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Dr. Michael Horton and Adriel Sanchez answer caller questions. Key questions answered in today's show: 1. If a church doesn’t practice baptism or communion how will this eternally affect a believer attending that church since baptism and communion are commands. 2. Can believers lose our salvation? Hebrews 10:24–29, Can you help me understand this? Is this speaking to a believer or to Jews? 3. I’m a committed believer but I’m not clear on what happens to people who worship in other religions and don’t accept Christ as their personal savior. Is it impossible for them to still be saved? 4. I can’t make sense of miracles. How do we account for miracles when science seems to teach that miracles don’t happen? Resources: "The Gospel-Driven Life: Being Good News People in a Bad News World" by Michael Horton; "The Future of Everything: Essential Truths About the End Times" by William Boekestein. Request our latest special offers call 1-833-THE-CORE (833-843-2673) to request them by phone.

Dr. Michael Horton and Adriel Sanchez answer caller questions. Key questions answered in today's show: 1. When you become a believer, are we to pursue a separate baptism of the Holy Spirit? Is tongues for today and how do you understand Paul having an entire chapter on how to use tongues properly if it’s not for today? 2. I've never understood 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Do we have to keep confessing every individual sin in order to be forgiven? 3.  Is Islam a religion of peace? 4. How do you understand John 12:23–33? Was Jesus talking about the cross or his later ascension? 5. Do you have any advice for those of us who trust in Christ but still struggle with assurance? I know intellectually that God loves me, and I’m saved, but I still feel an anxiety that maybe I’m wrong and that I’m not chosen.  Resources: "The Gospel-Driven Life: Being Good News People in a Bad News World" by Michael Horton. Request our latest special offers call 1-833-THE-CORE (833-843-2673) to request them by phone.

Dr. Michael Horton and Adriel Sanchez answer caller questions. Key questions answered in today's show: 1. I confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and asked him to come into my heart and tried to believe the gospel and tried to live out the life with his grace but then I fell away. I have been slowly and slowly hardening my heart and living in sin to the point of I would rather live in sin rather than—I guess, to make a long story short, if hell was paradise without God, I guess I would rather go there. So, how do I address my heart condition? I suppose I was never saved to begin with or maybe I was and lost my salvation or I guess I don’t know what’s going on. But I know what I’m doing is not right and I seem to be in a slimy pit. 2. I occasionally listen to your radio program and had a couple of related questions that I was hoping you could address. God explicitly and authoritatively designates the seventh day of creation as a holy day and reminds Abraham’s seed about its holiness in the heart of the Ten Commandments. A change to the Sabbath day as stated in the 4th Commandment would be monumental. Wouldn’t a change to His holy day necessitate an explicit “thus saith the LORD” to set everybody straight as to which day is holy and sanctified by God? Where in the Bible is a change of this magnitude explicitly announced?   3. How do you reconcile God's sovereignty and man's responsibility in salvation?  Resources: "Putting Amazing Back into Grace: Embracing The Heart Of The Gospel" by Michael Horton. Request our latest special offers call 1-833-THE-CORE (833-843-2673) to request them by phone.

Dr. Michael Horton and Adriel Sanchez answer caller questions. Key questions answered in today's show: 1. Why do so many churches teach that hell is a place of eternal torment when it says in the New Testament that only believers will put on immortality and in the Old Testament it teaches that the wicked will be destroyed and the New testament it teaches that death is the punishment for sin, for example in John 3:16. John's very clear about the symbolism of the lake of fire being the second death. I don’t understand why so many mainstream churches teach this place of eternal torment. It doesn’t make any sense when people say God is a God of justice. This is very serious to me because it seems like blasphemy against God to say that he is wicked and like Satan and to go against Scripture. 2. I have friends who have struggled to find a church because they did not feel like there was genuine community in most churches. In your opinion what is Biblical community? 3. I’m the only Christian in my family and I’m always getting into arguments because my family thinks I’m crazy and can’t understand why I have “given up on reason and embraced religion.” I would like to be able to tell them that I haven’t abandoned reason but when I try, they ask me to prove the Bible is true. Can you help me out in this area? 4. When was the blessed mother filled with the Holy Spirit? I read in the Bible that when they took Jesus to Jerusalem to celebrate the passover he was 12 years old. They left and thought he was with them and he wasn’t. They went back to find him and when they did, he told her, "didn’t you know I would be about my father’s business?" At this point it seems to me that she wasn’t filled with the Holy Spirit. I believe she was filled with the Holy Spirit in Acts 1 where all the apostles and Mary was there also and filled with the Holy Spirit.  Resources: "Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian in Community" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer; "Why Should I Believe that Jesus Rose from the Dead?" by Dr. Michael Horton; "The Story of Reality: How the World Began, How It Ends, and Everything Important that Happens in Between" by Gregory Koukl. Request our latest special offers call 1-833-THE-CORE (833-843-2673) to request them by phone.