own our sin as wrong and then cast ourselves anew upon the mercy of God in Christ. That’s what we mean by repentance. And we do it corporately every Lord’s Day. We’re individually doing that in our lives daily.
Jon Moffitt:
In John 15, Jesus says the way that we can have not just joy but his joy and have it incomplete is by doing two commands: one, love the Father and two, love one another. We know from the New Testament epistles that the majority of the instructions that are given are horizontal – vertical is the commands between you and God – but I would say 85% to 90% of the commands that are given to the New Testament believer are horizontal. It’s between you and the believer. I always ask people this question: “Can you think of a sin that you commit that does not affect one other person in the world?” It only affects you. I promise you, you can’t come up with one because every sin that you commit will affect either you or humanity in general. If you can think of one, sure, email it to me. I think people have tried in the past.
The reason I say this is that you have to understand that sin is not only something you indulge in to try and fulfill a lie that cannot be fulfilled, but it also robs you of your joy. When I’m calling someone to repentance, it’s not out of fear. What you could have – the relief, the joy, the satisfaction in Jesus Christ – you aren’t having because you’re trying to satisfy that with something that Satan has lied to you about. This is why Paul says in Romans that the kindness of God is supposed to lead us to repentance. The father of the prodigal son didn’t run out with a switch. He ran out with his arms out. He humiliated himself by lifting up his garment. He threw a party in repentance. Here’s what’s crazy: in 1 John, and in the confession and throughout Scripture, we are not told that there is a cap limit on your repentance, right? Like, “This is how many you get. You get this many slip-ups. And then once you get to that point, you’re done. You don’t get anymore. And now you’re no longer a believer.”
Justin Perdue:
Very quick interjection. I’m mindful of Jesus and his words in Luke 17 when he says that if your brother sins against you even seven times in a day, and he turns to you every time and says, “I repent. Forgive me.” Then you forgive him. That’s another conversation maybe about repentance. Because immediately in our context, we say, “You’ve sinned against me seven times today. There’s no way you’re sincere in that repentance. Once you demonstrate appropriate sincerity, then I’ll forgive you.” That’s not what Jesus said. So you’re right that there is no cap limit. Jesus is using seven times as a perfect number where it’s like this could happen a lot of times, and you’re going to forgive your brother every time.
Passages like Galatians 6:1: “if any of your brothers are caught in sin, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.” I think that happens in an unlimited number of times in the life of the church. There is no cap limit. “Once a person has been ensnared in sin this many times, it’s over for him or her.” The Bible never speaks that way. Here’s why that’s true: if we think about the great commandment to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, strength, every one of us breaks that command that every day. None of us have ever done it. If there is a cap limit on how many times we can repent of not keeping God’s commands, then we’re all done. We’re all going to hell because every day we’re breathing, we break God’s commands and never really keep any of them. Those things are just really important for us lest we think that we’re crushing it at the Christian life. Just consider loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength.
Justin Perdue:
If I can read one more thing from the 1689. Jon, you were throwing this out there: what is it that causes us to fall into sin? We could answer it several ways, but the confession is helpful. This is chapter 17, paragraph three on the perseverance of the saints. It reads this way: “They,” the saints, “may fall into grievous sins and continue in them for a time, due to the temptation of Satan and the world, the strength of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of means of their preservation.” There we have some causes for it. So, “grievous sins and continue in them for a time.” Again, there we go. Really bad sins, really long time potentially due to the temptation of Satan in the world. That’s understandable due to “the strength of corruption remaining in them.” That’s our flesh. Also, the neglect of means of our preservation. “In so doing, they incur God’s displeasure and grieve his Holy Spirit; their graces and comforts become impaired; their hearts are hardened and their consciences wounded; they hurt and scandalize others and bring temporary judgments on themselves. Nevertheless, they will renew their repentance,” there that is, “and be preserved through faith in Christ Jesus to the end.” This paints a very realistic picture of what our lives often look like in the church where we sin for various reasons: temptation, our flesh, neglect. Those things bring with them serious consequences at points. Even temporarily, it really can wreck our lives. Yet we will be kept through faith in Christ Jesus to the end. That’s the promise of God’s word. The confession gets that exactly right when it says that we will be kept through faith unto salvation.
I wanted to pick up on something that was said earlier about the consequences of sin. I’m mindful of the uses of God’s law in this whole conversation because in the church we talk in terms of the first, second, and third use regularly: the first use being to show us our sin and drive us to Christ; the second use is sometimes summarized as civil but can be understood more broadly in terms of its restraining our corruption. You keep God’s commands; there are promises, you break them, there are punishments threatened. Thirdly, it’s the perfect God for our lives in Christ. And we talk this way in the church regularly; when we talk about sin and what it does to us, we often use that second and third use.
if I were to look at you, Jon, and say, “Brother, don’t do that thing because it will wreck your life.” What is that? That’s the second use of the law: it’s restraining your corruption. If you do this, God has said it will go poorly for you. If you do that, God has said it will go well for you. That’s a motivation for obedience. And then in Christ Jesus, the third use of the law, it goes, “Brother, let’s pray together that God would keep us from sin and give us grace that we might live unto Him and conform our lives to His word.” This is how we live.
Jon Moffitt:
I’m sure if you got to this point, you want to know about unrepentant sin now. There are two comments I want to make here. The confessions, and Scripture believes this because you can’t write Galatians 6:1 unless this is a true reality, that there are Christians who can have a period of time where they are unrepentant.
Justin Perdue:
Or they would need to be restored.
Jon Moffitt:
Right. Or to be confronted. They have been trapped – that’s the language of being trapped because when you’re trapped, that means you’re not willing to turn from it. That’s a conversation we need to have. The second part of the conversation goes into pietism. This also goes into the carnal Christian. Someone said to me, “There’s no such thing as a carnal Christian,” to which I responded, “I think every Christian is carnal.”
I think we’re going to spend some time on dealing with somebody who is not repentant of an obvious and publicly known sin. I’m going to be frank: we all have sins we don’t repent of because we’re just not aware of them. We have violated God in ways that we will never know until we get to glory. Those are unrepentant sins, right?
Justin Perdue:
You’re talking though about unrepentant sin. That’s clear. It’s demonstrable. It’s obvious. It’s been confronted and somebody says, “I don’t care that I’m sinning. I’m going to keep doing it.” Or, “You guys might call it sin, the Bible might call it sin, but I’m not going to call it sin. I’m just going to keep doing this.” That’s what you’re talking about. My answer to that, in brief, is church discipline is in the Bible and it’s there for a reason. We practice it at CBC and I know you do at Grace Reformed. We try to wield that well with precision; we don’t like to swing that thing around like a blunt instrument and bludgeon people with it. But it is there and it’s a tool at our disposal.
Jon Moffitt:
It’s also not something which is rightful of men.
Justin Perdue:
It’s not a badge of honor.
Jon Moffitt:
They’re like, “We’re going to root out the evil.” I’m like, “Well, then you’re going to have anybody left in your church.”
Justin Perdue:
That’s right. We are very clear to say that the goal of church discipline is always restoration. It’s obvious in the way that Paul writes about it in 1 Corinthians 5; it’s clear in the way that Jesus talks in Matthew 18; the goal is always to see your brother or sister restored.
One final thought from me, Jon, to put a bow on this first part of our conversation. When we talk about Christians sinning really badly for a really long time, and none of that necessarily meaning that they are lost or that they’re not believers, we are not giving a plug to sin and not worry about it. We’re not saying any of that. We’re not really making the big deal about sin. The thing that we’re trying to champion here is the mercy and the grace of God and how he deals with stubborn, stiff neck people like us.
This has been true throughout the entire history of God’s people. It’s true of Israel and it’s true in the church. We can talk about the differences between the Old and New Covenant. We can talk about how the Holy Spirit is in people. It remains the same that we are, at the same time, saint and sinner. God has always been in the business of saving ungodly people; He has always been in the business of showing mercy to people who continue to struggle against their corruption because they are trusting in the Messiah, the one who would provide them with righteousness and atone for their sin. That’s the message. It’s not that sin is okay. We’re not saying to glory in the struggle. We’re saying trust God because He is gracious, merciful, and faithful. Because Jesus is sufficient, he is enough to save even you. If you are looking to him for your righteousness, for your atonement, and for your satisfaction, then you are safe and God’s Spirit is in you. He will keep doing His good work in you. You will be conformed to the image of Jesus ultimately and you will be with God forever.
Jon Moffitt:
We say these things because there are some of you who probably will be given this podcast by a friend, and you’ve wandered away from Christ, you have found yourself entrapped in sin, and you don’t think there’s a way back. There is no way that God would accept your repentance. The point of what we’re saying is yes, He will. There is no sin so long or so great that Christ’s blood cannot cover. You can repent, you can turn from it and receive mercy. God’s arms are not crossed; God’s brow is not furrowed if you are His child. It says in the confession, often He will allow you to get to the point in your sin that you are so weak and so frail. You now understand just how powerful your flesh is and that you must depend on Him. The confession that Justin read said that people stay in sin because they have not used the due use of means, which is the church, the fellowship of the church, the preaching of His word and prayer. That is one thing I wanted to mention. We’ll unfold that a little bit more in the members podcast.
Justin Perdue:
So that’s where we’re headed now – to the members podcast. If you don’t even know what the members podcast is, you can find more information about that on our website over at Theocast.org. We offer a 14-day free trial with our total access membership. That gives you access to some premium podcast content as well as other written content and various materials. So avail yourselves of that if you have not done so; kick the tires and give it a try. The membership is a way that we try to support the ministry of Theocast and we are grateful for all of our members who are out there listening. We look forward to the conversation that we’re about to have in the members area. We hope that many of you will make your way over there to listen in to what we have to say.