September 27, 2017 Show with Chris Rosebrough on “The Protestant Reformation: Why it Was Necessary & Why it’s Still Needed (Part 2)”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 27th day of September 2017, and I'm delighted to have back as a returning guest to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio somebody who has certainly quickly become one of my favorite guests,

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Chris Rosebro, a confessional Lutheran and pastor of Kongsvinger Lutheran Church in Oslo, Minnesota, which is a member of the

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AALC Synod, and he also runs Pirate Christian Radio and hosts the

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Fighting for the Faith podcast. Today we are addressing part two of a discussion that we began last week, the

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Protestant Reformation, why it was necessary and why it's still needed, with today being a special emphasis on the latter part of that statement, why it's still needed.

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And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Chris Rosebro.

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Thanks for having me back, Chris. It's a lot of fun. Yes it is, and visiting co -host today,

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I'm so delighted to have in studio with me for the first time Pastor Luke T.

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Zimmerman of Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, which is a member of the

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Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and it's great to have you as a part of our discussion for the first time today,

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Pastor Luke. Thanks, Chris, look forward to it. And in studio also is my regular co -host, the Reverend Buzz Taylor.

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And I'm not of any of those synods. We're still wondering if you're Christian, Buzz, but anyway.

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I'm a Presbyterian, does that count? Just to help our little ecumenical gathering here today. And there are millions of embarrassed

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Presbyterians right now listening. But if anybody would like to join us on the air right now with a question for Chris Rosebro, regarding our topic, our email address is

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ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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Please at least give us your first name, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

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USA. Before we jump into the discussion at hand, since Pastor Luke is a first -time participant on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, I wanted to get a little bit of your background.

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Pastor Luke, not everyone has a cookie -cutter experience with the Christian faith.

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Although there is one gospel that saves us and one Christ that saves us, there are different providential occurrences in our lives that bring us to a knowledge of Christ, that bring us to a knowledge of the gospel, a knowledge of His Word.

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And for instance, you have some people raised in the Christian faith who cannot remember a time in their lives when they did not believe in Jesus.

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And there are others that have more of a crisis experience where there is more of a stark contrast from darkness to light that they can vividly remember.

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But let's hear about your story about when you came to realize that the

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Bible is true, that Jesus Christ truly is God, and that the Trinity is a truth, and the gospel is the one and only way to salvation, and so on.

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And of course, added on to that, when you realized that you had received a call from God to the pastorate.

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Oh, great. Sure, Chris. I come from one of those families that was members of the church kind of from way back.

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I come from two parents who were believers. They were Lutheran school teachers to begin with, and my father went off to the seminary himself.

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And I'm one of those that really can't remember not being part of the church, not being part of the group of people who hear all about Christ's work as the scriptures talk about it.

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So it was always kind of part of the childhood, and growing up had an opportunity to attend

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Lutheran parochial school all the way from first grade through ninth grade. And I kind of thank

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God for that, because not everyone has that opportunity, obviously. And as far as when it came into the seminary, it helps to be from a family that has a clergy in it.

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You kind of sort of know a little bit about it. But quite honestly, you know, it kind of reached halfway through my senior year of college and is so interesting.

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I had had applications for graduate school and law school, and those things just never got filled out.

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And part of it was the encouragement of our Lutheran campus group, home congregation, other people who knew me, and said, we really think this might be something you ought to take up.

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And also having the opportunity to teach Sunday school classes and things before that, and kind of ushered in.

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And how long have you been pastoring there at Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church?

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At Calvary I've been there nine years and a couple of months. And one thing that's interesting and unique about your congregation, or the congregation where you pastor, is that the

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Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, is a host site for Concordia Seminary's continuing education courses.

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That's true. Yeah, we've been doing that for five years or so. We usually have about three days, either at the very, very tail end of July or very, very beginning of August, where a professor comes in and teaches for a few days.

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And it really helps us who are pastors in the field. We remember our classes. We remember things we taught.

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Many of us still have those textbooks and refer back to them and things. But to have an instructor come in, and especially to have fellowship time as well for a number of our, especially

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LCMS clergy in this mid -Atlantic region, and we gather together. And the idea of sharpening the blades a little more, yeah, definitely so.

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So that kind of continuing that is an important thing. Now, I understand that although these courses are coming from a distinctly and specifically a

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Lutheran perspective, that members of the clergy of other denominations are welcome to take part in the courses.

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Yeah, certainly they could. And if they have an interest in it, look for some information to come out, you know, kind of the spring and summer, and the more the merrier.

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And we'll be repeating your contact information towards the end of the program. So everybody listening should make sure that they have a pen and paper handy for all of the contact information that we'll be giving during the broadcast today.

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And let me repeat once again, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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And if you have a question for today's guest, Chris Roseborough, please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence.

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If you live outside the USA, you may remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter. Well, Pastor Chris, I think that it would be wise for us, even though we pretty much wrapped up the first half of our stated theme last week, the

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Protestant Reformation, why it was necessary. If you could give us a summary, perhaps, before we go on to the next important aspect of this, why it's still needed.

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All right. In talking about the Reformation, clearly the mitigating need for Reformation was that the

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Church had mixed the sound doctrine of Scripture with literal man -made doctrines and traditions that had obscured, conflicted with, and totally obliterated, in many cases, the

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Biblical doctrine of salvation by grace through faith alone. And because of the mythological man -made doctrines that had crept into the

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Church, including indulgences, the doctrine of purgatory, prayers to the saints, praying masses for the dead, and all this other nonsense that crept up in the

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Middle Ages, what ended up happening is that people were not hearing the clarion call of the

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Gospel to repent of their sins and be forgiven by the shed blood of Christ, and that Christ was sufficient for our salvation.

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And as a result of Martin Luther's rediscovery of the Gospel, and then beginning to challenge the

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Roman Catholic practice of indulgences, which at the time was the fundraising technique that they were using to raise the funds to build

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St. Peter's in Rome, that's really what was the spark that hit the tinder that ignited the whole thing.

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And so that was what really brought about the need for the Reformation.

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And unfortunately, as we are on the 500th anniversary of the

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Reformation itself, and the posting of the 95 Theses, Christianity is in dire need of a

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Reformation again, because a whole new crop of devilish doctrines, man -made traditions, and ideas have crept into the visible

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Church, and are once again obscuring sound Biblical doctrine, and covering up and obliterating, in many cases, the

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Biblical doctrine of the real Gospel of salvation through Christ. I don't know if you've experienced this, but when

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I speak to people who perhaps are either really caught up in more of a shallow, modern evangelicalism, or perhaps they're just nominal believers, or just raw unbelievers, when you discuss with them

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Christianity and the differences between denominations and so forth, people's understanding can be very surface level and peripheral.

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They will say things like, oh, you're different from the

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Roman Catholics because you don't burn incense, and they call their ministers father and priests, and they will only focus on things like that that are external, but the differences that separate true heirs of the

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Reformation and the Church of Rome are much more huge, much more significant, and in fact have much more serious consequences that have eternal ramifications, don't they?

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Oh yeah, and for somebody to just kind of judge based upon mere appearances, especially in regards to things where there is neither a commandment that forbids or requires certain practices, that would be something that is adiophora, they look at mere appearances on things like this, and they don't look at the substance of what it is that's taught in Rome, or in Lutheranism, or the

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Presbyterian Church. When they make those surface -level judgments, they couldn't be farther away from what they really need to be doing, and this is in part driven by the fact that in our lifetimes, gentlemen, you know,

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Chris included, we've seen a major drift within Evangelicalism, and you know, when

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I was growing up in Evangelicalism, you could still hear

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God's Word preached, at least with some depth, and I would argue that oftentimes the pastor would confuse the

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Biblical distinctions of law and gospel, but at least people would get a fair hearing of the

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Biblical text, and would be familiar with the actual stories of Scripture.

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But what this has been replaced with in our time, under the guise of, well, we need to be contemporary and relevant, is a complete obliterating of any real substantive study of God's Word.

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And it begins on the stage now, I don't even know if we can talk about pulpits so much anymore, it begins on the stage where a sermon now is four or five verses ripped out of context, designed to be relevant to help you make a difference in the world, and then small group

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Bible studies aren't really Bible studies, you'll read a couple of verses out of context, and then go around the room sharing with each other what that verse or word means to you.

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And as a result of it, there are a lot of people who are engaging in religious church activity in places that call themselves

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Christian churches, but at the end of the day, they really don't know anything of what the

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Bible actually says and teaches, and their concept of Biblical doctrine is miserable.

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And you know, I forgot to mention this earlier, but when introducing my guest co -host,

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Pastor Luke Zimmerman, one of the things that I forgot to mention, which has relevance to our discussion today, one thing that gets to be confusing is when even

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Missouri Synod Lutheran congregations call themselves things such as Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church, because immediately one may think of the

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Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, which is ironically, in spite of the name, evangelical, is the most liberal of the synods.

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In fact, most of my conservative Bible -believing friends in and out of Lutheranism would call them apostate.

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But why is it that the Missouri Synod and even the Wisconsin Synod congregations still carry with them often the term evangelical in their name?

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Well, some of that has to do with carrying things over from Europe. I mean, the idea of the evangelicals was kind of like the name that what we kind of call

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Lutherans now really thought of themselves as. I mean, the idea of restoring the gospel, being bound to the gospel in its articles, the idea of really preaching the atoning work of Christ as the way that we are made right with God and his justice was just part and parcel of it.

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I mean, that's what we were about, the idea of we're in the church, but we are fully emphasizing this.

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And then when you come into the United States, well, some of the

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American religious landscape is different, but you have this name that you brought with you from the old world.

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And there's another kind of thing. There were different types of Lutherans, of course, within the United States, and some of them really looked at themselves as being kind of a united Lutheran or union

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Lutheran, and that was not really keeping as much some of the distinctions between Lutheran teaching and other

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Protestant teaching. So it is a little bit of an out -of -place sort of thing now in our context.

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Because even someone outside of Lutheranism like myself, I'm a Reformed Baptist, a

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Calvinist, and we sometimes wonder when it is appropriate or if it is appropriate anymore to even use the term evangelical because it seems to become meaningless because of the way that things change over time, as you know, and they're used in completely different ways.

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And a key example is the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Pastor Chris, if you could tell us approximately when that church really completely jumped the ship of orthodoxy.

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Well, that's going to be, I would go back to the 60s, you know, kind of post -World

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War II is when things began to kind of pick up ahead of steam. But in our lifetimes, really since the 80s, it's begun to come to a head.

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And then in the early 2000s, I mean, that's, you know, when the liberals in that denomination had pretty much taken over.

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But that is the fruit of decisions that were made decades, and in some cases almost a century earlier, going back to the seminary educations that people were receiving in continental

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Europe, which was a fashionable thing for Lutheran pastors to do in the 20th century, to go to Germany, to begin

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Erlangen and places like that, and get their seminary education. Those seminaries had made the decision to basically engage in what is known as higher criticism, and literally attack the scriptures and question its authority, its authorship, its inspiration, and things of this nature, and kind of relegate it to a man -made book, or, you know, a man -made library of people's experiences with the divine or whatever, and question, you know, who wrote it, when it was written, especially in regards to the

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Gospels. You know, they absolutely denied that they were written by the eyewitnesses very early after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ.

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Modernism had a huge impact on their understanding of the biblical text, and they were denying that miracles were possible, and as a result of it,

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I mean, they literally undercut the entire, you know, foundation of the scriptures itself, and then, you know, began to become, you know, congregations adrift at sea, as more and more of their pastors being trained in this in seminary would come back and teach this to their congregation.

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And so this took place over a long period of time, but really comes to a head in the first decade of this millennium, and it just continues to roll down the tracks and head into the cliff, into the abyss of hell itself.

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Now, sadly, this is the ELCA. That is the largest denomination that identifies itself as Lutheran, is it not?

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Yes. In the United States, anyway. Now, would you go as far as I would and label it as an apostate organization?

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I would say that their leadership and, you know, the organization itself is firmly promoting an apostate religion that is neither evangelical or Lutheran, but that does not mean that there are not some kind of holdout pastors within that synod.

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I know a few fellows who are delaying retirement for fear that upon their, you know, their demise, their congregation will be handed over to a wolf.

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And so, yeah, there are some holdouts, but for the most part, you're not going to hear the gospel, you're not going to hear the truth in those congregations.

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Yeah, I've met on a couple of occasions, well, at Reformed Bible conferences,

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I've met a couple of ELCA ministers who were thoroughly conservative who were in attendance, and they pretty much gave the same kind of an explanation as to why they're still there.

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Have you ever heard of a liberal reasoning how they could, in any logical and consistent way, identify themselves as a

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Lutheran when they, if they were to be honest, would know that if Luther returned to the planet

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Earth today, he would never join any of their congregations? Yeah, that's kind of an interesting question.

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I think they'd maintain something of a cultural shell. One of the things we have to remember is that Lutheranism comes into the

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United States, oftentimes through immigrants who remain distinct to their kind of cultural heritage.

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So you're going to have pockets of Lutheranism that are Norwegian, Swedish, German, and oftentimes the ethnicity is the piece that kind of holds it all together.

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So in these congregations where the truth has been obliterated by their denial of the scriptures, they hang on to kind of an outer shell that is culturally

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Lutheran and oftentimes tied to their ethnicity. So in our region over here, we have a lot of Norwegian Lutherans, and the liberal

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Norwegian Lutherans, I mean, they're Lutheran because their mom was Lutheran, their grandma was

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Lutheran, and the Lutheran thing to do is to have less of it together.

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If you were to push beyond that, what does it mean to be a Lutheran? You're not going to get even remotely sounding like the

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Oxford Confession. Right. I have a childhood friend of mine who was raised in a

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Missouri Synod congregation nearby where I live, and we went to separate high schools.

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He went to a Lutheran high school and so on, and when he moved to Utah, he just joined the closest

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Lutheran church, and then he started to hear what was being taught, and he was from a more conservative bent.

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Not the most religious guy, but he was a lifetime member of born and raised in Lutheranism, but it was a different animal altogether that he was experiencing, and he had to leave there because even outside of Christian doctrine, he could sense that there was something so leftist about this congregation that he could not remain there.

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Yeah, that's absolutely true. Oddly enough,

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I'm friends with a very famous ELCA pastor. Her name is

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Nadia Bowles -Weber, and we still talk from time to time. A few years back, we had an interesting conversation regarding the authority of Scripture, and she noted something in our conversation, and she said, you know,

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Chris, I've got a question for you, and she said, if they were to find the bones of Jesus Christ today, would you still be a

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Christian? I said, no way, of course not. I mean, the Apostle Paul is clear on this, that if Christ is not raised, then our faith is in vain, and that we're liars about God.

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I said, I have better things to do on a Sunday afternoon or morning worshiping a guy who really didn't rise from the grave.

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You know, that means Christianity is the sham. And so I turned it on her, and I said, would you still be a

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Christian? She said, yeah, I would. I would just think that the word raised, you know, when talking about the

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Resurrection, probably meant something different than bodily. And I said, no, you can't play word games like that.

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He's either raised from the dead or he's not. So I think when you talk about it being a different animal,

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I mean, it's a different animal as far as epistemology, which is how you know what you know. It's a different animal in how they approach the

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Scriptures, and even what they do with language and words itself. You know, they come up with all these fanciful ways of kind of getting around what the text says and what it clearly means when you read it in context, and that's really what's at the heart of this.

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They've created an idol that they call Lutheranism, but it's as much as a false deity as Molech or Asherah or any of the other false gods of the ancient world.

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And we're going to go to our first station break right now. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the good old

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USA, and only remain anonymous if it is about a personal and private matter over which you are asking.

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And so don't go away, God willing, we're going to be right back after these messages with Chris Roseborough and why the

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Reformation is still needed. We'll be right back. Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio is sponsored by Harvey Cedars, a year -round

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Iron Sharpens today. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune in to A Visit to the

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Pastor's Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m. Eastern Time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am

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.com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the pastor's study by calling in with your questions.

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Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon

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Eastern Time for A Visit to the Pastor's Study, because everyone needs a pastor. And don't forget that Pastor Bill Shishko, whose voice you just heard, is my keynote speaker,

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God willing, at the next Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pastor's Luncheon. This event is absolutely free of charge from beginning to end.

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The whole idea came from her precious mind, led by the Holy Spirit, I believe.

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We have been conducting these pastor's luncheons annually, and after she went home to be with the

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Lord for eternity, I have picked up the mantle and continued these pastor's luncheons.

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The next one is Thursday, October 26th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. at the

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Carlisle Fire and Rescue Banquet Hall. And not only are you going to be fed for free physically with delicious food and spiritually with an excellent message from God's Word, but you're also going to be leaving that room or that banquet hall with a very heavy sack filled with a couple of dozen brand new books donated by major Christian publishers all over the

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United States and the United Kingdom. If you'd like to register for this free event, as long as you are a man in ministry leadership, whether it's a pastor, an elder, a deacon, or a leader in a parachurch organization, please send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail dot com, chrisarnson at gmail dot com, and put a pastor's luncheon in the subject line.

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And I look forward to hearing from you, and I look forward to seeing many of you, not only those who have come to my previous pastor's luncheons, but I look forward to meeting many new brothers in Christ and making new acquaintances and hopefully even new long -lasting friendships.

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So send me that email and register as soon as you can for Thursday, October 26th, 11 a .m.

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to 2 p .m. at the Carlisle Fire and Rescue Banquet Hall. Well, we are back now with our discussion with Chris Rosebrough.

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This is a continuation of a discussion we began last Wednesday on the theme, the

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Protestant Reformation, why it was necessary and why it's still needed. And today we are really primarily discussing the latter, why it's still needed.

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And in studio with me is a special guest co -host, Reverend Luke T. Zimmerman, who is pastor of Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, which is a

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Lutheran Missouri Synod congregation. And in studio also is Reverend Buzz Taylor, my normal co -host.

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We are facing unique things today, as you know, Pastor Chris.

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Martin Luther was primarily protesting against the idolatry and the works righteousness gospel of Rome, but today we not only have that to contend with, but liberalism is at its worst.

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We have ministers who claim to be ambassadors of Christ, marrying men to men and women to women.

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We have all kinds of grotesque and horrific practices being conducted in the name of Jesus Christ.

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So the Reformation that we speak of is more than just continually shining the spotlight on the fact that Rome still has a false gospel, one contrary to the biblical gospel, that offers no real hope for a true peace or eternal life.

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But also we have this grotesque mutation of the left that disguises itself as Christianity because they claim to be more loving, compassionate, and tolerant and understanding than we are, and they believe that the right thing to fulfill those kind of attributes, which they would claim are attributes of Christ, is to be welcoming of people to be unrepentant and enter into any sphere of life that they choose to while carrying with them the baggage of their homosexuality or whatever else, whatever abomination that they care to identify themselves with.

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So this is quite a different world than Luther's world, isn't it? Yeah, and I would note that for all the claims of the liberal

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Lutheran, you got to put Lutheran in quotes, you know, for all their claims of being loving and tolerant,

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I would argue that they are absolutely intolerant and legalistically so.

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In my experience, in my conversations with postmodern liberals and emergent liberals, you know, in the

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ALCA and in the emergent movement, they have no tolerance of those who actually hold to and believe what

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Scripture reveals regarding human sexuality, and if you contradict them, they will shout you down and shame you for daring to speak up and utter what

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God's Word says about these things. And I would point to the, you know, the

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ELCA liberal reaction against the Nashville Statement a few weeks back.

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I mean, you know, these people literally came unglued, and if you go back and you read the

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Nashville Statement, the Nashville Statement I said on that radio program, it wasn't rocket surgery.

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I mean, they pretty much just restated what Scripture says about how

36:52

God has created humanity, male and female, and that there's a proper place for human sexuality, and that is within a monogamous heterosexual union, a lifelong marriage between a man and a woman, and outside of that, sex is forbidden.

37:13

And the liberals absolutely were tearing their hair out, and I mean,

37:20

I swear I heard the explosion here in North Dakota, you know, and the explosion happened on the internet, that all the

37:27

Nashville Statement did was, you know, restate and reaffirm, you know, very concisely and succinctly what

37:34

Scripture says about these things. One thing I'd like to ask Pastor Luke Zimmerman, being a local pastor, do you have a frequent occurrence where people will wander into your congregation thinking it might be more along the lines of a liberal

37:50

ELCA congregation, and then they find out that you have quite a different message than what they were thinking they were going to receive?

37:59

Oh, every once in a while we do, but actually in some ways we kind of had the opposite happening, where people come in hearing about some of these

38:10

Lutheran ideas, kind of the classic Lutheran ideas, and then they hear about this kind of strange named church body that apparently is based in Missouri somewhere, and then they pop in, and you're like, yeah, and this kind of sounds like what we had been used to, and so sometimes we pick people up that way.

38:32

I think it's interesting, Pastor Chris, I mean, when you have this idea, when you look at the Reformation, I mean, some of the kind of shell of Lutheranism that you kind of mentioned, it's like the idea, what does it mean to be

38:43

Lutheran? And it's kind of like, well, you must always have a spirit of reformation or a spirit of change, and you compare that to the events in the

38:53

Reformation proper itself, where it was bringing the scriptures to bear against what the church was teaching, and then now occasionally when you actually say, well, let's do that, let's bring the scriptures to bear against what we are teaching, and is it really truly the norm, the source from which we are gathering our teachings, and it's like, well, it might be, or it might substitute something else, or we don't like what it says, and it's just like it's kind of completely reversed.

39:25

I mean, remember the human sexuality discussion and meeting with some of the, you might call it the resistance within the

39:33

ELCA, and they talked about this idea of the bound conscience that was in their statements, and of course, always kind of the question was, to what is the conscience bound?

39:44

And you would think that Luther would answer that in a very different way than the way the liberal

39:49

Lutherans are, and not just us, but of course, other

39:54

Protestant denominations as well. Yeah, have you heard, either of you, from the liberal side of Lutheranism, or even just liberal apostates in general, that they, because I heard this in one documentary

40:15

I saw years ago, where liberals were actually saying that they are carrying on the true spirit of Semper Reformata by questioning everything and reforming everything to the point where now, you know, we have women and clergy in certain denominations, and even unrepentant homosexuals, and so on.

40:40

But what Pastor Chris Zimmerman, I'm sorry, Luke Zimmerman, just reflected on is that we're supposed to be reforming according to what the scriptures teach, and making ourselves more compliant and reflective of them, not just reforming for the sake of change.

40:56

Yeah, and that's a big difference, Chris, and you really put your finger on it.

41:01

Change for the sake of change turns change into the standard, and you know, the

41:09

Reformation, especially the Lutheran Reformation, was clear that the standard is not change, the standard is

41:16

God's Word. It is the norming norm. And so change for the sake of change is actually, in the true sense of what the

41:26

Greek word apostasia means, the word itself means rebellion. Change for the sake of change is rebellion.

41:34

And so they've taken Reformation and replaced it with revolution, and there's a big disconnect between what they think

41:44

Reformation is and what they're doing. What they're really engaging in is rebellion, and so we don't change for the sake of change, and the idea of semper reformanda always has this idea that we're always reforming, and the reason why there's a need to always reform is because the human heart is a factory that creates idols, and so every single one of us in every generation always has ways in which it ends up in the ditch and creates its own idols, and so there's always a need to bring the

42:21

Church back to the Scriptures, back to Christ, back to the Gospel. It's kind of the

42:27

Vince Lombardi approach to Christianity, where Vince Lombardi stands up and holds up a football and says, gentlemen, this is a football.

42:35

And so we have to constantly be opening up the Bible and saying, gentlemen, this is the

42:40

Bible, and we need to be in this thing and paying attention to it. And people sit there and go, oh no, man, if we do that, then my favorite new doctrine won't be represented.

42:52

One thing that we should make sure we keep in the mix here,

42:59

Pastor Luke Zimmerman, before the program began, was lamenting that some former, or perhaps they're not former friends, but former colleagues in ministry perhaps, had departed from Lutheran waters into Eastern Orthodoxy, and people somehow have the mistaken notion that Eastern Orthodoxy is more orthodox, ironically, because of the fact that they don't believe in an infallible

43:33

Pope. They don't claim the Pope is their head, so people sometimes have a mistaken view that, well, they're okay then, because they don't have a claim to an infallible papacy, so they must be more like us.

43:48

But this isn't true at all, is it? No. Yeah, let's just say that if you want to have just a kind of a cursory, put your toe in the water regarding the major problems with the

44:06

Eastern Orthodoxy, I would argue that it has institutionalized the Pelagian heresy, and their concept of authority is literally kind of wackerdoodle, and not only that, if you're really talking to a true

44:20

Eastern Orthodox fellow, I mean, they practically deny that you can be saved unless you're one of them.

44:27

I mean, it's a strange sect, and there's no way we could do it justice.

44:35

I mean, that would take several hours to kind of unpack all of that, but I would start there, is the best way

44:41

I can put it. Yeah, by the way, Pastor Luke, do you still have any contact with these friends who have entered into the

44:47

Eastern Orthodoxy? Yeah, we do, we do, but it just becomes kind of a topic of discussion we just don't bring up.

44:56

At some point, you kind of reach a loggerhead, and they've cast their lot, and we hope that they could still retain a trust in Christ's work for their salvation, and commend them to God's grace that way.

45:16

Well, I guess if you're a Lutheran, it would be a loggerhead, and if you're Greek Orthodox, it would be an ouzo head.

45:24

Possibly so. Only if you like liquorice. Yes. Right.

45:30

The thing that has become quite disturbing in that regard is that the

45:39

Eastern Orthodox appeal to the fact, just as the Church of Rome does, they appeal to an ancient pedigree, and just because something is ancient doesn't mean it's ancient enough.

45:53

Am I right, Pastor Chris? Yeah. People forget when they bring up this ancient pedigree that there were heresies that sprang up while the

46:02

New Testament was still being written. I mean, that means nothing. That doesn't prove anything. Yeah, and so they're going, we're really old.

46:12

I mean, I'll give you an example that kind of takes it a little bit out of Eastern Orthodoxy, although it's technically in their camp.

46:18

You take a look at somebody like the Desert Fathers, and so you can find in the 3rd and 4th century examples of, you know,

46:28

Christian monasticism, and it's a reaction against Constantinianism, and you know, you have to kind of study these things out, and so you look into today's modern mystics, and they'll sit there and go, oh man, this stuff is really old.

46:43

This has been around since the Desert Fathers, and I would just simply say, well, that's not old enough.

46:50

I mean, the Christianity that I'm subscribing to has been around since Christ ascended in the day of Pentecost.

46:57

Can you say that? You know, so we come back to the biblical text, and so just simply saying that something is old doesn't mean that it's true.

47:06

The question is, is it old enough, and is it saying the same thing? So when we, in our confessions, you think of the

47:13

Nicene Creed or the Apostles' Creed, when we confess that we believe in one holy

47:21

Christian, or you can say Catholic, an apostolic faith, when we talk about the word apostolic, what do we mean when we say we believe in an apostolic faith?

47:30

Answer, it is the faith once delivered to the saints as recorded in the apostolic scriptures, which builds off of and fulfills the prophets of the

47:41

Old Testament. And so, you know, I would say that Eastern Orthodoxy, although it's really old, isn't apostolic in many cases, and that's the issue.

47:54

Whereas Lutheranism, the Lutheran Reformation, was meticulously conservative, and really kind of took a look at the ship, if you were to compare

48:04

Christianity to a ship. They took the ship out of the water and shaved off the barnacles and made sure to keep the wood.

48:12

East to East, though, sits there and goes, those barnacles have been on this ship for centuries, for millennia, and so we gotta keep them.

48:20

You know, the Lutherans sit there and go, yeah, no, that's not wood, those are barnacles, they gotta go. You know, so that's kind of the idea.

48:26

Now, would you say that even though there are many different fronts that we are facing in this modern day of Reformation that is needed, in spite of the fact that it is multifaceted, our enemy is multifaceted, in a much broader sense than Luther faced, it really boils down, in many senses, to a rejection of the five solos of the

48:51

Reformation, whether you are a Roman Catholic, whether you are an Eastern Orthodox, or whether you are a modern evangelical, or whether you are a

49:01

Pentecostal who is always starving for an extra biblical experience or supernatural occurrence in their life, something beyond the scriptures to prove to them that Jesus is who he says he is, or to the other extreme of the liberal apostate, they are all rejecting, in some sense, in some completely, in all senses, the five solos of the

49:25

Reformation? Yeah, that's absolutely straight up true. And oftentimes, it's always the first one that goes is

49:35

Sola Scriptura. You know, as soon as my ideas, my thoughts, my feelings, my experiences are raised, you know, and mixed in with scripture, as soon as you jettison

49:51

Sola Scriptura, then you are literally on the road now to inventing your own religion.

49:59

I mean, it's always the first move to attack scripture and deny its sufficiency so that you can bring alongside of scripture a different authority system altogether, whether it's

50:12

Mormonism in the Book of Mormon, often, you know, in the NAR, it's these modern -day apostles and prophets.

50:20

You know, in liberalism, it's their own reason and rationale that they've brought alongside the scriptures, and over and again, that when that move is made, then the secondary source of authority continues to grow where it crowds out the scriptures altogether.

50:39

And the religion that they create always will hijack biblical terms and Christian terminology, but evacuate them of any of their biblical meanings, and then we're off to the races, you know.

50:53

Salvation, race to faith disappears. I mean, everything ends up just in the ash heap, and it's fascinating to watch, but it's absolutely distressing at the same time.

51:06

And I would include in this denial of Sola Scriptura the modern -day allegiance that evangelicals play or give to the role of psychology and humanist philosophy in regard to psychology, and as much as I have appreciated some of what

51:33

Dr. James Dobson has taught and written about, I was always a bit troubled by an unbiblical focus on psychological goals in life to build people's self -esteem and things like that, when you never see anything like in the scripture, because from what

51:55

I can read in the Bible, our problem is that we already have too high of a self -esteem. Yeah, Satan's big problem is he's focused in on himself, and he's taught us to do the same.

52:09

So Satan is the one who says, I will ascend to the highest height, I will do this,

52:14

I will do that, and he's taught us to do the same, and self -esteem is a terrible, terrible basis for Christian doctrine, because believe me, my ego is the problem.

52:25

It is not part of the solution. It's the thing I need to repent of daily. Yeah, and far too many evangelicals of all stripes,

52:35

I think, bow the knee too often, far too often to Freud than they may even realize, rather than to Christ.

52:46

We're going to our midway break, it's a bit longer than our normal break because of the fact that we are being compliant to the specific guidelines of Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida, who requires our program to have a longer break in the middle.

53:02

So be patient with us and write down your questions and send them in while we're on this break.

53:08

Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com.

53:16

Please give us your first name, city and state and country of residence if you live outside the USA. I'm going to read a question which is being posed to both

53:24

Pastor Chris and Pastor Luke, and then I'll have you both answer it when we return.

53:30

This is from Joey in Clifton, New Jersey. He says, I am wondering why we do not hear more about controversy over Mary, the mother of Jesus, during the

53:40

Reformation. Is this simply because the Roman Catholic dogmas about Mary had not yet progressed to the point they would in later councils, or is it partly because even the

53:51

Reformers themselves retained some aspects of their former Mariology? And the second aspect of this question, or second part of the question, second and related, is the liberalization of the modern

54:04

Lutheran Church. Do you notice any kind of resurgence of false doctrine regarding Mary, particularly with the progression of feminism?

54:13

Hmm, that's interesting. And I believe there was a Lutheran pastor that wrote some book not long ago promoting the adoration of Mary or the veneration of Mary.

54:29

But anyway, perhaps you two could think about that and respond when we return from the break. So don't go away.

54:35

God willing, we will be right back after these messages with more of Chris Roseborough on why we still need the

54:42

Protestant Reformation. Iron Sharpens Iron welcomes

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01:00:03

Or check out their website at wrbc .us.

01:00:12

That's wrbc .us. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune into A Visit to the

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Pastors' Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 pm Eastern Time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am

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.com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the

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Pastors' Study by calling in with your questions. Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull.

01:00:50

Join us this Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Time for A Visit to the Pastors' Study, because everyone needs a pastor.

01:01:00

Hi, I'm Buzz Taylor, frequent co -host with Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

01:01:06

I would like to introduce you to my good friends Todd and Patty Jennings at CVBBS, which stands for Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

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Their website is CVBBS .com. Browse the pages at ease, shop at your leisure, and purchase with confidence as Todd and Patty work in service to you, the church, and to Christ.

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That's Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service at CVBBS .com. That's CVBBS .com.

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Let Todd and Patty know that you heard about them on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. And don't forget to go to CVBBS .com

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01:02:58

Before I return to our discussion with Chris Roseborough on the Reformation, why was it necessary and why it's still needed,

01:03:06

I have some important announcements to make regarding events that our sponsors are conducting.

01:03:13

On Friday, September 29th and Saturday, September 30th, that's this weekend, the

01:03:18

Word of Truth Church, in cooperation with Long Island Spurgeon Fellowship, are presenting the

01:03:24

Gospel of the Reformation, a 500th anniversary in Farmingville, Long Island, New York.

01:03:31

And if you would like to join me there, I am heading out there, God willing, this weekend, to have an

01:03:37

Iron Sharpen's Iron exhibitor's booth there, and to see my old friend Dr. Tony Costa, who is

01:03:44

Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. He is the keynote speaker at this event.

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If you'd like to join me there and you want more information, go to wotchurch .com.

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W -O -T, which stands for Word of Truth, church .com, or call them at 631 -806 -0614.

01:04:04

631 -806 -0614. The very next day, Sunday, October 1st,

01:04:10

Dr. Tony Costa will be preaching at Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Medford, Long Island, New York at 11 a .m.

01:04:17

If you'd like to join me there at that Sunday morning worship service, you can go to hopereformedli .net

01:04:25

if you want more information on Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Medford, Long Island, New York. That's hopereformedli .net,

01:04:31

and the LI stands for Long Island, hopereformedli .net, or call 631 -696 -5711.

01:04:38

631 -696 -5711. And then, following that is the

01:04:45

Iron Sharpen's Iron radio pastor's luncheon, absolutely free of charge, featuring guest speaker

01:04:51

Bill Shishko, regional home missionary for Reformation Metro New York. And that's

01:04:57

Thursday, October 26th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m. at the Carlisle Fire and Rescue Banquet Hall in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

01:05:05

The free event includes free food and everything else that occurs at that event.

01:05:13

You won't have to spend a nickel there, and in fact, nothing is for sale there. So we urge you, if you are a man in ministry leadership, to join us.

01:05:23

You send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put pastor's luncheon in the subject line.

01:05:32

Then, coming up in November, the 17th through the 18th, the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is conducting their annual

01:05:39

Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology. And the theme is, For Still Our Ancient Foe, a line from that classic

01:05:46

Reformation hymn by Martin Luther, Mighty Fortress in reference to Satan. And the speakers include

01:05:52

Kent Hughes, Peter Jones, Tom Nettles, Dennis Cahill, and Scott Oliphant. If you'd like to join me there,

01:05:58

I'm going to be there, God willing, as well, with the Iron Sharpen's Iron exhibitor's booth. Go to their website, which is alliancenet .org,

01:06:07

alliancenet .org, excuse me, I got a tickle in the throat. Then you click on events, and then you click on Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology.

01:06:17

Then, after that, coming up in January, from the 17th through the 20th, the

01:06:24

G3 Conference is being held in Atlanta, Georgia, once again, on the theme,

01:06:30

Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship. On the 17th will be exclusively a

01:06:35

Spanish -speaking edition of the conference, and the 18th through the 20th will be an English -speaking edition of the conference, featuring

01:06:42

Stephen Lawson, Votie Balcombe, Phil Johnson, Keith Getty, H .P. Charles Jr., Tim Challies, Josh Bice, James White, Tom Askle, Anthony Mathenia, Michael Kruger, David Miller, Paul Tripp, Todd Friel, Derek Thomas, Martha Peace, and Justin Peters.

01:06:56

If you'd like to register for that event, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com.

01:07:01

Please always mention Chris Arnzen and Iron Sharpens Iron Radio when registering for any of these events, or even just when you're contacting these organizations to find out more about these events.

01:07:12

Please always mention that you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Once again comes that unpleasant task of asking you for money, made all the more unpleasant because of the wicked way that many charlatans in the media, many false televangelists have ruined this kind of an exercise for everybody.

01:07:35

And it always makes me uncomfortable to do this, even though I know that there's nothing wrong with it. In fact, it's all right and good to ask for help.

01:07:45

If you do love this program and it's a part of your daily habit, if you look forward to it every day, you don't want it to go off the air, if you've gained much edification from the guests and topics that we've had on this program, please write out a check to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and mail it to the address that you will find when you go to ironsharpensironradio .com.

01:08:09

ironsharpensironradio .com, click on support, and then you will have the mailing address. Please never ever ever siphon money out of the regular giving you are accustomed to in regard to your local church.

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That is a command of God to provide for your church. It's also a command of God to provide for your family, so never take food off of your family's dinner table if you're struggling to make ends meet.

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Providing for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is not a command of God, but if you are blessed above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands,

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I would love it to receive any gift that you can afford to give by making out a check to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and sending it to the address that you will find at ironsharpensironradio .com

01:08:50

and by clicking support. If you'd like to advertise with us, as long as whatever it is you're advertising does not conflict or militate against the theology expressed on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I would love to work with you on developing an advertising campaign because we could really use your advertising dollars, whether it's your church, your parachurch organization, your business, your corporation, your professional practice if you're a doctor, a lawyer, a dentist, a chiropractor, whether it's a special event you're having.

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As long as it's compatible with the theology of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, it doesn't have to be identical, but as long as it's compatible, then

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I would love to launch an ad campaign with you as soon as possible. Just send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:09:33

chrisarnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question for Chris Roseborough, our guest today on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Chris Roseborough who is the pastor at Kongsvinger Lutheran Church in Oslo, Minnesota.

01:09:55

He's also the founder of Pirate Christian Radio and the host of Fighting for the Faith podcast. We are discussing the

01:10:02

Protestant Reformation, why it was necessary and why it's still needed today. And our email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:10:11

Chris, before the break, I read you a question which I will repeat for the sake of those especially who just tuned us in.

01:10:20

The question is, I am wondering why we do not hear more about controversy over Mary, the mother of Jesus, during the

01:10:29

Reformation. Is this simply because the Roman Catholic dogmas about Mary had not yet progressed or progressed to the point they would in later councils, or is it partly because even the reformers themselves retained some aspects of their former

01:10:44

Mariology? Second and related is the liberalization of the modern Lutheran Church.

01:10:49

Do you notice any kind of resurgence of false doctrine regarding Mary, particularly with the progression of feminism?

01:10:56

If you could go through those one by one, Pastor Chris. Okay. So the answer to the first question is oftentimes when it comes to the idea of the

01:11:10

Reformation, the focus is on the main topic, and that is the salvation by grace through faith alone.

01:11:18

Oftentimes when you talk about the controversy of the Reformation, that's where the focus is going to stay. And so Mariology, the listener in his question noted that there has been a lot of development in Mariology since the time of the

01:11:35

Reformation. Where it is currently is not where it was at the time of the

01:11:41

Reformation, and Rome has definitely added some stuff to it and dogmatized some really crazy ideas regarding Mary.

01:11:50

But that's really since the time of the Reformation. As far as the liberalization of Mary, I would say that not only is there a resurgence of really bad doctrine regarding Mary, especially in the liberal camp, if you want to get an example of what that looks like, there's an

01:12:08

ELCA church in San Francisco, and you can find their website at herchurch .org,

01:12:15

h -e -r -church .org, and all I can say is before you hit the button on your computer to look at their website, you can't unsee what you see if you go there.

01:12:29

And they've kind of taken Mary and blended her with Sophia, and modern liberal feminism, and all

01:12:40

I can say is that yeah, there's been a resurgence of this stuff in addition to it, and the quintessential example is found at herchurch .org.

01:12:50

Wow, that is an interesting phenomenon, because in Rome, those who are most focused on Mariolatry are those that would not be feminists, those that would be more traditionalists and conservatives, and would oppose the ordination of women to the priesthood and so on, but they exaggerate and focus much of their attention and devotion to Mary above and beyond perhaps the normal Catholic.

01:13:22

But you have any comments, Pastor Luke Zimmerman? Well, I think it's interesting, I mean, kind of reflecting on the first part of the question, yes,

01:13:30

I mean, there were developments within Catholic doctrine, it's really in the 1800s, you get the

01:13:37

Immaculate Conception doctrine being kind of formalized, made official ex -cathedra by Pius IX.

01:13:48

But I think it's interesting, if we look at some of Luther's writings, when he has a commentary on the

01:13:54

Magnificat, or when he preaches on the Annunciation, so these examples from Luke's Gospel, Luke chapter 1, and you really can see

01:14:04

Mary as an example of faith, as we would others who are mentioned in the scriptures.

01:14:10

And I think there's a few things like this that really do tie to the

01:14:16

Reformation ideas. The credit being given that her estate has been raised because God did it.

01:14:26

God looked at her low estate and raised her. The idea that she can say in the

01:14:33

Annunciation that, let it be done to me according to the Lord's word, which of course is what all of us in faith need to do.

01:14:47

So when the Lord's word declares us to be righteous, we want to, yes, let that be done according to your word.

01:14:54

When it says that you are my child now and I've adopted you, yes, let that be done as you have said.

01:15:04

And you can see a couple things like in Luther's commentary on the Magnificat about how he speaks of Mary speaking of what the

01:15:15

Lord has done for her. And as people of faith, that's what we do.

01:15:22

And then we also then speak of what the Lord does for others, because what the Lord has done for us is, yes, he has brought us righteousness and made us his people, but there's the desire for that to happen not just for us, but for the others that we encounter, that they may also share in it.

01:15:44

And so sometimes if you can look at a few of Luther's either commentary on the Magnificat or some of his Annunciation sermons, you will see him describing

01:15:52

Mary as kind of a paragon of faith, and that is definitely a good thing to do.

01:15:58

And I think that you said something though that's key. Many Roman Catholics will look at the

01:16:03

Magnificat and they will see the angel recognizing some kind of innate superiority in Mary, even though the

01:16:12

Catholic Church will say that by grace Mary was preserved from sin in the womb and all that from the moment of conception.

01:16:18

But even though they will say that, usually when pressed to say it in a debate, they will usually just talk about Mary and refer to her as being innately superior to us, full of grace and so on.

01:16:30

So I think that you brought up a key part of that. Right, which she identifies herself of being of low estate, of being humble, and he pulls down those who are arrogant, right?

01:16:43

I mean, it does seem to be maybe not always engaging the text itself that's found in Luke 1.

01:16:51

And in a recent debate that I orchestrated here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, between my friend Robert St.

01:16:57

Genes, who's a Roman Catholic apologist, and my friend Dr. Tony Costa, who I mentioned earlier from Toronto Baptist Seminary, on the immaculate conception and perpetual sinlessness of Mary, he actually stated, and he is my friend, but I do not count him as a brother in Christ and he knows that,

01:17:18

Robert actually said there could be no salvation without Mary, because Mary had to give her permission to give birth to the

01:17:30

Messiah, and if she did not give her permission, then we would all be lost and have nothing but hell awaiting us.

01:17:37

Now I find that interesting that he would say that. You would think that God would have had a plan B if that was the case. He would have another woman immaculately conceived down the road.

01:17:47

But isn't that quite a blasphemous distortion of levels of involvement in our salvation, to actually say that without Mary there is no salvation?

01:18:03

I mean, do you find that as repugnant as I do, Pastor Chris? Yeah, I have a phrase that I use when statements are made like that, and it's called putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable.

01:18:18

Read the Nativity stories in Matthew and Luke, and the emphasis is on the

01:18:24

Christ, it's on the one who was going to be born, whose name was going to be Yeshua, because he's going to save his people.

01:18:33

And yeah, it's great that Mary said, may it be done to me according to what the

01:18:40

Lord has said, but that was not her giving permission. You're going to note that the angel

01:18:47

Gabriel didn't say, hey listen, I'm here to have you sign this consent form. You know, the angel

01:18:59

Gabriel is announcing what is going to happen, and she says, how can this be? I've never known a man!

01:19:05

And then she goes on to explain the Holy Spirit's going to overshadow you. And so she's an example of faith, not an example of somebody who's giving free will consent so that Christ can be born.

01:19:16

I mean, that's quite a twisting of the Nativity story. It was a prophecy, you know.

01:19:23

Right! Yeah, and I think an interesting idea of maybe, you know, kind of an understanding of human anthropology there, kind of a spiritual anthropology.

01:19:32

I mean, just what are the abilities of mankind?

01:19:40

And sometimes we have this idea, you know, we as listeners, of course, have the concept that God's Word works on us, and converts the will, you know, and regenerates.

01:19:53

And I think we would see that also happening within our

01:19:58

Lord's Mother as well. Yep. And I also would note that the Holy Spirit knows what

01:20:04

He's doing, because when He inspired Luke to write the Nativity story, in Luke we have two, not one, two examples of miraculous pregnancies.

01:20:16

First was Elizabeth, the wife of Zechariah, and the same angel appeared to him, and he really wasn't on board with this as far as, he was not believing what the angel was going to say, and so he was taught a lesson.

01:20:33

And so you're going to note that Zechariah, in Luke chapter 1, did not respond in faith, and he did not give his permission, yet his wife got pregnant anyway.

01:20:44

Yeah. So, you know, I think the Holy Spirit knew that Rome would drift in this way, if you would, and that's why we have two examples of miraculous conceptions in the

01:20:56

Nativity stories in Luke, and put the two together, and there's no way you can come up with this idea that without Mary giving consent, we wouldn't have the

01:21:06

Savior. No, that's not how that works. And Reverend Buzz Taylor has a comment. Interestingly enough, it was the other character in Luke 2 that we're told was filled with the

01:21:16

Holy Spirit from his mother's womb, and that was John. But, you know, we're not looking at a larger question here.

01:21:22

You know, if God, of course, is the author and finisher for our faith, we believe that, you know, He gave whatever faith

01:21:28

Mary had to her, just like He gives to everybody, but why, if she got a special... Everybody who's a

01:21:33

Christian. Right, right. If she had some kind of a special faith on her, or anything of that sort, we have to ask the question, why?

01:21:43

And we can't overlook the fact that she was just part of a larger picture. There were two genealogical lines that pointed straight to Mary and Joseph, that this had to be the

01:21:52

Messiah. She couldn't have said no. Right. Yeah, well, because God had given her faith as a gift, she wouldn't have said no.

01:22:02

Right. That's kind of the idea here. And then just real quick, to take a shot at Robert, who

01:22:09

I know, you know, St. Genesis is an interesting fellow, but to claim that Mary was sinless,

01:22:15

I think is, that's ridiculous. I mean, one of the writers explicitly points out that Mary and Jesus' brothers actually came to collect

01:22:25

Him on one occasion, thinking that He had lost His mind. And so, there is a clear example in the

01:22:32

Gospels of them not trusting and believing in the

01:22:37

One who was born to Mary, and if that isn't sin, then I don't know what is, to not trust

01:22:43

God, to not believe Him, to think that Jesus had gone bonkers when He's doing the work that God had prepared in advance for Him to do.

01:22:53

If that isn't sin, then I don't know what is. And the irony there is that Robert's last name is the

01:22:58

Greek word that should have been used if the Holy God -breathed Scriptures were intending to mean that Jesus' cousins were with Mary and not

01:23:08

His brothers. St. Genesis is the Greek word for cousin. So, it's kind of ironic that Robert's last name is that very word.

01:23:18

We have another listener, Rose in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Hello, Pastor Captain Rosebro.

01:23:25

Ahoy. This is probably more of a comment than a question, but your conversation with Brother Arnzen regarding disunity in your

01:23:35

Lutheran faith is quite disheartening, as disheartening as it is in so many denominations breaking away to far -left interpretations of God's Word.

01:23:44

I find that what is urgently needed today is a large dose of discernment in our brothers and sisters in the

01:23:50

Lord. I, for one, am grateful for the ministry of Fighting for the Faith and its heavy emphasis on discernment.

01:23:57

God bless your ministry abundantly. And she calls herself a fellow shipman. I guess that's woman.

01:24:05

That's Rose in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Yeah, we are not into pirate feminism.

01:24:11

I just want to make that clear. Well, the thing that I would,

01:24:19

I don't mean to be nitpicking about her comment, but if someone is breaking away far to the left in their interpretations of God's Word, I would not identify them as our brothers and sisters in the

01:24:33

Lord. Yeah, yeah, the Lutheran might say they may at one time have been confessing to faith, but once they drift off into that other area, they're off into apostasy.

01:24:45

But Rose brings up a good point about the need for discernment. And discernment is not the be -all and end -all, and it's important to note that Scripture makes it clear that discernment is actually one of the gifts of the

01:24:57

Spirit. And so what has happened in our day, and this is something that we need to address kind of as a bigger topic as we talk about the need for ongoing

01:25:07

Reformation, is that the culture that we find ourselves in is having a profoundly negative impact on Christianity itself and on Christians.

01:25:19

It's stunting their growth. And we live in a world where we have inherited culturally political correctness.

01:25:27

And so the government doesn't crack down on freedom of speech, but the culture does.

01:25:35

And so what ends up happening is that those who speak the truth are shouted down, or they are shamed on Facebook or on Twitter and social media.

01:25:44

And those who speak up and who are engaging in the conflict that Scripture tells us to do, they're oftentimes ostracized, called problems within the

01:25:56

Body of Christ, they're accused of causing disunity, when in fact what they're doing is, you know, they are performing the function within the

01:26:04

Body of Christ of exercising discernment. If you were to think of the Body of Christ in terms of, you know, hands and toes and feet and mouth and things like that, then those who are given the gift of discernment, they're like the white blood cells of the

01:26:19

Body of Christ. They have a special ability given by the Holy Spirit to identify those false doctrines and spirits that are operating within the

01:26:28

Church, to isolate them and eject them. And culturally, the politically correct culture that we live in has basically said, we don't need that function anymore.

01:26:40

You know, as the late Walter Martin talked about, the Church has been overcome by a terrible disease, and the disease is called non -rockabodish.

01:26:49

And... Did you go deaf there,

01:26:56

Chris? I'm sorry if I laughed too loud. Yeah, Walter Martin used to say that he didn't want to rock the boat, he wants to sink it.

01:27:05

So, you know, I think we have to get back to this idea that conflict for the sake of conflict is actually spoken against in Scripture, and those fellows who are engaging in conflict for the sake of conflict are to actually be marked and avoided.

01:27:19

Whereas those who are actually saying, wait a second, we need to take a close look at what Scripture says here, because what that person is saying in the name of Jesus doesn't actually jive with what

01:27:31

Scripture says, we need to take a hard look at that. But unfortunately, the

01:27:36

Apostle Paul, kind of prophesying as to what, you know, we find ourselves in, in 2

01:27:41

Timothy chapter 4 says this to young Pastor Timothy, who was a pastor of a congregation in Ephesus.

01:27:48

He said to him, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is the judge, the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word.

01:27:56

Be ready in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with complete patience and doctrine.

01:28:05

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound doctrine, but having ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and they will turn away from listening to the truth, and they're going to wander off into myth.

01:28:22

And I would argue that's a lot of what we're seeing today. I cannot begin to tell you over the 10 years that I've been broadcasting, how many emails

01:28:30

I've received from faithful pastors who preach the word and reprove, rebuke, and exhort, who have found themselves rubbed out of their churches and replaced with some skinny jeans -wearing, you know, latte -drinking, irrelevant fellow who couldn't exegete his way out of a paper bag if you gave him a, you know, a

01:28:51

Greek lexicon and a flashlight. We have the honor of our second listener in Hawaii in the history of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio sending us a question.

01:29:08

This is only the second, believe it or not, from Hawaii. Gary from South Point, Big Island of Hawaii, he says, with no

01:29:19

Reformational churches in my area, Lutheran or Calvinistic, what would you suggest

01:29:24

I give to local pastors of Baptist and Charismatic churches to help them understand the importance of the

01:29:29

Reformation doctrines of the five solos and the doctrines of grace? And I'll have you answer that,

01:29:36

Chris, when we return from our final break. It'll be a much briefer break, and if anybody else wants to join those who are already waiting in line with a question,

01:29:46

I urge you to do it quickly because we're running out of time very rapidly. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:29:53

Don't go away, we'll be right back, God willing, right after these messages with Chris Rosebro. Have you been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio?

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Or go to batterydepot .com. That's batterydepot .com. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko inviting you to tune in to A Visit to the

01:33:41

Pastor's Study every Saturday from 12 noon to 1 p .m. Eastern Time on WLIE Radio, www .wlie540am

01:33:52

.com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the pastor's study by calling in with your questions.

01:34:01

Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon

01:34:06

Eastern Time for a visit to the pastor's study because everyone needs a pastor. Welcome back, and you are actually experiencing a joke in the making because we have two

01:34:20

Lutherans, a Baptist, and a Presbyterian here, and there's got to be some joke in there somewhere, but we are discussing a very important topic today, the

01:34:29

Protestant Reformation, why it was necessary and why it's still needed with Chris Roseborough, a confessional

01:34:35

Lutheran and pastor of Kahnzinger Lutheran Church of Oslo, Minnesota, who runs Pirate Christian Radio and hosts

01:34:40

Fighting for the Faith, and also in studio with me is Pastor Luke T. Zimmerman of Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, which is a member of the

01:34:50

Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and also my regular co -host Reverend Buzz Taylor is in studio.

01:34:57

If you intend to send in a question, do it now because we're rapidly running out of time. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:35:04

chrisarnson at gmail .com, and before the break, I read you a question,

01:35:10

Pastor Chris, from Gary in South Point, Big Island, Hawaii. With no

01:35:15

Reformational churches in my area, Lutheran or Calvinistic, what would you suggest I give to local pastors of Baptist and Charismatic churches to help them understand the importance of the

01:35:24

Reformation doctrines of the Five Solas and the doctrines of grace? Do you have any answer that you'd like to give

01:35:30

Gary? Yeah, I would note that his goal is conversation that will kind of pique their interest, and so that they would actually take a critical eye and look at what it is they're believing, teaching, and confessing.

01:35:48

That's a dicey thing. You gotta pray before you engage in a conversation like that.

01:35:56

A couple of books that have been recently written that I have found to be helpful in facilitating dialogue along those lines.

01:36:05

One of them is written by my good friend Pastor Brian Wolfmuller, and the name of it is

01:36:11

Has American Christianity Failed? In fact, he's going to be my guest very soon discussing that book.

01:36:18

It is an amazing book, and he's faithful to the Five Solas and to the heart of the

01:36:24

Reformation in it, and so he's a fellow who is a former

01:36:30

Evangelical Charismatic himself, and so he applies that kind of critical eye and knows where to actually, you know, focus the biblical discussion.

01:36:44

Another one worth the read is also published by Concordia Publishing House, and it's called

01:36:51

Broken. It's written by my friend Pastor Jonathan Fisk, and the subtitle of it is

01:36:58

Seven Rules About Christian Thought That Everyone Ought to Break As Often As Possible.

01:37:05

So it's, again, worth a read, and those are the types of books that might facilitate those kinds of conversations, but I will say this, is that the task that he wants to engage in is one that is best engaged in within a friendship, within an existing relationship, and it needs to be approached prayerfully, but also in a non -confrontational kind of way.

01:37:34

One that kind of invites somebody into the conversation and gives them the room to kind of work these things out without feeling like they're, you know, they're just bludgeoned and being beaten over the head.

01:37:46

That's not a good way to have that conversation. Well, I'm going to give you a heads -up,

01:37:51

Gary, in Hawaii. On October 4th, which is a Wednesday from 4 to 6 p .m.

01:37:58

Eastern Time, Brian Wolfmuller will be my guest, and we are giving away free copies of his book to a limited number of audience members who submit questions during that live interview.

01:38:11

So send in a question that day to Brian Wolfmuller, and you will receive a free copy of his book.

01:38:17

So mark that on your calendar. And I would like to add to those suggestions the website of one of my sponsors,

01:38:26

Solid Ground Christian Books. Their website is solid -ground -books .com.

01:38:32

Solid -ground -books .com. They have a lot of material that would cover the areas that you want to share with your

01:38:41

Baptist and charismatic friends, and including in that huge assortment that they have, they have two booklets.

01:38:50

These are the kinds of booklets that are inexpensive enough that you could order them in bulk, and it wouldn't hurt your bank account too much.

01:38:58

And it's also short enough that people might actually read it when you're giving it to them. The first is

01:39:04

Remembering Luther's Fight, a primer on Martin Luther's life and legacy, and Standing for the

01:39:09

Gospel by Kurt M. Smith. And also The Five Solas, Standing Together Alone by John Sampson.

01:39:19

Both publications of Solid Ground Christian Books. So you could go to solid -ground -books .com.

01:39:25

Solid -ground -books .com. And another book that you could get from Amazon is

01:39:33

Why We're Protestant by Nate Pickowitz. An Introduction to the Five Solas of the

01:39:39

Reformation. Why We're Protestant by Nate Pickowitz. That's spelled P -I -C -K -O -W -I -C -Z.

01:39:46

He's a fellow Pole, just like I am, or at least half of me is Polish. And so that's my recommendations.

01:39:52

Pastor Luke, do you have anything to add to that? No, I think the approach that Pastor Chris had was correct.

01:40:00

It needs to be approached in that kind of a conversational aspect.

01:40:07

We're trying to win people and make them think so that maybe they themselves have that spark.

01:40:17

You know, sometimes we have this idea of kind of just kind of questioning ourselves. And it can work as the spirit leads us to understand it.

01:40:28

So I should stop tying tracks to bricks and throwing them through windows? Yeah, I would say attach it to Styrofoam.

01:40:39

Make sure they're Baptist tracks. Well, that's what I am. I'm a

01:40:44

Reformed Baptist, I do need to add that. I want you, Pastor Chris, before we run out of time, to make sure that you have laid out everything that you primarily want to focus on in regard to the need for a reformation in the 21st century before we run out of time.

01:41:01

Yeah, I appreciate you kind of giving me the ability to kind of take us in at least a direction that I think we need to talk about.

01:41:09

We've talked about liberalism, we've talked about Eastern Orthodoxy. But one of the things we have got to come to grips with is that Roman Catholicism, at the time of Martin Luther, was not liberal.

01:41:22

It was quite conservative, but it was conserving the wrong thing. And that there are false doctrines that are permeating conservative evangelical churches today that are having a terrible, and I mean just devastating, impact on sound doctrine and people actually rightly understanding what

01:41:42

Scripture teaches and confesses. And I think one of the major problems that we have is that people have changed the

01:41:50

Great Commission to go and make disciples of all nations. They've changed it within conservative churches to go and make a difference.

01:41:58

And they are teaching this false doctrine that I call the dream destiny thingy doctrine, and literally they've kind of canonized the four spiritual laws and turned it into something like this.

01:42:11

God has created you for a dream destiny, and this is supposedly the good news, you know.

01:42:17

So it doesn't matter what mistakes you've made or, you know, where you find yourself right now, if you're still breathing,

01:42:24

God has a dream destiny that He wants you to fulfill so that you can make a difference in the world.

01:42:30

And so you've got to learn how to hear God's voice so that He can whisper to you what this unique dream destiny thingy is so that you can fulfill the very purpose that you were created on earth.

01:42:40

And what they end up doing with all of the biblical text then around this emphasis, everything becomes about, hey, look at how

01:42:48

Joseph fulfilled his dream destiny, look how Isaac fulfilled his, and Abraham his, and you too can fulfill yours.

01:42:56

But this is not a biblical teaching at all. This is a pernicious false doctrine that basically evacuates the scripture of its true meaning, because the scriptures are not about you, the scriptures are about Christ.

01:43:11

Christ Himself makes that explicitly clear. And so over and again in these conservative churches that believe in the authority and inerrancy of scripture,

01:43:20

God's word is preached, but it's not preached in its proper meaning, because everybody goes into the biblical text to look for themselves rather than to look for Jesus.

01:43:30

And this is having a devastating impact on people's

01:43:36

Christian faith, and it literally, it plays into our sinful nature and our inherent narcissism, because we were born dead in trespasses and sins and then in ourselves.

01:43:49

And I think this is one of the most dangerous things that is happening within conservative

01:43:55

Christianity today, and there is a need for reformation and a jettisoning of this dream -destiny thingy doctrine and a return back to sound

01:44:04

Christ -centered theology. Now are you saying dream -destiny

01:44:09

T -H -I -N -G -Y, or S as in Sam -I -N -G -Y? T -H -I -N -G, thingy.

01:44:16

Okay, thingy. Yeah, yeah, I call it a thingy because you don't know what your dream destiny is, but you've got to learn it.

01:44:24

And so it's different for each person, so I call it a thingy because it's really ambiguous what it is.

01:44:30

And oftentimes the way this plays out is that people, you know, they believe that God has this dream -destiny for them, and this then replaces the actual biblical doctrine of good works.

01:44:43

And back when I was in Australia earlier in the summer at the PCR conference in Sydney, I delivered a lecture, and it's available in the archives of Fighting for the

01:44:54

Faith, called God Did Not Create You for a Purpose. And I worked my way, exegeted my way through Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 10, and noted that we are created in Christ Jesus not for a purpose, but for good works.

01:45:11

And there is a huge difference between those two concepts, at least how they are taught.

01:45:18

And this dream -destiny purpose doctrine that is literally taken over much of the conservative wing of evangelicalism, it is a man -made doctrine every bit as much as the indulgences doctrine of Rome.

01:45:33

And it literally is robbing Christ of his glory, and it's robbing people of their assurance of their salvation, and it is having a terrible impact on sanctification and good works within the

01:45:46

Church, because everybody is so narcissistically bent in on themselves, and kind of chasing their spiritual tail to figure out what their unique purpose is, so that they can then fulfill it.

01:45:58

And oftentimes, they are told by their pastors that once they learn what their unique purpose is, they have to get rid of any friend or family member that isn't supportive of them fulfilling this unique purpose that they claim they heard directly from God.

01:46:15

It's a terrible doctrine, and it has permeated evangelicalism through and through.

01:46:22

Well, it sounds like it's very reflective of something we were talking about earlier, the heresy of self -esteem, where people are told, and this is a big thing when you have public appeals to children, that they can do anything they want to do if they are determined enough to do it.

01:46:44

Now, that's a lie. No, you can't. I think that's one of the reasons that we have so many horrible singers and musicians in the

01:46:52

Church today, it's because they believe that. But we can't do everything that we want to do.

01:47:01

Thank God. Right. I can think of a lot of things

01:47:07

I've wanted to do that God in His mercy has kept me from, and now that I'm older,

01:47:13

I realize, oh goodness, that the whole reason I wanted to do that is because I'm so utterly sinful.

01:47:19

It's like, you know, so unfortunately what ended up happening, you know, in the

01:47:25

Churches where they scratch itching ears, this purpose -driven or dream destiny emphasis, it is,

01:47:33

I'm not making this up, it is literally the theology that you find in the Barbie movie. And I've never watched it, but it's just, you've got to follow your heart and make a difference in all this kind of nonsense.

01:47:47

And, you know, this is what kids are fed on, you know, on a steady diet of the

01:47:52

Disney Channel and things like this. And so what ended up happening is that evangelical, conservative evangelical

01:47:58

Churches have institutionalized this, you know, just follow your heart, learn your destiny, go make a difference in the world, and we could all sing

01:48:08

Kumbaya and be happy at the end of it. That's not what Christianity is about, and this doctrine has nothing to do with the biblical doctrine of good works.

01:48:17

And like I said, it's absolutely devastating conservative evangelicalism right now.

01:48:24

You mean Jiminy Cricket was wrong when he said, always let your conscience be your guide? Would you say that what you're talking about is something that we would see as being an emphasis of somebody like Joel Osteen, or would you care to mention any primary figures that are polluting the airwaves either through television or radio or the internet?

01:48:48

Yeah, so Joel Osteen clearly teaches that, so does Rick Warren, he kind of helped kind of facilitate its modern -day, you know, form.

01:48:58

But you're going to find it with Stephen Furtick, Perry Noble, who's now coming back on the scene, so much of the seeker -driven megachurch guys, you think of Bill Cornelius, you think of the guy down in Oklahoma at LifeChurch .tv,

01:49:13

I mean, these guys are all teaching this doctrine, and they are kind of like the flagship megachurch pastors that are held up, and their books are being published and things like that.

01:49:27

And unfortunately, this is just narcissism, it's nonsense, and this is a man -made doctrine, and it does not exalt

01:49:36

Christ, it exalts you, it doesn't teach you to repent of your sins and, you know, bear fruit in keeping with repentance with good works toward neighbor.

01:49:45

Instead, it teaches you that you're kind of the apple of God's eyes. You're the bee's knees, and the universe was literally waiting for you to walk onto the scene, because when there's a problem in the world,

01:49:59

God doesn't send a solution, He sends a child, He sends a baby, He sends you to solve some problem in the world, and aren't we so blessed that we can be in your presence, and now you've got to go and discover what the problem is that God has created you to solve, and it's, yeah,

01:50:16

I mean, literally stick your finger in the back of your throat and gag yourself. That's not at all what

01:50:21

Scripture says or teaches. Amen. And we have a listener,

01:50:27

Harrison, in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, that says, don't you believe that we who are from reformationally faithful churches have to look in the mirror also more often, and prayerfully attempt a prevention of idolatry in our own lives, where we so are guilty of idolatry in regard to our reformational heroes that we forget the reformational principle of Sola Scriptura?

01:51:05

Okay, that's an interesting question, and I can think of some fellows that I've run into, you know, in the time that I've been in the

01:51:14

Lutheran Church, who are better able to quote Luther than they are the Scriptures, but they are the exception.

01:51:21

And I mean that, like, they are the rare exception rather than the norm. And so, you know,

01:51:27

I would say that if you have a pastor who specializes in Luther, quote, but couldn't find the book of Ecclesiastes, then you've got a problem.

01:51:39

And so, you know, we always have to be working together as congregation and pastor to continue to humbly open up the

01:51:49

Scriptures and hear what God has to say. And so one of the major distinctions, biblical distinctions, that was recovered and took a place of emphasis within within, really,

01:52:03

Reformation churches as a whole, was the distinction between law and gospel. And so the exercise that we go through Sunday after Sunday of hearing

01:52:12

God's Word, a good and faithful pastor is, number one, not going to preach what he wants.

01:52:18

You need to have pastors who have texts assigned to them so that they don't shirk their responsibility.

01:52:24

And then from those assigned texts, he is to tease out, properly, law and gospel.

01:52:31

And so in working through many different biblical texts in the course of the year, you're going to come up, again, where God's law is going to address different forms of idolatry.

01:52:44

That's the law. And the pastor cannot and should not shirk his responsibility to hold the mirror up to himself, and then boldly and confidently hold the mirror up to the congregation so that everybody can see their sins together.

01:53:00

And then, from there, proclaim the crucified Jesus, who is the

01:53:06

Son of God, whom God has laid on Him, the iniquity of us all. Preach that vicarious, substitutionary death for us on the cross.

01:53:16

Call us to repent of those specific sins that those texts are addressing. And then bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

01:53:23

And so a good, faithful pastor is going to be working through different texts that will necessitate a hard look at all of the different types of idolatry that we are prone to.

01:53:37

And so what I find is that good, faithful preaching creates the corrective week after week, so that you don't end up in a pitch where you exalt

01:53:49

Martin Luther or John Calvin or some other reformer above Jesus Christ.

01:53:55

You do not ever want to do that. And we have

01:54:01

Christopher in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who says, how can we balance our lives while being firm on the truths of Scripture without falling into Pharisaic sectarianism and pride?

01:54:17

Okay, great question. Number one, the Pharisees were heretics that were not Orthodox. And I would point you to Mark chapter 7, where Jesus makes it very clear what the

01:54:28

Pharisees were all about. They had basically taken the Word of God and supplanted it with this body of work called the

01:54:36

Tradition of the Elders. At that time, it was an oral tradition, and it later gets written down in the

01:54:41

Mishnah and the Talmud. And so, we must get this out of our heads, that somehow the

01:54:47

Pharisees represented Orthodoxy.

01:54:53

Far from it. They're not Orthodox at all. They have those things with Scripture that they shouldn't.

01:55:00

So the primary problem with the Pharisees, then, is that in mixing these things, what they ended up doing was adding self -righteousness in the midst of salvation as a result of it.

01:55:12

By the way, Chris, you're very muffled right now. Chris, can you hear me? Right. Chris, can you hear me? And they keep being declared righteous by faith like Abraham.

01:55:22

Chris, I'm sorry, can you hear me, Chris? They added their own body to the Bible, their own works to the

01:55:30

Bible, and they wanted to be saved by their own good works and law -keeping.

01:55:36

So, the Pharisees are not those who are Orthodox. The Pharisees are those who are self -righteous.

01:55:42

Could you repeat the last 30 seconds of what you said? Because you were very muffled. I don't know if what you did that was different, but you were very muffled and you were almost inaudible.

01:55:52

My apologies. My phone literally had a hiccup while we were talking.

01:55:58

Okay. Just repeat the last 30 seconds of what you said. Do you want me to repeat it?

01:56:04

Yes, because I could not understand what you were saying. Apologies. Okay. So, the idea, though, is that the

01:56:12

Pharisees are not Orthodox. They are not people who love the

01:56:17

Scriptures. They've added their own work to the Scriptures of the tradition of the elders, and they are self -righteous rather than those who are justified by grace and faith.

01:56:28

So, we've got to get this out of our heads that somehow the Pharisees equal those who rightly understand the

01:56:35

Scriptures and stand for sound doctrine. There's the exact opposite of that. Yes, and there is some truth in the implications of the question, though, that people who have come to a sound understanding of the

01:56:47

Bible somehow forget the very principles of the teachings of grace involve that everything that benefits our lives, every good thing that we receive, including sound doctrine, is a gift of God by His grace and mercy, and we somehow forget that and think that we intrinsically are superior to other people, and that because of our wisdom and our brilliance that we have learned and gleaned and believed these things.

01:57:13

Don't we have to be knocked down a few pegs to prevent ourselves from this haughtiness that we can be guilty of?

01:57:22

Yeah. Now, that's true, you know. So, you know, when you sit there and you sit there and go, I'm better than you because I have sound doctrine, well, then you don't understand rightly the good works that are required by those who embrace sound doctrine.

01:57:38

We embrace sound doctrine, and we preach and proclaim it as the good work in service to our neighbor, not to insult ourselves above our neighbors.

01:57:48

So the reason I study theology is so that I can serve people, not so that I can exalt myself above them.

01:57:55

As soon as you do that, it ceases to be a good work. You study theology, then become a project for your ego, and that's not what sound doctrine is for.

01:58:08

Well, I want to make sure that our listeners have all of the important contact information for all of you folks.

01:58:15

We have Kongsvingerchurch .org, that's K -O -N -G -S -V -I -N -G -E -R church .org,

01:58:23

that's for the Kongsvinger Lutheran Church of Oslo, Minnesota, where our guest, Chris Roseborough, is pastor.

01:58:29

Also, Pirate Christian Radio can be found at PirateChristian .com, PirateChristian .com,

01:58:36

and you can also find the Fighting for the Faith podcast at that website. And the

01:58:42

Calvary Lutheran Church of Mechanicsburg, Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mechanicsburg, to be more specific, which is a member of the

01:58:49

Missouri Church Synod, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, that website is

01:58:55

CalvaryLutheranMechanicsburg .org, Calvary Lutheran Mechanicsburg, which is spelled

01:59:03

M -E -C -H -A -N -I -C -S -B -U -R -G .org. Pastor Chris, do you have any other contact information that you care to share?

01:59:13

No, I think you've got it all. And Pastor Luke Zimmerman? That's 100 % correct.

01:59:19

That's 100 % correct. Well, I want to thank the both of you for being on the program today. I look forward to you both returning to the

01:59:27

Iron Trip and Zion program. I want to thank the Rev. Buzz Taylor for being in the studio as another co -host today.

01:59:33

I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write in. And I hope that you all always remember, for the rest of your lives, that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater

01:59:44

Savior than you are a sinner. I look forward to hearing from you and your questions for our guest tomorrow on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.