Is it ever okay to use explicit language in our prayers to God? That's just one of the questions

we'll be answering on today's edition of Core Christianity. Hi, I'm Bill Meyer, along with

Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day.

We would love to hear from you, and our phone lines are open right now. You can call us for the next 25 minutes at this number, 8333-the-core. That's 1-833-843-2673. You can also post your question on one of our social media sites, and of course,

you can always email us at questions at core Christianity.com. First up today, a voicemail from one of our

listeners named Saul. I really enjoy the program. Thank you, Pastor Adriel, Bill for just the work that you do. Thanks for just making my car ride home from work and to work enjoyable.

But the question I have is the Old Testament saints, we believe that they were saved looking forward to Christ and what Christ would do. My question

is, were they regenerated? Were they what we would call born again? So that's my question.

Saul, what an excellent question. Yeah, I mean, there is some confusion out there on this because I think there are some Christians who think, well, you know, people under the Old Testament and the Old Covenant were saved by their obedience to the law, by their works. And then God progressively got more gracious. And now in time of the New Testament, you know, it's forgiveness of sins. It's the grace of Jesus Christ, that kind of a thing. But the reality is believers in the Old Testament and in the New Testament

were saved in the exact same way. In fact, the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 4, a text that I bet

you're familiar with, he says that Abraham was justified by faith. That is, he received justification.

He was accounted righteous in Christ even, looking forward to the promises of God in the Messiah, spoken of throughout

the Old Testament. He was counted as righteous by faith. And so one thing that we got to be

really careful that we don't do is suggest that Old Testament believers

were saved one way and New Testament believers were saved another way. And if he was saved by

faith, then yes, I would say that he was regenerated. That regeneration might be a helpful

thing to just define that for a moment because that's that's kind of a technical word

theological word we're talking about the work of the holy spirit in an individual's life giving

them a brand new heart giving them life raising them from the dead spiritually speaking we might we might

say this is the work of the Holy Spirit in an individual's life.

And it happens through the word, through the proclamation of the word.

And as the word, whether it was prophetically looking forward to the Messiah and his salvific work in the Old Testament,

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