The largest ceremonial site in Europe. That's about four and a half thousand years ago, so there's a lot of guesswork involved. But other earthworks in southwestern England include numerous forts, tombs, at least one site where a child was apparently sacrificed. In London, Alastair Wanklin, Fox News Radio. Avid hunters have nothing on the Tennessee guy who was on probation for hunting and fishing violations, caught fishing under a false name in Georgia. Now he's been sent to jail for nearly two years. I'm Lisa Brady, Fox News Radio. knowing the truth with pastor kevin bowling is a live call-in radio program providing doctrinal dialogue cultural commentary and insightful interviews with some of today's foremost christian authors and leaders knowing the truth is the outreach ministry of the mountain bridge bible fellowship located on highway 25 in travelers rest the goal of the church and the radio program is to Seek the glory of God in the salvation of sinners and the sanctification of the saints by the ministry of the Word. For more information, go to www.knowingthetruth.org. Here with today's edition of Knowing the Truth is Pastor Kevin Bowling. Hey, welcome into this edition of the Knowing the Truth radio broadcast. This is Pastor Kevin Bolling, and great to have you along today. We're going to be talking about a subject that I bet most of the people in our listening audience know something about. Now, you may not know it by its official title, title, but I bet you maybe by this little phrase that I'm going to give you here in just a second, you'll know this phrase. And I think as we get going through our discussion today, you'll know it by some of the elements that are involved in this particular theology. I bet you have seen this come up, and maybe you've even taught it or thought this way yourself, and so it's going to be a very interesting subject. Let me give you this little phrase. The phrase is this. let go and let God. Have you heard that before? I bet a lot of people in this area have, and that is a phrase that is used to summarize a certain theology, a theology that is associated with a certain view of sanctification. Let me read the opening part of the blog that I wrote about the program today. I wrote this, that we'll be talking about the subject of Keswick Theology, one of the most significant strands of Second Blessing Theology, assumes that Christians experience two blessings. The first is getting saved, and the second is getting serious. The change is dramatic from a defeated life to a victorious life, from a lower life to a higher life, from a shallow life to a deeper life, from a fruitless life to a more abundant life, or from being carnal to being spiritual, from merely having Jesus as your Savior to making Jesus your Master or Lord. So how do people experience the second blessing? It's through surrender and faith, or, as that little phrase has it, it is by letting go and letting God. And so that's what we're going to talk about today. And by the way, that little blurb was taken from a statement made by the author of the book that we're going to be talking about today and my special guest. Actually, in-studio guest today with me is Andrew David Nasselli. Andrew is the research manager for D.A. Carson and the administrator of a periodical that comes out called Themelius. He has earned two Ph.D.s before he turned 30, a Ph.D. in theology from Bob Jones University, right down the road here from where we're broadcasting, and a Ph.D. in New Testament exegesis and theology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. under Dr. Carson, who was just on the program with me a couple of weeks ago. And so, Andy, let me first welcome you back to Greenville, South Carolina, and welcome you even more specifically onto the Knowing the Truth radio program, and actually in the studio of the program today. Thanks so much for having me, Kevin. Excellent, excellent book that you've written here, your level of research on this subject. I printed off about 200 pages and took it with me as part of our trip to the Grand Canyon last week, so I had a long plane ride out to Las Vegas, and so I was reading it on the plane, and it was just very well done. You did an excellent job and should be commended for that. I guess where we should start, Andy, is Let's start with the idea of the history of Keswick theology, because I understand that it's changed. In fact, we're doing this broadcast today, this week, of course, live, and actually the Keswick Convention, I think, is going on while we speak. Is that correct? Yeah. They now have more than just one week per summer, but one of their weeks is right now, and the person I work for, Don Carson, is speaking this week. Yeah, so it's gone through some change. We'll talk about that towards the end of the broadcast. So it's very fitting that we're talking about this today. Let's start with a little bit of a history of how this got started, and then maybe some of the major players in this movement, so that some of the people in the listening audience would understand who it was that espoused this type of theology. Okay, well first I'll explain why it's called Keswick Theology. That's spelled K-E-S-W-I-C and the W is silent, so it's Keswick. And that's a small town in the scenic Lake District of Northwest England. And since 1875, that's when it began, it's hosted a week-long meeting every summer, in July usually, It's called the Keswick Convention, and what I'm doing in my book is analyzing the theology of its first generation. So it's been going on since 1875, but its first generation, 1875 to about 1920, had a distinct theology. After that, it started changing. It became more and more reformed gradually, such that today, the people who speak there would hold to what I would call a reformed view of sanctification. But back then, they would never be allowed to speak back at the beginning, because it would go against everything they're saying. I did notice a lot of reform themes like that running through some of the teaching, however, you know, trust in the sovereignty of God and leaning upon him to a fault, as we'll get talking about as we go through, especially during sanctification. But I did notice some of the terminology in there as having, you know, distinctly reformed terminology that I would call that. So we'll talk about that as we get going through it a little bit more. So history-wise, it started way back then, but it laid the foundation for a certain way of thinking about sanctification. Is that correct? It sure did. And it didn't just all start with the Keswick Convention in 1875. Really, it goes back to the father of all these second blessing type theologies. And when I say second blessing, I mean the getting saved is step one, the getting serious is step two. So however you parse that, it's two distinct steps. And that goes back really to John Wesley and Wesleyanism, where he would call it Christian perfection. Now, that's not what Keswick theology is, but that's where that two-step view of the Christian life really became popular and became more and more prominent. And then some who came after Wesley were John Fletcher, Adam Clark. Those are Wesleyan perfectionist advocates. And then there's what's called Methodist perfectionism. Phoebe Palmer is really well known associated with that, and many of the camp meetings in our own country espouse that. And then there was another aberration, this is probably the worst form of it all, and it's called Oberlin perfectionism, associated with Charles Finney and Asa Mahan. And it became closer to Keswick theology with what's called the Higher Life Movement. W.E. Boardman and then a husband-wife team, Robert and Hannah Smith. Hannah Whittle Smith, she wrote The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life. And that really was all what I would call the forerunners of the Keswick movement. And when the Keswick movement became more and more popular, then some of the names associated with it, I think, is what you're looking for here. People like Hanley Cargill Mull, H.C.G. Mull. He's probably Keswick's best theologian, really the scholar behind it. But some more popular names associated with it would be F.B. Meyer. Andrew Murray wrote hundreds of devotional books, even Hudson Taylor and Amy Carmichael, Francis Havergill to some degree, A.T. Pearson, W.H. Griffith Thomas, Charles Trumbull. These are some examples of names who are, they were part of that first generation of the Keswick movement and espoused what I would call Keswick theology. Okay, so we could say that the movement was certainly evangelical. There would be no problem with saying that, but that they saw in the Christians during their generation that there were Christians that had made a profession of faith in Christ, but they saw them as living a lower Christian life, as not living the quote-unquote victorious Christian life, And that's what they were seeking to address in this movement. Is that correct? That is. It's really that dichotomy, that step one, step two, the Clark Kent Superman dichotomy of they're defeated, they're victorious, lower, higher, shallow, deeper. There are all kinds of ways to parse that or to label that. Yeah. And that's what they were trying to address. So it was a fairly noble goal here. You know, obviously, their their their intentions seem right and about addressing that they wanted to see Christians living more biblically and according to the tremendous inheritance that we have in Christ and those types of things. But really, in the methodology is where they they got off. Is that a fair assessment? Yes, I'd say the methodology, but the foundation of the methodology is in abhorrent theology. The actual Keswick Convention then was broken up into, what, three days? Is that what it typically was? It depends on which part of its history. Sometimes it was four, sometimes five. In my book, I break it down to five days and I analyze what exactly is Keswick theology by saying, okay, if you came to a Keswick conference, You'd have a Monday through Friday while you're there, and each day had its own particular emphasis, and that kind of explains the theology of the movement. Now, since the movement has changed, and we have people today like D.A. Carson and Sinclair Ferguson and others that are speaking at this new Keswick Convention that they have, Is it still an issue? Is it just a study in historical aspects of the church and what the church has come through? Or was the foundation so well laid during that period of time that we still see thinking like this appear on the scene, we still hear this theology in various circles? Great question. And that's a question I keep getting asked because people will say, OK, you're analyzing the first generation of the Keswick movement. That's not even in existence today. And the Keswick Convention itself has changed. So why are we talking about this? And it's because not only are people who were part of that first generation wrote books that are still read today and very popular today. But Keswick theology has influenced evangelicalism significantly. It really influenced Moody Bible Institute's beginnings, Dallas Seminary's beginnings, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, even Pentecostalism to some degree. And in those, it just permeates all different branches of evangelicalism such that today, people espouse elements of Kazakh theology without knowing it's Kazakh theology. I did when I was growing up, and I did it this way. I commonly would give my testimony, my Christian testimony, if someone said, how'd you become a Christian? I might explain it as, well, I made a profession of faith when I was 8, and again when I was 12. I'm not sure when I really became a Christian, but I surrendered my life to the Lord when I was 13, and I surrendered myself to full-time Christian service when I was 14. I'm breaking it up into these steps of growth, but in my mind I'm thinking, okay, step one, I became a Christian. Step two, I got serious. And that's what I heard other people do all the time in churches growing up. And I just figured that's how it is. There's step one and there's step two. And that kind of thinking I do think is pretty prevalent today. A lot of people think of becoming a Christian as, okay, I've got my ticket to heaven, I've got fire insurance, but I don't have to be super, super serious and sold out. Maybe I'll get more serious later and that'll be my really large step of growth later on. And often that step of growth is tied to an experience. For me, in my context growing up, it usually was associated with coming forward after a sermon, often at camp or sometimes at special meetings, evangelistic meetings or whatever. Are you familiar with this? And now my background is different because of living up north. When somebody got saved, there was typically a very distinctive moment. You know, things changed very quickly, and it was very night and day. But here I've noticed, and I was going to ask you this, if this was something that was a little bit more prevalent in fundamentalism. Here I noticed that Christianity is a bit more, it's cultural. And so you get people that go to camps, they go up to the wilds, they throw a stick in the fire to show their commitment. They walk in Billy Graham crusade aisle or some other large crusade type of thing and they make a commitment to Christ. But it seems like I've met tons of people like this and I heard some of these testimonies from the guys that were just on this rafting trip with me as well. that they would walk an aisle, but that they never entered into this serious Christianity till later in their life. So they would say, just as you were just saying, they made the initial profession of salvation, but really they didn't take Jesus as Lord, as if he could be divided. They took him as Savior, but not as Lord until later in their life. And so I'm familiar with it, but mostly from other people's testimony, especially here in the buckle of the Bible Belt and down here in the South, I see that repeatedly. And I've also noticed that there is a lot more emphasis on committing your life to Christ, that people will be asked to show of hands if you want to recommit yourself or rededicate yourself to the Lord, almost seems as popular as calling people to salvation, sometimes more so. And so that was a new thing for me that I hadn't witnessed elsewhere, at least in the circles I was running in, in various aspects of the North. So two questions for you. One, was it a little bit more prevalent in fundamentalism, that type of thinking? And two, what are we to make of the idea of the recommitting all the time that takes place in these circles? Sure. Okay. Number one, with reference to fundamentalism, you have to define what you mean by that term. Fundamentalism is tremendously diverse, and the best fundamentalism is not going to have this. And so there are people who are self-identified fundamentalists who would not adopt Keswick theology. Some of the people who endorsed my book are self-identified fundamentalists. Sure, and I identify myself as a fundamentalist in that sense. Holding to the fundamentals of the faith. So, more sociologically, the culture of fundamentalism, yeah, I do think it's a little more common. But even then, Dallas Seminary is not a fundamentalist seminary and that's had probably the single biggest influence on a Keswick theology type view of sanctification. Really prominent with people like their founder and successive presidents and going down to Charles Ryrie. Names people would know today, Charles Ryrie, John Walvard, these sorts of people. You had listed that D.L. Moody and Lewis Barry Chafer that they were influenced by this and you know influenced by this. And the Schofield Reference Bible, Chafer had a big hand in and he was a mentor related to Schofield. So there's all these different webs of relationship within evangelicalism itself. It's not just fundamentalism. But today, the circles that we appreciate most about evangelicalism are not adopting this. But that doesn't mean it's not there. Evangelicalism is more diverse than fundamentalism. Right. And in these other movements or groups as well, even within some Reformed circles, people would be speaking this way, not understanding what the Reformed view of sanctification would be. We would see it there as well. Well, let's talk about the idea... Well, go ahead. The rededication. Rededication. That's right. I'm sorry. This is a common phrase that I've heard in both contexts of fundamentalism and evangelicalism. Billy Graham is famous for this. Commit yourself to Christ. Sure. I'm not sure that's the best term to use because it's not clear. It means different things to different people. I'm more comfortable using what's explicitly scriptural. Repent and believe. Those kinds of terms. Turn. Come to Christ. Those sorts of things. But if the term just means that, turn from your sin and come to Christ and commit yourself to Him, I'm fine with that. But what I've experienced, I mean, when people use it, is more of a, okay, this is going to be a significant turning point in your life, put up the gate post or whatever and put a sign up here, this is, you know, the time in your life where you turn, this is step two in your life. that kind of emphasis. I'm not sure that's scriptural. So one of the schools I went to had us fill out these forms and it would say how many people have you led to the Lord this semester or how many people have you have rededicated or whatever and I would always put millions and millions or something silly because I just thought that was a ridiculous question. You're a court of ministry going. We're kind of going into the area now of looking at the theology itself. To me, as I was reading through your book, one of the major problems is it seems to introduce a third category of people. You have unsaved people, saved people, and then like really saved people. No, it doesn't seem to. That's what it is. The Keswick Convention viewed itself as a conference for one of those classes of people. If you have a church that has a special evangelistic emphasis and you have an evangelistic sermon, you're targeting people who are not Christians. That's a certain kind of people, non-Christians. So I would think, you probably think of people in two categories, non-Christians, Christians. That's one of the ways I think of it. Okay, two categories, non-Christian, Christian. Keswick will say, OK, we've got non-Christians and we might have evangelistic services for them. But then with Christians, there are two kinds. It's not just Christians. It's class A and class B. It's level one, level two. And the Keswick Convention targets the lower level Christian. And they view themselves as a clinic to try to get them to make a decision to move from step one to step two, just like an evangelistic service to try to compel, to convince a non-Christian to become a Christian. It's really a parallel to that paradigm. And it's, again, for their motives on doing this, obviously if we have a Christian that is struggling and not growing in grace and these types of things, we want to help people like that. The problem becomes that they create a whole new category of individual. You have this kernel Christian category, people that basically have made a commitment to Christ but are not living for Christ and don't see Christ as being their Lord. Like you were saying, they've punched a ticket, they've got on the heavenly train, but they're not living in all of the experience of the gospel. And so, you know, basically they could live like the devil and still get to heaven because they've punched their ticket and actually said the sinner's prayer but they're just going to be doomed to living this lower Christian existence upon the face of the earth. Is that a fair assessment? Well, that's a pretty stark way to put it. It's not always that stark, but I've seen this firsthand. When you emphasize that there are two types of Christians, a lower class and a higher class, a level one, level two, that level one Christian can think, okay, I am a genuine Christian, but I'm just not as committed as these other people. But I'm okay. I'm still going to heaven. I'm not going to try as hard. I'm not going to be as concerned about evidences of sin in my life. I'm just not as serious as those others. And what that can do is breed a whole group of people who are not actually Christians, thinking they are. They're just not serious Christians. Exactly. And the process that they use to do this, let me remind our listening audience, we're just a couple minutes outside of the break. In fact, why don't we do that? We'll take a break here real quick, and then we'll come back. Let me mention to our listening audience, we're speaking with Andrew David Nacelli. He's a research manager for D.A. Carson and also the administrator of Thamelias, a periodical that comes out, excellent periodical as well. and we're talking about his book called Let Go and Let God, which is a survey and an analysis of Keswick theology, the idea of letting go and letting God. We'll come back to that conversation when we come back from the break, and I'll give you the number to be able to call. I am giving some books away on the program today. I'll give you that number when we come back. You're listening to Knowing the Truth with Pastor Kevin Bolling. For more information about today's program, the radio ministry, and the resources we offer, go to www.knowingthetruth.org. Do you know what it's like to feel exposed? Like you're open to attack on one side. Even when we try to live godly lives, we can feel insecure and unprotected. The Bible doesn't promise that we won't face hardship, but we can be sure that God promises to make it right in the end. Join us this week for God's Living Word, where we'll see that all the darkest chapters in history lead up to God's plan for an ultimately glorious and happy ending. Sunday morning at 9 on Christian Talks 660. It's great pizza for a great price. So pack up the family and head over to Stevie B's near Walmart on Woodruff Road in Greenville. At Stevie B's you'll find friendly faces and at least a dozen pizzas out at all times. Or you can order a pizza and they'll make it fresh just for you at no extra cost. So visit Stevie B's today. Hi, this is Pastor Kevin Bowling and I want to take the time to thank John, Ruth, Carlos and the good folks over there at Stevie B's Pizza for their support of the Knowing the Truth radio broadcast. They've worshipped in churches, stadiums, and open fields in Asia, Africa, and Europe. And this summer, they come to you. The Hillsong Live, a beautiful exchange tour. Tens of thousands of people connecting in worship. Will you be next? Hillsong Live, a beautiful exchange with Ruben Morgan. These Hillsong Worship Nights, it's a night where we really just see God move in amazing ways and people experience God in a whole fresh new way and it's just going to be an incredible night. 7.30 Sunday night July 25th at Evangel Cathedral in Spartanburg. Special free sale tickets on sale May 28th through June 3rd at premierproductions.com. Use promo code Hillsong, Hillsong Live. A beautiful exchange. Sunday, July 25th at Evangel Cathedral in Spartanburg. Produced by Idon Event. Welcome back to Knowing the Truth with Pastor Kevin Bolling. Information regarding the resources referenced on today's program can be found at www.knowingthetruth.org. Now, here to continue with today's program is Pastor Kevin Bolling. Hey, welcome back into the Knowing the Truth radio broadcast. This is Pastor Kevin Bowling, and I'm talking with Andy Nasselly about his book, Let Go and Let God, about Kezik theology. We're going to go back to that in just a second. I've got a couple of quick announcements for you that I need to tell you about before we continue in our conversation. I wanted to let you know that you just heard that ad for Hillsong Concert that's coming here to the area. And Hillsong, the folks there at Premier Productions have given me some tickets to give away, and so I want to make sure that you have an opportunity to get those tickets. If you're interested, the way I'm doing it is you need to send me an email. and then I'm pulling them all into one folder, a tickets folder, and then out of that I will select 10 people that will win these tickets and I will contact you via email. And so if you don't get contacted by tomorrow via email, I'm sorry you didn't get a chance to win the tickets, and we'll go ahead and only the people that win the tickets I'll contact with an email saying, hey, you won the ticket. and you can pick it up at Will Call, and I'll have their name added to the list to be able to pick those up. So that's Hillsong Tickets. If you're into Hillsong and you want to go to the concert there at Spartanburg, this is not Hillsong United. This is Hillsong, the worship group, and so they will be over there. And so the email address here is kevan, at knowingthetruth.org. That's K-E-V-A-N, at knowingthetruth.org. You send me an email, and I'll go ahead and select out of that 10 people to win the ticket and let you know by tomorrow if you're a winner, and we'll go from there. Also, that number, by the way, is a number that you can use in order to speak with us today about our subject that we're talking about. We're talking basically about sanctification. And so you can use that email address. I'll be watching my email and taking your questions or your comments that way. Also, the phone number here, toll-free number, good across the country, is 1-888-660-WLFJ. That's 1-888-660-WLFJ. That's 1-888-660-9535. Be happy to take your call about this subject that we're talking about. By the way, the phone bank is lit up right now, so we're going to go to calls, and we'll free up a line there in just a few moments. Two more things very quickly. I wanted to thank the folks over there at Sunrift Adventures for providing some equipment for me to go on the Grand Canyon tour last week. And so I put a link out on my website, knowntotruth.org. You can click on that link and they'll take you right to Sunrift Adventures site and they've got all kinds of equipment there if you're into hiking or kayaking or bike riding. Just a lot of supplies there and I just wanted to thank them by putting their link and logo out on the website and you can check out what they have there. Also, the Expositors Conference is coming up. That's with Dr. R.C. Sproul and Dr. Steve Lawson. I put a link to that on my Knowing the Truth website as well. Dr. Steve Lawson is going to be on with me in the next couple of weeks to talk more about that conference, but I want you to know about it so that you can go out there and click on that and find out information. It's going to be held at Dr. Lawson's church in, I think you said Mobile. Mobile, Alabama. And it's going to be right there, Mobile, Alabama. Dr. Sproul is going to be there with them. They're going to be talking about expository preaching and specifically how to preach in an expository manner the attributes of God. So if you're a student or a preacher, you're tasked with preaching in your church, you're going to want to go to this conference. It's going to be excellent, very intimate setting there with both of these great preachers, and so you don't want to miss that, so I wanted to make sure that you knew about that as well. Let's go ahead and go to the phone lines. We've got Mike in Illinois on line three. Mike from Illinois. Mike, you got a question for Andy today? Yes. I was just wondering how like classic Wesleyan theology differs from the Keswick system. Hopefully that hasn't already been addressed. No, he mentioned it a little bit, but Andy will build upon that just a little bit. Mike, we're going to take your answer offline, but I wanted to tell you, send me an email, kevin at knowingthetruth.org, and I'm going to send you a copy, not of this book, because it's not available in print yet, but I'm going to send you a copy of the Collected Writings on Scripture by D.A. Carson and compiled by Andy Nasselli, and so I'll send you a copy of that book, okay? Sounds great. Thanks. Send me your mailing address. Thank you. OK. Andy? Thanks for your good question, Mike. No, we haven't talked about this yet, and I'll be happy to do it quickly. The Wesleyan view, if we can say the Wesleyan view, and I say that qualification because Wesleyanism itself is diverse, but the majority, the main, the major Wesleyan view has a two-step approach to the Christian life, just like the Keswick does, but here's where it differs. A person, in the Wesleyan view, when they become a Christian, that's called the first work of grace. And the crisis that happens later is called the second work of grace. And the result of that second work of grace is what they call entire sanctification, or Christian perfection. It's perfect love toward God and man, where a person, a Christian, enters this state of being sinless, not sinless in the way God would see it, but sinless, as sinless as is possible for a Christian, can be defining sin as a known transgression of a known law. Okay, so all these qualifications. And just like the Keswick view, where you have step one and step two, once you hit step two, you can go back to step one. You can go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. It's not like you hit step two and you never sin again. So with both the Wesleyan and Keswick views, once you hit step two, you can revert back. But the key difference is that Wesleyan calls that second step entire sanctification or Christian perfection, and they claim that there's a state of sinlessness when defined as Wesley did. With the Keswick view, that second step is what they call spirit filling. It's a victorious Christian life. It's a result of a crisis of consecration and surrender. So the means are a little different, the results are a little different. Great question, Mike. Let's go back to the phone lines. We've got Don from Pittsburgh on line two. Don, welcome in today. Thank you. I have two questions. A friend of mine and I get into this all the time about the let go and let God, and he, for example, will cite 1 Corinthians 1.30 that says Christ is our sanctification, and he says that if you hold to what I believe is the classic Puritan view, that we don't contribute to our sanctification, but we participate in it. I mean, the Holy Spirit doesn't open the Bible for me, he doesn't whip me off the church, you know, sanctification doesn't occur apart from the means of grace. But he would say that if you believe that you in any way participate in your sanctification, then you don't believe Christ is your sanctification, and that you are really, in effect, Roman Catholic in your view of sanctification, because you have to have effort in your contributing. And I would just like your response to that. Also, how would A person who his spouse has let go and let God handle Romans 7, 14-25, would they say that that was Paul before his conversion? And I'll take my answers off the air. Good question, Don, and you know the system here about getting a copy of the book. Go ahead, Andy. Thanks, Don. Two good questions. The first one, when you cited 1 Corinthians 1.30, it says God has united you with Christ. It's because of Him that you're in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. I'm not saying anything there that would support your friend's view. Your friend seems to be wanting to emphasize that God is sovereign in our sanctification. And the view that I would hold recognizes that big time. The distinction is that there are a lot of commands in the New Testament that imply that we participate. But the theological foundation for that is that we work because God works. God is the one who's working in us both the willing and the doing of his good pleasure. That's Philippians 2, I think 12. So God is working, therefore we work. But that doesn't mean that we don't work. We're absolutely striving with everything we've got. But it's only because God's working in us to begin with. Remind me of the second question. I don't remember what the second question was. Sorry, Don. Let's move on, and if he comes to us, we'll go ahead and answer it. How's that, Don? We've got John from Spartanburg is up next, and so, John, welcome into the program today. Thank you. was Romans 7. Oh, one moment. One second, John. We're just going to address Romans. It just came to us. Yeah, Don just mentioned Romans 7, 14 to 25. Yeah, there are several views on this passage among expositors. There are three major views. One of this refers to Paul when he is a Christian himself, a mature Christian. Another view is that it refers to Paul when he's not a Christian. And another view is that it refers to anyone trying to live the Christian life or live life according to the law, not just the Christian life. And the Keswick view absolutely sees that as a person who is a Christian who is struggling and then struggles no more. It's the life of a Christian. Now, the reformed view, reformed people, that is people who hold to a reformed view of sanctification, interpret Romans 7 differently, diversely, all three ways. So that passage itself is not the one to go to to decide how do Reformed people interpret that, what do they believe. The place to go there for sure is to slam dunk is Galatians 5 where it's very clear there is a struggle between the lust of the flesh between those urgings and walking in the Spirit, there is some sort of battle going on in the Christian life. That's clear. Now, some would say that's there in Romans 7 as well. I think it is. Some say it's not. And people with credentials like a Doug Moo at Wheaton would argue that that refers to, in Romans 7, refers to a non-Christian. Okay, so... Interesting. Okay, back to you, John. Welcome into the program today. Well, thank you. I think there's is a very serious issue in the church because we have to define what salvation really is. To be a Christian means that you are in union with Christ. You're in Christ. How can you be in Christ in the totality of Jesus Christ and be neutral when it comes to living for Christ? I mean, You know, what is salvation? It's not just a decision. It's a revelation that the Spirit gives to you of the person and work of Jesus Christ and who you are in relation to that. The Spirit opens your heart and opens your eyes, and what else can you do? That's what I found. Yeah, you know, John, I think some of the diagnostic books that we find in the New Testament Scripture have that in view, you know, like 3 John or the book of James. you know, where these diagnostic books saying, hey, you make a profession of faith, you say that you're a believer, but this is what your works look like, you know, and it's calling them to look at whether they made a legitimate profession of faith or not, is the way that I take those books. And so I think you're absolutely right that, you know, if like I termed it in very drastic terms, you know, if you make a profession of faith, you throw a stick in the fire, you walk an aisle, sign a decision card, these types of things, but then you live like the devil. I put it all the way down to that category. You don't have to live like the devil, but it's a dramatic change in you. You cannot be in Christ without being changed. Yeah, how do you go from darkness to light and have no change take place whatsoever? But I just think this is a very serious issue. here in evangelicalism, and it's something that burdens my heart as a preacher very much. Yes, yes. And because I'm concerned for people, and just to get decisions out of people, they can make a thousand decisions. It doesn't mean to say they're in Christ. So that's why I'm saying it's a very serious issue, and It cannot be just answered in a few minutes. Incidentally, in our close-off, Martin Lloyd-Jones is very good on Romans 7, and I'm not saying that he's foolproof, but he's an excellent one to study. And secondly, Whitefield and Wesley, This is where the division came in between these two men. Thank you for listening. I enjoyed listening to you. Thank you, John, very much. And Andy's going to go ahead and comment on that as well, but we'll take the answer off air. Thank you. I want to be really careful that we're not presenting a caricature of Keswick theology. So just to be fair to them, if a proponent of Keswick theology was here, I think they would argue like this. Genuine Christians struggle with sin, and it's a struggle that they want to be victorious over. Then that's a holy longing to get rid of certain kinds of sin and to exercise faith in Jesus to deliver us from specific sins. That's a holy longing. That's a good thing. And what they would say is that many Christians are struggling with sins when they don't need to because they're like a pauper, a very poor person living on the streets who has inherited billions of dollars sitting in a bank account and all he has to do is appropriate some of the money in that account by writing a check or charging it to his credit card or something. He can appropriate that bank account, he just needs to do it, but he's living like a very poor man. Proponents of Catholic theology would point to that and say, look, a lot of Christians are living like that poor man spiritually, and they don't need to be living that way. They need to appropriate these promises in Christ. And I think there's a grain of truth in what they're saying there, but the methodology behind it, the theological presuppositions underlying it, is where the fault is. Yeah, and the truth would be in our sanctification walk, obviously looking back to all of the benefits and blessings that flow to us from Christ because of his person and work is certainly a major element in how we progress in our Christian faith in our sanctification walk. I totally agree with you. The point comes in, I guess, whether or not then we're talking about a synergistic work or a monogistic work. I think, if I understand your writings here and your analysis of the Keswick theology, that they are saying that it is all a monogistic work, or at least emphasizing the monogistic part, maybe overemphasizing that. to the exclusion of us doing anything, fighting the good fight of faith, or resisting the devil, these types of imperatives that are given to us in the Scripture. Is that fair? Yeah, and I think the key word to use there was progress. Life is progress. It's growing. It's growth. You don't have growth on most of most things. It happens, boom, it's growth. And why Keswick Theology appeals to so many people is that it's offering instant victory. It's a quick fix. It's, you're struggling with sin. I am, I am, I am, I want to get out of this. Okay, do one, two, three, come forward, boom, step two, you're there. They don't say it like that, but it's this, oh, I can take care of this right here, right now, and hit that level two, and I can conquer this stuff. Which is going to lead to discouragement and disappointment. Exactly. It has all kinds of ramifications, because it's delusion. Sure. So they're going to find the struggle going on, and they're going to say, wait a second, I thought I took care of this, and I'm still struggling. Maybe I'm not saved, and all of these types of things. In fact, I almost titled my book, Let Go and Let God, examining a popular view of Christian living, or why a quick fix to your struggle with sin will not result in a victorious life, higher life, deeper life, more abundant life, or anything other than a misguided, frustrated, disillusioned, and or destroyed life. I think you made a wise choice with Let Go and Let God. But that certainly, that provides a good thesis statement for what's in the rest of the book for sure. Let's go back to the phone lines. We've got Rock on line one there. Rock, welcome into the program today. Thank you, sir. I think a good title for the book is Let Go and Let God Put Your Nose to the Groundstone, because that's where we're going to end up anyway. But in this American church, particularly the Southern Bible Belt, I see a lot of Christians who are working hard, trying to live very nice Christian lives, being good neighbors, good citizens and all that, and they're doing Christianity to the very best of their human power. And they've never really begun to learn how to operate in the God power, the dunamis of Ephesians 3.20. And I just wonder what Jesus really meant to the Laodiceans when he said, Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him. Well, interesting, great question there, Rock, and interesting focus on, okay, what about the flip side of this? We've been talking about people just letting go and saying, well, God has to do everything in us. What about the flip side, you know, where people are just in their own strength trying to live the Christian life, apart from the work of the Spirit in them, apart from the foundational things that we're talking about? Let me let Andy go ahead and respond to that, and we'll take it off air, okay? Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. I think when you look at any kind of Christian who's alive today at this site of heaven, you're going to see sin. You will see sin, and you'll see room for growth. And I think rather than looking at Christians as step one, step two, stage one, stage two, and this two-stage dichotomy, to see all Christians as on this Mountain and they're all going up this mountain in the mountain. Sometimes it's it's usually going up But sometimes it plateaus sometimes it goes down for just a little bit But it's an upward climb and Christians are all different kinds of points along this mountainside, but they're all going up up up up up They're all growing and it's gradual growth. Sometimes it's large steps of growth at a time. Sometimes there are periods of stagnancy Sometimes there are periods of decline, but the overall Tracking is upward and onward. That's what's going on and So, rather than analyzing Christians as, okay, these are all subclass, lower level types, I think, say, well, they might be here on the growth scale, and they need to take steps of growth. I think that's a better way to look at it. I think there's a unique picture of that type of thing with in Acts, I think it's Acts 28, where Paul, the shipwreck that takes place. And at the end of it, Paul says, you know, you can't be saved unless you stay with the ship. And then the ship is smashed against the rocks. And then it has this little piece there, it says, and some swim the shore, and some arrived floating on parts of the ship, you know, and these types of things. And it reminds me of the Christian life. You know, some people kind of just dive right in and they don't seem to have a whole lot of problems with certain types of sin in their life, especially these kind of easily besetting sins. And they jump right in and they seem to have a good quick progress, they're making great progress in their Christian life. Others seem to be just drifting along, holding on, and they have a lot of questions, a lot of struggle constantly in their life, and you have to deal with them, but they all make it to shore. Is that kind of a fair picture of, they're all making progress. One may seem to make greater progress at one time than another one does, but they all make it to shore, they all get the glorification, they're just making different progress as they go along. Yes, with two qualifications. One, I wouldn't use that scripture to support it. I know you were just illustrating it. Right. And two, is that it's really easy for us to look at other Christians and size them up. Yeah. When the ways that we grow spiritually are astonishingly diverse, such that other people can't just look at us externally and see what God's doing. We grow in so many different ways. And if we want to focus on heart issues, that's where our focus should be. Our analysis might be maybe a little different. I think that's brought out in the book of James as well, where he says that we have become judges of the people of God, and I think that he's saying there that, you know, you're making the determination about somebody else's spirituality based upon, you know, what you see on the outside, and you don't have a clue of what's actually taking place in their life. Let me ask you about the process that is advocated in the Keswick movement or theology. The idea that there is a crisis that happens in your life, and in that crisis then they kind of It's almost a little bit like the Obama administration, where they say, never waste a good crisis. But a crisis happens in the life, and then through crisis, then you recommit your life to Christ. Is that a major element in Keswick theology? Sure. Let me just give you the quick five parts of a Keswick convention week, what would happen. Day one would focus on sin. So they'd focus on believers, Christians, having a sinful nature and telling them, hey, you can actually live without known sin. And don't you want this? You know, it's wetting their appetite. Day two focuses on God's provision for victorious Christian living. You know, there are Christians who've been justified, but they've not experienced that crisis of sanctification yet. And at a convention, they're urging people to make that step. And day three is what you're talking about. That's the crisis. It's focusing on consecration. And this crisis involves two steps. Surrender, that's let go. And faith, that's let God. Hence the title of my book, Let Go and Let God. And my title has a question mark after that, just to be clear. It's Let Go and Let God, question mark. I'm questioning that title, that phrase. And then day four focuses on spirit filling, how you maintain that second level. And then day five would focus on powerful Christian service. So the crisis is really the nub, and you're right to focus on that. That's where the decision happens, that's where the pressure's really, really pointed, and that's where people make the decision and supposedly go from step one to step two. We mentioned just briefly in answer to some of the questions that came in about the disappointment and the frustration. Let's take a couple minutes here towards the closing of the broadcast to address the person that's out there that has heard this message repeatedly, that's been in churches where This is a staple diet of the preaching, not just remnants of this, but this is how the Christian life is supposed to be lived. And so I would imagine that that person is really feeling discouraged in their Christian walk. That they just feel like a second-class citizen in the kingdom of God that they're never gonna get this worked out Let's speak directly to that person What would you say to them and somebody came to you now and said, you know, this is where I'm at How would you encourage them? I'd probably start by giving them two little books little tiny books ones by CJ Mahaney called the cross-centered life and the other one is by Greg Gilbert called what is the gospel and Craig's been on the program with me. I'd just give him those two little books and say, really, you want to make sure you have a rock-solid understanding of what the gospel is. Because in the Keswick theology framework, the gospel's like the ABCs. It's like, okay, you become a Christian, but that's just step one. You really want to get to step two. And what I've come to appreciate more and more and more is, no, The only step is the gospel. And every single day, that's what I'm going back to. And every Sunday morning, that's what I'm exulting in when I'm singing. And that's where the application is coming from when our pastors are preaching. That's where the power is. That's where the solution is that analyzes our problems. So I just say you need to get a rock solid understanding of the gospel. Good advice. Even just this past week in the canyon, I mentioned Tuesday on the program that I was overwhelmed by the wrath of God that is depicted there in the flood, in the remnants of the flood, and it pointed us to the gospel. The wrath of God, the thought of that was heavy upon us, but the wrath of God makes us think about the holiness of God and the inflexible standard of what it means to have a relationship with God, that He has a standard that must be adhered to perfectly in order to have a relationship with Him. We right away realize that we can't keep that perfect standard, and so it drives us to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only one who did keep that perfect standard, by his impeccable righteousness that he earned that has now been imputed to us, and by that perfect sacrifice of himself upon the cross of Calvary. That is the gospel, and that's what we rejoice in, and thinking about that, understanding that, rejoicing in it, living by that, living by the faith in that, is what the Christian life is all about, not a list of rules and regulations, per se, that we like to come up with afterwards. Andy, I mentioned during the course of our conversation that your book was not in print. That's kind of not true. They can get it through Lagas Bible software. Would you explain how they go about doing it? Do they have to have that software to do it? Sure. How do we get a copy of this? If you go to Logos.com, L-O-G-O-S, Logos.com, you can order it now. It probably won't be available until the end of the year. It's in prepub right now. And when it comes out, you have to use Logos Bible Software to view it. But the Logos Bible Software platform itself is free. So it's not like you have to buy anything extra. So you can get it for just this book. But I use Logos. I love Logos. I have like 4,000 books on Logos. That's where most of my library is. I love it very much. Excellent. And what else is on the agenda for you? You've got a couple other works in the work. I work full-time for Don Carson, so I've always got projects hopping there. And then I'm co-editing two books, which will come out for the next year or two or three. One of them is on evangelicalism. It's called Four Views on Evangelicalism. So that should be fun. That's with Sondervan. And then another one is on the extent of the atonement. Three Views on the Extent of the Atonement. So we'll have a five-point Calvinist, a four-point Calvinist, and an Arminian debating that. Interesting. Well, we look forward to those books, and once again want to welcome you here back to South Carolina. I say back because you were here at Bob Jones for a while. Yeah, we left in 2006 and just got back at the beginning of July this month. I hope you like warm weather. We do. We love the weather. We love our church, our Slapple Church and more. Excellent. Well, that's it's a good church. I've heard good things about them and The church that that started out of as well heritage and excellent work. Those guys are doing well we've been speaking with Andy Naselli about His book that we've been talking about let go let God and Andy rightly said that there is a question mark after that I didn't add that on the on the blog that I put out there, but I would like to do that, and I'll go back and edit that. He gave you the information about where you can get a copy of that book, and so you can go out there and get a copy for yourself. I highly recommend it. It's just very well done, very well documented. There's also out, Kevin DeYoung did a review of the book as well. and just a brief review, but Kevin's reviews of these things are always done very well, so I encourage you to go out there and take a look at that. Also, I mentioned a couple other things during the broadcast, especially the Expositors Conference that is coming up in 2010, of course, later in September, and so that will be with Dr. R.C. Sproul and Steve Lawson, and so I invite you to go out to the knowingthetruth.org website and click on that link. It'll take you right there to their website for the Expositors Conference and you can find out more about that. I'd like to actually see maybe about getting a little group here from Greenville that might be interested in driving together there to go to that. Some men that are tasked with teaching and preaching in their church. It'd be a great group to pull together to go there for that conference. So I just want to invite you, you know, all the programs that we do here on Knowing the Truth are available out on the website, both www.knowingthetruth.org as well as www.sermonaudio.com forward slash knowing the truth. And so if you tuned in a little bit late here today and said, boy, I would like to hear that discussion about sanctification and about Keswick theology more specifically, you can still do that. You can still hear the rest of our discussion. Just about an hour from now, it'll be uploaded out on the website, and you can go out there to sermonaudio.com forward slash knowingthetruth, and all of those broadcasts are available absolutely free. You can download the MP3 audio and re-listen to our conversation. Andy, thank you very much for being with me in the studio. I really appreciate it. My pleasure. And thank you for writing this book. I pray that God mightily blesses it. Remember, Jesus said, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. You've been listening to Knowing the Truth with Pastor Kevin Bowling. Knowing the Truth is the outreach ministry of the Mountain Bridge Bible Fellowship, located on Highway 25 in Travelers Rest. For more information about the church and radio ministry, visit us on the web at knowingthetruth.org. The opinions expressed on today's program