June 12, 2018 Show with Michael Durham on “The Danger of an Academic Calvinism: One Calvinist’s Plea For Theology That Leads To Doxology & Not To Cold & Mechanical Hearts”

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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 Tuesday on this 12th day of June 2018, and I'm delighted to have for the very first time on my program

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Michael Durham who comes to me as a very strong recommendation by my dear friend

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Pastor Mac Tomlinson of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, who was my guest yesterday, and when

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Pastor Mac Tomlinson recommends anything to me I take it very seriously because I consider him to be a very discerning and astute and precious brother in Christ and friend.

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So I immediately took Pastor Mac's advice and contacted

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Michael, and we have Michael on the show today to discuss a very important and yet very controversial matter.

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A pastor, or should I say Michael Durham, is the former pastor of Oak Grove Baptist Church in Paducah, Kentucky, where he served in the gospel ministry from 1993 to 2016, and he is founder, president, and full -time speaker for Real Truth Matters, which is a ministry we will find out more about in a very few moments.

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And today we are going to be discussing the danger of an academic Calvinism, one

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Calvinist plea for theology that leads to doxology and not to cold and mechanical hearts.

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We're also going to be promoting the Fellowship New England Conference that is coming up in just a matter of weeks in Portland, Maine.

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The Fellowship Conference New England is what it's actually called, and we'll be giving you more information on that as well.

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But it is my honor and privilege to welcome you now for the very first time to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Michael Durham.

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Thank you, brother. It's a great privilege to get to speak to you and to your audience. I thank you for this opportunity.

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The pleasure is all mine, brother, and I want to give our listeners our email address right away if you would like to contact us with a question for Michael on this subject.

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Our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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That's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. And as always, please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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Well, before we go into the subject at hand, Michael, the danger of an academic

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Calvinism, let our listeners know something about your personal testimony of salvation.

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Whenever I have a first time guest on the program, I always have them if they are a

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Christian. There are rare occasions I interview non -Christians for various reasons, but if they're a Christian, I have them give a summarized version of their testimony of what kind of a religious upbringing they were raised in and what providential circumstances the

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Lord brought about in your life that drew you to himself and saved you. Well, it's a privilege to get to share my testimony.

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My testimony is different than most. I was a preacher before I was converted.

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Wow. And I started preaching the day after my 15th birthday, and as a child preacher, gained some notoriety in the area.

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I grew up in the Ozarks, and by the time I entered Bible College, I was doing revival meetings, protracted meetings.

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Married my wife on May the 7th, 1981, two days after I graduated from Bible College, so you can imagine which event overshadowed the other.

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And it wasn't the graduation. And within a month and a half later, we were pastoring our first church.

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And from there, we went to our second church, and yet,

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Chris, I never had any assurance that I was a child of God.

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The only assurance I had was by what I did, by what others had told me. I wrestled with this since a childhood prayer of age five.

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I had an experience at age five with my grandparents, my maternal grandparents, who were

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Christians. Neither my mother or father were believers, and so because of my maternal grandparents' desire that I be reared in the faith, they started taking me to church at a very early age.

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And one day, I had an experience where my grandmother prayed with me, and I assumed that was the day that I was converted.

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At least, that was the day I would tell you if you were to ask me. But something happened in May of 1986, pastoring our second church.

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I was preparing our Wednesday night Bible study in Romans chapter 6, and I read those key verses, verses 6 and 7, knowing this, that the old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should no longer be slaves of sin, for he that has died is freed from sin.

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And something exploded within me, Chris. It was this discernment, this awareness, inexplicable awareness that what those two verses were speaking about had never happened to me, and I knew it.

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From that moment, I knew I'd never been converted. And I say it was the

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Spirit of the living God. He was convicting me. He was making me aware of my lost state.

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I would say that was the awakening to that fact. I wrote out a letter of resignation, went home, never will

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I ever forget this. My wife was preparing the Wednesday dinner for the Bible study that evening, and I said to her, what's in this book's not in my life, and it's not in half the people

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I'm preaching to. And then I did what I'm ashamed to tell you, but it's still part of the story.

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The fruit of my sin still brings me shame to this day. I decided I wasn't going to be a hypocrite.

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I was a Pharisee. I had the double life. I had the Sunday appearance, but on the inside, sin had the grip of my soul, and I lived out my own sins and fantasies for a while, left my wife.

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But I couldn't find pleasure there either, because there was something drawing me.

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And long story short, a few months later, it was December 1st,

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Karen and I were back together, and I was religiously praying every morning, getting up early, and this was my prayer,

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Chris, God, you're a God of justice, I've got to go to hell, and paid for what

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I have done, being the Pharisee, the hypocrite that I've been. And this went on for almost two weeks, and it was

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December 1st, the best I remember, 1986, I was praying that same prayer, when all of a sudden, once again, the knowledge of the gospel was turned on in my heart and mind.

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It was as if God was saying, that's the reason I sent my son to die on the cross, to take the penalty of your sins.

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That was the exact thing that my mind was fastened upon, and for the first time,

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I understood what that meant. I had preached it to others. I could believe God could save anybody, but I never believed it for myself until that moment.

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And what was strange, was I was on a hardwood floor on my knees, and I was clawing at the cracks of the hardwood floor, trying to hide from the presence, this holy presence that came into the room.

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And then, I never had memorized Psalm 103, but my mind started, it just came to my mind, bless the

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Lord, O my soul, for getting all these benefits, who forgiveth thee of all thine iniquities.

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And I opened my Bible to the 103rd Psalm, and I began to read that psalm, and when I got to the verse, as far as the east is from the west, so has

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God cast our sins from those that fear him. I mean, brother, the mercy and the love of God just began to fill my heart.

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I wept like I'd never wept, because I was being loved like I had never been loved before. And that was the beginning of a new life, a journey in grace.

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And so, I think it's important for your audience to know that I come from a non -baptistic, non -reformed background, although I'm a

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Baptist minister and I am Reformed. In fact, I'm so Reformed, I've got six points instead of five.

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Is it the sovereignty of God that's kind of an odd thing that's left out of the tulip? Yeah, yeah, and sufficient for all.

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I do believe that the death of Christ is sufficient for all, but only effectual to the elect.

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Yeah, I believe Andrew Fuller, didn't he coin that phrase? I might be wrong there. I know

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Andrew Fuller believed that, as well as Spurgeon and what I would consider historic

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Baptists, but be that as it may. I didn't come from that background.

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I actually came from a Pentecostal background, and it really bothered me for many years after my conversion, why did

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I grow up in that kind of church culture? Because I left it.

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Soon after my conversion, I knew that that's not where we belong. The scriptures I could read now with new light and sight and vision,

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I understood. Even before I was converted, I was having many serious questions about Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement.

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And so, and then the Lord opened my eyes to the Reformed faith. Nobody taught me, just reading the scriptures.

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Well, I should say nobody taught me. After my conversion, I started reading a

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Spurgeon sermon a day. And I also, believe this or not, in a

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Pentecostal Bible college and seminary, was given in our homiletics class as a textbook,

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Martin Lloyd -Jones' book, Preaching and Preachers. And that was the textbook.

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And by then, it hadn't been out even ten years. And I put that book down also and began reading it after my conversion.

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And I discovered, he says in there, that when he was a young minister, that the older pastor had turned him on to Jonathan Edwards.

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And I said, well, if it's good enough for Martin Lloyd -Jones, it's good enough for me. And I ordered Banner of Truth, two -volume, set on the works of Jonathan Edwards, and got me a magnifying glass, an archaic dictionary, and a notebook, and started reading

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Freedom of the Will. Not something I would suggest anybody to begin reading if you're going to study

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Edwards, but that's where I started. And by, I guess, just by evolution of Scripture, Spurgeon, Edwards, I came to see the doctrines of grace.

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But again, bothered, why did I grow up in that background? And here's what I've come to the conclusion.

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I did learn something valuable in that background, that God is a

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God to be experienced, but not every experience is God. And so I come from that background, and that's one of my concerns as we're going to discuss today, is that I think that's one of the things the

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Calvinistic movement, the modern resurgence of Calvinism today, has forgotten that God is a

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God to be experienced. We know that not every experience is God, but have we forgotten, perhaps, that God is a

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God to be experienced? So I hope that kind of gives you a little bit of background about my conversion and where I am today.

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Amen. Well, this is a very controversial theme, obviously, and it's one that could be easily misunderstood.

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So although the truth always hurts somebody, sometimes we hurt or upset people for the wrong reasons because they misunderstand what we're saying, or sometimes we're saying something deliberately that's wrong or mean -spirited.

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But I know that you do not mean, at least I'm very confident that you do not mean by this theme today that you chose, that Calvinists or Christians in general should be avoiding academic studies and pursuits.

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I mean, you and I know men that have done a lot of formal training in different seminaries and universities.

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Even our friend Mack Tomlinson, who I had on yesterday, he's had formal training in different areas, in different schools, even in Israel.

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One of my dearest friends, Dr. Conrad M. Bayway, is the

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Chancellor of African Christian University in Zambia, Africa, and he is a very strong five -point

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Calvinist that has a heart for academic excellence and training and for training up young men, and yet he is no cold -dead mechanical

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Calvinist. He's a very passionate and humble and on -fire preacher of the gospel.

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So I know that you're not condemning the pursuit of excellence in the academic realm,

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I'm sure. And the reason why you have to say this caveat is, you probably know as well as I do, is that there is an element, and has been for quite a long time, for over a century perhaps, there is an element within Christendom, predominantly among fundamentalists and Pentecostals, who do despise those who achieve academic excellence in seminary and in universities and so on.

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But so if you could just explain, before we go on with more of the details of the main root of your theme, if you could explain whether I'm right or wrong in my caveat that I gave.

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No, and I thank you for that caveat. It's most accurate to say that I'm not against learning or the pursuit of knowledge.

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In fact, I hope by the end of our conversation that it's known by all who are listening today that there is no way that you can experience and encounter the living

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God apart from knowledge. Knowledge plays an extremely important role.

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Without it, there is no experience of God. So we're not anti -knowledge, but you know, truth is a funny thing.

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You can know something to be true, but not experience the truth, and that truth not be real to you.

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And I think one basic problem as Christians is that we don't know what we know. We know a lot of doctrine, especially among the

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Reform movement and in the circles in which you and I move in.

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Doctrine is extremely important, and it should rightly be so. And we learn the doctrine, we learn the truth, but we often do not know in reality what that truth is meaning.

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We don't know the reality or the experience of that truth. I live in Texas, so we don't experience snow very often, but I know what snow is.

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I know its properties, but I don't experience it. I can see a picture of it.

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You can send me a postcard from Pennsylvania when you've had a snowstorm, but I'm not experiencing that.

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It's not reality to me. That's what I'm trying to say. So your caveat is extremely true.

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I think, you know, some of the great servants of God have been men who were intellectuals.

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You can't read the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans and not know you're reading a keen intellect.

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So I hope that's clear. Yeah, in fact that takes me right to the title of your ministry, which obviously would mean you are a believer in being a

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Christian who is concerned about precision and accuracy in theology and doctrine and deeply learning these things, these deeper truths of the

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Scriptures, because the name of your ministry is Real Truth Matters. And we're living in a day and age when the mantra of much of Christendom is, let's just love one another and lift up Jesus, and they don't even really explain in detail what they're talking about when they refer to Jesus.

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Correct, and when you discussed the name, gave the name of our ministry, you know, there was somewhat of a hesitancy of using that because it does seem redundant.

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Real, truth. Isn't truth always real? In fact, somebody's, people have asked me, and I said, well yes, but in a postmodern culture where you reading a book, you determine the author's meaning, not the author.

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You're the one that's been given the right and privilege of determining what is right and what is wrong. We have to distinguish, sadly, we have to distinguish truth that's real from truth claims that are false.

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So that's why we titled the ministry as we did. And of course, where our whole aim is that the gospel is not about Jesus, but it is

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Jesus himself. Amen. And if the gospel is about Jesus, even though you said the gospel is not about Jesus, the gospel is

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Jesus, we have to know about Jesus if the gospel is about him. Or if the gospel is him,

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I should say. That's where knowledge is absolutely essential. You know,

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Paul says to the Colossians, he said that they were rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as you have been taught.

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So yeah, truth is essential to this whole thing, but God has revealed himself in words, and therefore words matter, and hence the word, real truth matters.

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So yes, we need the information of the gospel, but that information is to lead me to an encounter, a reality of Jesus Christ himself.

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Amen. Yeah, we have to not just know about him, just like the gospel, we have to know him.

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We have to have a very intimate and personal relationship with him. Exactly.

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Because I knew theology, I knew doctrine, and the day when

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I was converted, my intellect in one sense of the word was not converted because I still believed.

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I mean, I didn't really believe anything different about the gospel, but that day something was changed.

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Something was transformed about me, and it was, I experienced him. And that's the key,

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I think, to any understanding of the gospel, is that the gospel knowledge, the gospel message, should lead us to this encounter with God, this transforming encounter with God that leaves us different than we were before.

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Amen. Now, before we move away from Real Truth Matters, and the website, by the way, for those of you listening, is realtruthmatters .com.

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Tell us more specific things about this organization, what you do there, what you seek to accomplish through the

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Real Truth Matters ministry, etc. Well, it started while I was a pastor at Old Grove.

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One day, a dear sister came to me and says, we need what you're preaching to go beyond the four walls of our church, and we prayed about it, the church prayed about it, and we started a daily broadcast, radio broadcast, called

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Living Priorities, that was the title. And through the years, it just, it evolved, and we changed the name in 2008,

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I think it was, to, or 2009, to Real Truth Matters. And it was based, basically, a web -based ministry.

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We had a website, our preaching, all of our resources, my preaching resources, was put on the website.

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But also, I was getting more and more invitations to preach Bible conferences, extended protracted meetings, and by the year 2015,

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I began to sense that my time as a pastor was over, and God wanted me to do more of what

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I'm doing now, as a tenement preacher, full time. And so Real Truth Matters is basically the name of my itinerant ministry now.

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Focused mainly on, if you've been to the website, there's a key phrase we use, pursuing the

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New Testament Christianity by pursuing Jesus Christ as the gospel. If you had to characterize what kind of ministry we are, it would, number one, be evangelistic.

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I believe that's one of the gifts or callings that God has given me. It seems like when I do preach in other different places, people are converted.

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Some, we have conversions, we see conversions or testimonies of that. But also,

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I was with Jeffrey Thomas not too long ago, I don't know if you're familiar with that.

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Oh yeah, I've had Jeffrey interviewed on this program, I've met him a number of times.

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He has preached at the church where I'm a member, Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and I've seen him at the

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Banner of Truth conference and other places. Even the church where I was first saved,

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Calvary Baptist Church in Amityville, Long Island, which is now Grace Reformed Baptist Church of Long Island and Merrick, New York, after a merger.

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But yes, I know Jeffrey very well. Well, he was here in Denton at Providence Chapel and I was invited to have dinner with him, and in our conversation he made an interesting statement.

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He says, I cannot mention or name or think of one awakening ministry.

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He called it an awakening ministry, and what he meant was that there's not preachers today, that where they go there seems to be some evidence of an awakening, sinners being converted to a larger scale than maybe one or two or three people being converted.

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And I think one of the reasons that's occurring is because the church itself is not experiencing normal New Testament Christianity.

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What we think normal is is really subnormal, but it's become the norm, it's all we know.

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And so Real Truth Matters is really also, and I hate to use the terminology because of the baggage, but it is what it is.

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It is a revivalistic type ministry. We enter into a local church for either a weekend or a protracted meeting and we just preach to the saints because,

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Chris, I believe revival, now this is where maybe we might part company and I pray not, but I believe revival is not so much altogether a sovereign act of God as an awakening is.

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I distinguish between revival and awakening. I believe awakening is absolutely 100 % a sovereign act of God where numbers of sinners are awakened to their sins and ushered into the kingdom of God.

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But a revival is a revival of the saints who have life. You can't revise something that's dead, who has never had life.

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And so, and if I read those letters to the book of Revelation, in the book of Revelation, the church at Ephesus, Laodicea, God was calling them to revival and the word that he used was repentance.

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Not revival, but repentance, another R word. And I believe that if Christians will repent, he can return to normal New Testament Christianity.

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And that is what revival is. And if the church would walk in that normal New Testament Christianity, I believe we would see more awakening in the community around the church.

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Now does not true revival that has taken place historically in different periods of time, doesn't that by definition always accompany new conversions to Christ, people coming to Christ and repenting because of the fact that the

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Christians are now preaching with passion and fervency and an undiluted truth whereby the lost are hearing this in greater numbers and then therefore subsequently coming to Christ for the first time?

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Yeah, and there is, in church history, there's never been an awakening if there was not first a revival of God's saints.

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Right, okay. Yeah, but the revival of God's saints is open to you and me at any moment if we would repent.

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That's what I think he's saying to the church at Laodicea. I stand at the door of your heart and knock. He's not, that's not an evangelistic text.

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It's a text written to a church that's in a pretty low state spiritually speaking. Right, and even the words themselves indicate what you were saying because the lost, when they are dead in their trespasses and sins, they are not revived when they come to Christ.

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They are awakened. Resurrected. Yes, yes. Yeah, another

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R word but not revived. No, you're right. And so this is what I believe Real Truth Matters Ministries is.

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It's to confront a lackluster, lethargic church with the message of what true

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Christianity really is and what it looks like. And so, and then there's another component to our ministry.

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Unless you want to stay here, I don't want to hurry you along. You could go wherever you'd like, brother. We have two hours, so take your time and speak from your heart, whatever you, wherever you believe the

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Lord's leading you. Yeah, well I really definitely think we could spend the two hours on this, and somewhat

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I think we will be. This is the problem with the terminology academic

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Calvinism. Again, not, we're not against the academic or the intellectual pursuits.

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We're against that making, we're against knowledge becoming the goal and the pursuit and the end thereof.

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So when we move among churches and we're preaching the gospel and the message of New Testament Christianity, we're giving information, we're giving knowledge.

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But at the same time, we're believing and praying God for the manifestation of the

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Holy Spirit, and all that means is this. That's not Pentecostal terminology, that's

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Bible terminology. It's the same thing Paul says to the Thessalonians, that when they heard the gospel, they heard

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Paul preach it with power and in the Holy Spirit. And so that's what we need today, and that's what

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Real Truth Matters is all about. But the third component I want to tell you about was that we also have overseas, our international dimension, we do a lot of work with indigenous pastors.

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We have a ministry we started several years ago called Romania Missionary Fellowship, and it's a church planting ministry where we are training pastors on how to disciple young men who feel led to be called into the ministry, so that they can in turn plant churches where there are no churches in Eastern Europe, in Romania, the

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Republic of Moldova. So, and I do a lot of over, I just got back from Jordan working with the church there in Jordan, so...

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Great. Now, as far as the actual theme that we are discussing, oh in fact

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I just looked up and it's already time for my first commercial break, I'm sorry about that. When we come back we'll get right into the theme that we are discussing today.

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And for those of you who have tuned in late, our theme is the danger of an academic Calvinism, one

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Calvinist's plea for theology that leads to doxology and not to cold and mechanical hearts.

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We'll be getting into that discussion, God willing, right after these messages from our sponsors.

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So please send in your emails to chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Hi, I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, inviting you to tune in to A Visit to the

36:36

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

36:54

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

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Join us this Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Time for a visit to the Pastor's Study, because everyone needs a pastor.

37:07

And remember, when you call into A Visit to the Pastor's Study, make sure you tell the host,

37:13

Bill Shishko, that you heard about his program from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

37:18

We are now back with our guest, Michael Durham, who is the founder and president of RealTruthMatters .com.

37:26

We are discussing the danger of an academic Calvinism, one Calvinist plea for theology that leads to doxology, and not to cold and mechanical hearts.

37:36

And I also want to announce the Fellowship Conference New England in Portland, Maine, which is an organization or an event,

37:44

I should say, annual event that was begun by a mutual friend of my guest and myself,

37:51

Mack Tomlinson, and some other ministers of the gospel. And I know that you, although you're not on the roster this year,

37:59

Michael, you have preached at the Fellowship Conference New England in Portland, Maine.

38:05

Why don't you tell us something about that organization and that ministry? Well Chris, it's a great conference.

38:13

What struck me is how far people would drive in a hungry condition.

38:21

They were coming from all over, from upstate New York, from the

38:28

Deep South, to this little town in Portland, Maine, to attend this conference.

38:36

Today there is a famine, and you know this. You talk to a lot of people. People are leaving the church because the church has left the gospel, what we're talking about today.

38:49

They've left normal to New Testament Christianity, and they don't know where to go. And so anytime there's a conference or an event where they believe that the

39:00

Word of God is going to be proclaimed, they're coming. And so this was what was fantastic.

39:06

They were young men, young women, older people. I remember one couple at the conference that was there that they drove several hours to be there because they just don't hear that kind of preaching in their church.

39:20

So it's a fantastic conference, and it's not a huge conference like the Fellowship Conference here in Denton, Texas every spring.

39:29

It's growing, but it's still small enough to have the personal touch.

39:35

You can interact with the speakers and talk to them, question them personally.

39:42

It's just a great time, and the people who host it up there, the Church Redeeming Grace Fellowship is a great little church that God is really using to be a light in a very dark place.

39:54

Portland, Maine, it's very dark. Yes, and in fact one of the speakers,

40:01

Pastor Nate Pikowitz, who I'm sure you know, he wrote a book reviving

40:06

New England and talks about the need for that. But just for those of you, even though I'm going to repeat this later, if you're interested in attending this year's

40:17

Fellowship Conference New England, which is being held from the 2nd through the 4th of August, you can go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com,

40:28

fellowshipconferencenewengland .com. The speakers include Pastor Tim Conway, Pastor Mac Tomlinson, Pastor Jesse Barrington, and Pastor Nate Pikowitz, who

40:35

I just mentioned, and we'll be giving more details later about that. So I hope as many of you as possible can attend.

40:43

Well, going back to our theme, unless you have something you wanted to say to pick up where you left off,

40:49

I wanted to know what is it specifically that you have witnessed amongst our peers, people in our circles of fellowship, those that are

41:00

Reformed, whether they are Presbyterian, Dutch Reformed, or Calvinistic Baptists, Reformed Baptists like you and I, what have you witnessed over the years that has alarm bells going off in your head, where you are seeing, in reality, what some of our theological opponents routinely claim, very often in angers, and most often even in an exaggerated form, that they will say that it is our theology itself and the doctrines of grace, our belief in unconditional election, especially, that leads to a dead orthodoxy and a passionless

41:46

Christianity where there is a lack of concern for the lost. But I know that you don't believe that the true doctrines of grace are leading to that, so tell us what it is that you're seeing and why you think it's happening.

41:58

No, I do not believe the doctrines of grace, the gospel message itself, kind of like Spurgeon there,

42:06

I can't see much difference between the gospel message and the doctrines of grace as we would call them.

42:13

So it's not the message, it's the perversion, it's the misunderstanding or the misapplication of those doctrines.

42:23

You know, the Armenian system, I guess you would say, would be the opposite of the

42:28

Calvinistic system or the Pelagian. I don't think we, the

42:34

Armenian, is really the problem, Arminianism is the problem today. I think it's more of a semi -Pelagianism, believing that man is born neutral, not totally depraved and corrupted, and that he has the ability to choose.

42:46

To me, that's the major problem that we confront. But even that system in itself can lead to lethargy.

42:56

It's not so much the system, it's the heart itself.

43:06

When the resurgence movement, my coming to the doctrines of grace occurred probably earlier than the

43:14

Calvinistic resurgence of the 90s and the 2000s. And when it began to happen, my fear was that it was a great deal faddish.

43:24

It was a fad, a theological fad. And I think to some degree that's happened.

43:30

I've seen that now 20, 25 years later. But what I want to make sure

43:35

I say to you and your audience, I don't want to paint with a broad brush and make general statements and lumping everybody in this, because it's not true.

43:45

There are many, and I mean many, solid pastors, preachers, and churches that are

43:53

Calvinistic, that are inflamed with devotion, doxology, worship.

43:58

But there is a tendency, I think, with the sovereignty of God that Satan uses to lead us to a knowledge -based relationship with that is...knowledge

44:16

is the pursuit, knowledge is the goal, and if you know it, then it's the same as experiencing it.

44:23

And that's what I see. I talk to a lot of pastors, I travel quite a bit, and one of the things

44:30

I would say that is indicative of many of our Reformed brethren is that they don't know how to maintain fellowship with God.

44:41

This has been the thing that I have seen over and over again. If you could define fellowship with God, because people might think of that or hear that just as some kind of a platitude or placard or buzz phrase or something, you know, something that's hip to say within Christendom, but tell us exactly what it really means.

45:06

Yeah, it means a vital intimacy with God. It's relating to Christ as a person, not as a fact or piece of information stored in the back of the brain.

45:21

He is a person that you interact with, and he interacts with you. Now, that would probably sound very mystical to some of your listeners, and it's hard to deal with this subject without being accused of being a mystic.

45:38

But I am thankful, and I have to borrow the term from John Murray, who was anything than a...he

45:46

was not charismatic or a Pentecostal by any stretch of the imagination. But he uses the word intelligent mysticism, and Ken Keller refers to that in his awesome book on prayer in the very first chapter.

46:00

And this is what we're talking about. We're talking about a mysticism or a biblical spirituality that's based upon the

46:09

Scriptures, where the Word and the Spirit work in tandem to manifest

46:15

Christ to the individual believer. That's what I'm talking about. And how to maintain that and to walk in that and experience that, my discovery is, from my own experience in dealing with other pastors and churches, that they don't know how to do that, because they've not been taught that themselves.

46:34

And this is what I'm seeing among many in our circles. This pursuit of the doctrines of grace, the knowledge of Calvinism, without the experiencing of the person of Jesus Christ.

46:50

It's almost like we're more enthusiastic about Calvin than we are Christ. And this is what concerns me today.

46:59

Now, do you think that you're witnessing this amongst those coming to, quote -unquote, embrace the doctrines of Sovereign Grace or Reform Theology for the first time, or is this something that is becoming manifest in your opinion even in the minds and hearts and lives of old -school

47:20

Calvinists? Or how do you see this predominantly manifesting itself? And maybe give us some more specific details on how it's manifesting itself.

47:32

When you say old -school, I'm assuming you mean people about 50 years of age,

47:37

I guess. Well, people who have been Calvinists for quite a while and are embracing a more traditional, historic understanding of the doctrines of grace, as opposed to some that fall under the umbrella of New Calvinism, some of the

47:54

Calvinism that you would refer to as a fad, that kind of thing. Yeah. I don't mean the primitive

48:00

Baptist old -school when I said that. Well, I wanted to make sure that that was understood.

48:07

Okay. It is true that among the newer Calvinism, the young restless in Reform, we're seeing a lot of that.

48:16

And I really don't believe the Reform movement as we know it today is going to continue much longer.

48:22

I really don't, because I think among this youthful Calvinism, there is a immaturity and a trap of Satan to take the liberty, the idea of Christian liberty, and turn it into just plain old worldliness and carnality.

48:44

And if we look at church history, we see that one thing is always true, that human nature, humans are by nature extremist.

48:54

That's just the way we are by nature. We run past the goalposts, out of the stadium. We take truth, and we always run a little bit too far in one ditch or the other ditch.

49:05

And so, as the pendulum of history goes, we will see a time period where this resurgence will begin to be reacted against, and it'll swing back the other way.

49:14

That's just historical fact. So, I do believe there has been somewhat of a fad, a contemporary cultural theological fad.

49:26

But I do see, also among the old school, not all, again

49:31

I'm not painting with broad brushes, but I do see enough of it where we understand the doctrine, we know the truth, and that seems to be enough.

49:42

And, for example, I was preaching not too long ago in a solid Baptist Church, Calvinistic Baptist, and the pastor asked if I would do a

49:54

Q &A before I preached my last message, and I was glad to do so. And one woman stood up crying, literally weeping, saying to me,

50:02

I don't have what you've talked about this weekend. I want this kind of intimacy with God.

50:08

And I hear that everywhere. In fact, I had a pastor, he was trained at one of the finest seminaries, if I mentioned the name, you would recognize, and so would many of your listeners, fine school.

50:21

I wouldn't hesitate to send any young man there. But he called me one day, he said,

50:26

I really need to talk to you, and we had lunch together, and I began to share with him, and he says, you know, in all of my days,

50:32

I've never had anybody to tell me what you're telling me. And it's no secret. It's really the first epistle of John.

50:40

In fact, we have to pick up right where you left off on the first epistle of John when we return from our midway break.

50:46

This is our elongated break that Grace Life Radio 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida requires of us midway through our show.

50:55

They need 12 minutes of time to air their own commercials and public service announcements and other things.

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So please be patient with us as we take this elongated break, and use this time to not only write questions for our guest today,

51:09

Michael Durham, but also to write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can successfully patronize them.

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And remember, when you patronize our advertisers, you are helping prolong the existence of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio because our advertisers are the key things keeping us on the air, in addition to generous donors out there, benevolent listeners who have been sending in checks to help us remain on the air.

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And we thank all of you so much from the depths of our hearts who have been doing that lately after we hit a very serious dry spell of donations.

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But if you'd like to send in an email to our guest, Michael Durham, with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. God willing, we will be back right after these messages with more of Michael Durham, and so don't go away.

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We hope that Iron Sharpens Iron Radio blesses you for many years to come. Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is sponsored by Harvey Cedars, a year -round

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Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am

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I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church.

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Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio if you purchase $50 or more. We are now back to our program.

01:04:02

Before I return to my guest Michael Durham I just have some important announcements to make.

01:04:07

One of them I hinted at earlier, the Fellowship Conference New England is being held

01:04:13

August 2nd through the 4th at the Deering Center Community Church in Portland, Maine and the speakers this year at the

01:04:23

Fellowship Conference New England organization is Tim Conway is first of all.

01:04:30

Tim Conway, pastor at Grace Community Church in San Antonio, Texas. Mac Tomlinson who is pastor of the

01:04:39

Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas. He's also an author and a conference speaker and book editor and publisher.

01:04:49

Pastor Jesse Barrington who is pastor of Grace Life Church in Dallas, Texas which happens to be a sister church of Grace Life Church in Lake City, Florida.

01:04:59

The church that has the radio station airing Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio every day in a rerun form from the day previous.

01:05:08

Jesse Barrington will be there and pastor Nate Pikowitz who is the pastor of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmanton Iron Works, New Hampshire.

01:05:20

He's also an author and conference speaker and I look forward to having Nate back on the program.

01:05:26

In fact I look forward to having all four of these men back on the program as I am scheduling interviews with each of them to promote

01:05:33

Fellowship Conference New England. If you would like to register go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com

01:05:40

fellowshipconferencenewengland .com and please tell them that you heard about the conference from Chris Arns and an Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio.

01:05:46

Next is the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals are having their annual

01:05:52

Quaker Town Conference on Reform Theology. I will be there God willing with my

01:05:57

Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio exhibitors booth so I hope you greet me there if you attend. The speakers include

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David Garner, Ray Ortland, Richard Phillips, Timothy Gibson, and Carlton Winn.

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That's going to be held November 9th through the 10th at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania.

01:06:19

The theme is the glory of the cross. Once again that's November 9th through the 10th. If you'd like to attend go to alliancenet .org

01:06:26

alliancenet .org that's the website of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

01:06:32

Alliancenet .org. Click on events then scroll down until you find the Quaker Town Conference on Reform Theology, the glory of the cross.

01:06:41

I hope to see you there at that conference. Another conference that I really hope to see many of you again there when

01:06:50

I am also manning another exhibitors booth. This will be my third

01:06:56

G3 conference in College Park, Georgia which is a suburb of Atlanta at the

01:07:01

Georgia International Convention Center. The G3 conference which stands for Grace, Gospel, and Glory is having the theme

01:07:10

The Mission of God, a biblical understanding of missions this time around. And the speakers, there's always a very long and impressive list of speakers at the

01:07:22

G3 conference, perhaps the longest list I've ever seen at any conference. But the aforementioned

01:07:29

Paul Washer who happens to be a friend of our guest today, Michael Durham, he is on the roster there in January.

01:07:36

John Piper, David Platt, Stephen Lawson, Vodie Baucom, Mark Dever, Conrad Mbewe, who

01:07:42

I mentioned earlier, Chancellor of African Christian University and Pastor of Kubota Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa.

01:07:49

I think he's the most powerful preacher on the planet planet Earth alive today. Tim Challies, Phil Johnson, the executive director of Grace to You, the ministry of John MacArthur.

01:08:00

Josh Bice, who is the director of G3 conference and pastor of Praise Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Georgia.

01:08:09

And Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Radio, who's going to be my guest in early

01:08:14

August again on this program. David Miller, who's a powerful speaker.

01:08:20

Jeremy Volo, a personal friend of mine. Stephen Nichols, the president of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by R .C.

01:08:29

Sproul and Ligonier Ministries. Don and Cindy Curran, Martha Peace, Chip Thornton, Chris King, Owen Strand and more.

01:08:38

If you would like to attend this conference, go to G3conference .com, G3conference .com. You can also go to that website if you want to set up an exhibitors booth for your business or your ministry, just like I am doing there for the

01:08:52

Iron Sherpins Iron Radio program. G3conference .com, G3conference .com.

01:08:57

I hope to see many of you there again at the G3 conference this January 17th through the 19th.

01:09:05

That's Thursday, January 17th through Saturday, January 19th in College Park, Georgia at the

01:09:12

Georgia International Convention Center. They're expecting over 4 ,000 people there this year. I hope that you are among them.

01:09:19

We now have the most difficult, most uncomfortable time of the program and that is when

01:09:24

I have to beg you for money. Iron Sherpins Iron Radio is in urgent need of finances. We had our donations nearly completely dry up for a while, but thanks be to God we have had some very generous donors come in to rescue us out of a very problematic situation financially, but we still do not have all of the bills paid that we need to pay that are already late.

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So if you can help us remain on the air, if you love this show, you don't want to go away, go to IronSherpinsIronRadio .com,

01:09:58

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as much as you can and as often as you can. You can also advertise with us, and as long as whatever it is you're advertising is compatible with the theology we express, we would love to help you launch an ad campaign for your church, your parachurch ministry, your business, your professional practice, if you're a doctor, a lawyer, a dentist, a chiropractor, or if you're just having a special event, as long as it is compatible with what we believe, send in an email to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

01:11:13

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, and put advertising in the subject line. And I thank those of you who are pastors who have just recently, very recently, sent me emails because you are very interested in advertising your churches on IronSherpinsIronRadio .com.

01:11:29

I hope that those ad campaigns come to fruition soon. Thank you so much for considering us as a valuable resource to promote your ministries.

01:11:39

You can also use that email address, ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, to send in a question to my guest today,

01:11:44

Michael Durham, the founder of Real Truth Matters. We are discussing the danger of an academic

01:11:51

Calvinism, one Calvinist plea for theology that leads to doxology and not to cold and mechanical hearts.

01:11:59

That's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. And very quickly, Michael, very often on this show

01:12:07

I forget that there are many brand new Christians listening to the show, and even non -Christians.

01:12:15

We have Muslims listening to the show, we have Roman Catholics and others listening to the show on occasion.

01:12:22

We've even had people in the cult known as the Moonies, the Unification Church, respond to certain guests.

01:12:32

But for the sake of those people who are unfamiliar with some of our terminology, why do you define doxology, since that was in the theme that you created?

01:12:44

Doxology simply means the worship of God, which is what we are all made to do.

01:12:50

This was God's original intent with man. Man would find his ultimate joy and pleasure in glorifying

01:12:59

God, and that simply means that you would see God to be what he really is, ultimately the greatest value and pleasure in the universe, and recognize that by enjoying and delighting in that.

01:13:14

So we're all worshippers, but what the problem of course we all know is that man rebelled and chose to be delighted rather in himself, hence sin.

01:13:26

And so Christ has come to restore us the capacity to be able to see and value

01:13:33

God as he really is, and when we are able to see

01:13:38

Christ, God, as he really is, and enjoy him, delight in him supremely, this is the essence of what it means to be a

01:13:48

Christian. So I hope that defines doxology, because that's all that's all that wrapped up in that one word.

01:13:56

Amen. And before the break that we had, the very long midway break, you mentioned that you were entering into the first epistle of John.

01:14:05

If you could pick up where you left off there. Well, you know, it might be because we don't have enough time to go through the first epistle of John today, but it might be to help your listeners get a really a better grasp on what

01:14:18

I'm trying to say, is that I think a key test, and this is really true for a

01:14:23

Calvinist, Arminian, or whatever stripe you might call yourself, is that you know you're rightly related to Christ in the way you relate to the

01:14:34

Bible. This is key, because Christ is our reality. He's the invisible expression of God to us, and interestingly, he is called the

01:14:43

Word of God. Jesus expressed himself through his teaching, his commandments, and here's the key.

01:14:49

If we separate Christ from his Word, that's what leads to unreality, and that's what

01:14:57

I'm seeing more and more among our circles. You can only be rightly related to God and experience his reality through his

01:15:07

Son, who is the Word of God, and the only way you know Christ is by believing his words.

01:15:13

You experience the Word by his words, and so, Chris, for me, the challenge of daily living the

01:15:20

Christian life is to always fight against separating the words of Christ from the

01:15:27

Word himself. Now, that may seem a little abstract or conceptual, but I think

01:15:33

I can illustrate it with the Pharisees. I think this was their problem. They were very orthodox in their understanding of the

01:15:41

Old Testament Scriptures. In fact, most of their interpretations of Mosaic law was very close to Jesus' interpretation.

01:15:50

I mean, he actually went so far one time to endorse their position as teachers of the law when he said that they sit in Moses' seat.

01:15:58

Therefore, whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to the words where they say and do not do.

01:16:06

So there was a disconnect between what they taught and how they lived, and that's what

01:16:13

I'm talking about. They divorced their knowledge of the Word of God from God himself. Their faith was in what they knew, not in God personally, and therefore, they didn't have a true grasp of reality.

01:16:26

Does this make sense? Oh, yes, and I don't know if you want to continue on with a point, but we do have a lot of listeners with questions.

01:16:35

It's up to you if you want me to move on to our questions yet. Well, if you want, if you haven't completed a thought,

01:16:42

I'll let you complete the thought, and then we'll move on. Well, here it is. When you are religious and you don't experience the reality of the person of God, then what happens is you worship your doctrine.

01:16:53

Yes, yes. Doctrine settles in the place of God, and that's what makes, I think,

01:17:00

Reformed faith so deceptive, because our doctrine we believe is biblical.

01:17:06

It cannot be argued against, I think, successfully, and then we wrongly conclude and believe that if we know the truth, that's sufficient.

01:17:17

We think, how could I not know God if I know the truth? But if you divorce truth from the truth, then you're not experiencing a living relationship with God.

01:17:29

And so sound doctrine, apart from Christ, leads to making

01:17:35

Christianity all about dotting I's and crossing T's and not having this vital reality of the reality,

01:17:43

Jesus himself. Okay. Great. Yes, definitely.

01:17:49

We have Joe in Atai, in the Republic of Ireland, in a

01:17:56

County Kildare. He says, Hello, Brother Chris. Thank you for your continued ministry through Iron Sharpens Iron.

01:18:04

That has been such a blessing to me going back to the radio days of broadcasting from Long Island, New York.

01:18:10

Wow, that's going all the way back to 2005. I have a question for your guest today.

01:18:15

I am currently reading Ian Murray's biography of the life of the late Dr. Martin Lloyd -Jones.

01:18:22

A massive emphasis of his ministry was on regeneration. I have heard others like Brother Paul Washer, and those also influenced by the great doctor, who have also emphasized regeneration in their preaching.

01:18:36

Is the lack of emphasis on this great doctrine perhaps a contributor to what many call dead orthodoxy today?

01:18:45

Many thanks and God bless from Joe in Atai, County Kildare, Republic of Ireland.

01:18:52

And I want to thank also Joe for being, I think, more than any other listener of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio going all the way back to 2005 for spreading the word about this program.

01:19:07

Ever since Facebook became a reality, Joe in Ireland has been posting the audio files of many, many, many of my interviews, attracting the attention of people globally, especially from Ireland, to this program.

01:19:26

And I can even remember the good old days when I used to take phone calls from listeners, and we would get a call from Joe on occasion.

01:19:35

He was originally from Dublin during those days. But anyway, do you have a response to what our friend in Ireland has to say?

01:19:43

Joe, I think you've hit on something extremely important. Regeneration is sadly absent in much preaching today.

01:19:57

Let me use a different terminology. Conversion, salvation, is a supernatural act of God.

01:20:08

And that's what we mean by regeneration. It is the supernatural power of God.

01:20:14

It's not belittling the miraculous when we say that conversion or salvation is a miracle.

01:20:22

And I don't know why it is we're afraid to use the word supernatural today when we talk about somebody being saved.

01:20:30

Born again, regeneration, because it is the supernatural. God confronting a human being, making

01:20:37

Himself real to that person, is the essence of what regeneration is.

01:20:44

And as you heard in my own testimony, that was what happened to me. I was regenerated.

01:20:50

The supernatural God, a God beyond me, and it was impossible for me to be able to comprehend and understand

01:20:57

Him in a spiritual level, made Himself known to me. And that is missing in our preaching, and hence we have a lot of people who've been added to our church rows who are not truly sheep.

01:21:10

They're goats. They're false converts. In fact, I often say that the number one problem facing most churches today is that many pastors are unconverted.

01:21:19

Therefore, most of their membership is unconverted, and the minority that is converted, the majority of them are immature.

01:21:28

And so I think Joe is entirely right here. Well, thank you so much,

01:21:33

Joe, for your very insightful question. We have Jane in Huntingburg, Indiana.

01:21:42

She says, thanks to you, I now know what cage stage is, and I'm snapping out of it.

01:21:49

Now, I don't know if that's a compliment or an insult. I don't know if she's accusing me of being in the cage stage of Calvinism, or if I just explained it to her.

01:21:58

She says, thanks to you, I now know what cage stage is, and I'm snapping out of it.

01:22:03

Maybe your guest could talk about how to get out of that, too. I'm assuming you're familiar with that comical...

01:22:10

Yes, yes. If you could define it for our listeners who are unfamiliar with it, and then she wants you to discuss how to get out of it, how to get out of that state.

01:22:21

This is a terminology that somebody somewhere coined, that when a person first comes to understand the doctrines of grace, the sovereignty of God, Calvinism, Calvinistic teaching, they seem to be all enraged and almost angry, and want to get everybody converted to their

01:22:41

Calvinism, and often do so in very zealous ways, but lack a lot of wisdom.

01:22:47

And also a lot of false theology, because very often they are speaking like hyper -Calvinists.

01:22:54

Yeah, exactly, exactly, and so what we have said, people have said, you know, they need to be locked up for a couple of years until they're really grounded, and then we release them, and then let them evangelize.

01:23:10

You know, for me, when I came to understand the doctrines of grace, it really did help my evangelism, because prior to,

01:23:22

I believed that it was really up to me to lead a person to Christ. I had to come up with the right illustration,

01:23:29

I had to have all the answers to the arguments, and be able to rebut all the questions and objections, but when

01:23:36

I finally understood that God before the foundation of the world loved a number of people, and purchased them on the cross, then it became a law of averages.

01:23:51

Talk to as many people about the gospel, and eventually you're going to find somebody God's chosen to be saved.

01:23:56

That's how I saw it immediately, and I didn't really have the cage stage, or needed the cage.

01:24:03

I didn't go through that, because for me, I had just been converted, and what was inflaming my heart was

01:24:12

Jesus, and this is really the answer to get out of the stage, is to keep

01:24:18

Christ the focal point. The doctrines of grace ought to lead us to a position of being overwhelmed by the love, and mercy, and grace of God, and that should lead us to a position of humility, and meekness.

01:24:34

We don't take a stick and beat them over the head, trying to convince them that they need to believe just exactly like we do, and dot their

01:24:42

I's and T's like we do. No, we want them to know Christ, and for that, I wouldn't cage anybody, or closet them, or lock them up.

01:24:50

We need more people who are flaming in love with Jesus Christ, and lay love

01:24:57

Christ because of these great doctrines. Does that make sense?

01:25:02

Oh yes, and just to give some benefit of the doubt to those in the cage stage, not that I'm condoning the behavior of cage stagers, but I don't know if I ever was that aggressively involved in cage staging when

01:25:23

I was a brand -new Calvinist, but I can say firsthand that I can empathize with the reasons why many people find themselves in that place of belonging in a cage, is because when you discover the doctrines of grace, you very often immediately find yourself surrounded by enemies who are expressing any kind of emotion towards you, or feeling towards you from pitying you because you are insane, or absolute hatred, thinking that you are more dangerous than a fundamentalist

01:26:05

Muslim or something. You know, there are people out there, perhaps in the majority of Christendom, who either think

01:26:16

Calvinism is just false and something of antiquity to be ignored, or they think it's absolute satanic, straight from the pit of hell heresy.

01:26:26

So I can, as I said, although I don't condone the activity of a cage stage Calvinist, I can empathize.

01:26:33

Right. I don't have much time you have before your next break. Yeah, I have three minutes. Okay. I think it's very, very important to remember that the real issue is not the doctrine of election or predestination.

01:26:49

To me, the central issue today is how is one born again?

01:26:55

I mean, this trumps all of these other arguments. I think the question from Joe is so right on.

01:27:04

How is one converted? How is one made a new creation? I could care less whether the person believes in predestination or election, or even knows anything about that, but they need to know

01:27:15

Christ, and they need to know that there's nothing they can do, absolutely nothing they can do. It's impossible for man to enter into the kingdom of God, but all things are possible with God, and God can save him.

01:27:28

God can give him a new heart, and if he will simply believe and trust in Christ.

01:27:33

To me, that's the issue. And how does that happen? Well, it's a supernatural act of God. We have to point people to Christ, and I think that's what happens with these folks who come to the doctrines of grace.

01:27:44

They're so excited with what they found, they think everybody ought to experience the same joy that they had, and they want that.

01:27:51

It's sincere, it's nothing ill -motived or wrong about it, it's just that they simply get overwhelmed.

01:28:00

This is the problem that I'm seeing today. They're overwhelmed by this, and they want everybody to experience it with them, and they forgot

01:28:08

Christ. They've separated the doctrine from Jesus. Amen. We are gonna go to our final break right now, and then we will get to as many of our listener questions as we have time for.

01:28:20

And if you have a question of your own, I would suggest that you send it in immediately, because we're rapidly running out of time, and we already have several people in front of you.

01:28:28

So the email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:28:35

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

01:28:40

USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question is personal and private. And thank you, Jane, there in Huntingburg, Indiana.

01:28:49

We look forward to hearing from you more often with questions for our guests on Iron Trip and Zion Radio. Don't go away, but God willing, we will be right back after these messages.

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We are now back with our final 25 minutes or so with Michael Durham, the founder of Real Truth Matters, and we are discussing the danger of an academic

01:33:34

Calvinism. One Calvinist's plea for theology that leads to doxology and not to cold mechanical hearts.

01:33:42

Our email address, if you'd like to join us on the air with a question, and please do it quickly because we're running out of time, it's

01:33:47

ChrisArnson at gmail .com, ChrisArnson at gmail .com. Let's see here, we have

01:33:53

Charlie in Rome, New York. And Charlie says,

01:33:59

It seems to me the two biggest heresies of our day in broad strokes are the lifting up of either the love of God over his truth or vice versa.

01:34:11

How can we be open to correction on these issues, and how can we better be, let's see, how can we better, as stereotyped

01:34:20

Calvinists, lovingly correct our brethren who fall too far on the other side?

01:34:30

Well, I think that your listener is somewhat accurate in his assessment of the situation.

01:34:38

The problem is the way we define the love of God. For most today, the love of God is defined as a syrupy, feel -good, an emotional license to do whatever you want to do, because this person loves you,

01:34:56

I don't want to shut down you expressing yourself, and this is how God is seen, or he's some grandfather in the sky handing out presents to his children.

01:35:06

But the love of God has to be understood by the person of God, who God is. And here again, this is why real truth matters, we have to know who

01:35:16

God is. Most of all of our problems in the church world is stemming from we don't know who

01:35:23

God really is, the God of Scripture. And God is holy, and he loves that which is holy, which means if he loves that which is holy, he must unlove or not love that which is unholy.

01:35:37

And this is where we see the justice of God as an expression of his love. Because God loves that which is holy, he has to be natural against that which is unholy.

01:35:47

And he expresses judgment against that which is unholy. That's the backdrop of the love of God, and without that backdrop, the love of God in Christ Jesus makes really no sense.

01:35:59

This is part of the problem of our evangelism today. We're trying to get the sinner to the cross and receive this crucified

01:36:06

Messiah, and he doesn't know why he needs him. Because all he's been told, that God loves you, has a wonderful plan for your life, and if you'll receive

01:36:13

Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you'll have a wonderful, perfect, happy life.

01:36:20

And he's not been confronted with the God of Scripture. I remember sharing my faith with a young doctor many years ago, who grew up in church and was an assistant

01:36:30

Sunday school teacher. After six weeks, he came to me, Chris, and here's what he said. This God you've taught me,

01:36:36

I've never heard of, and I've been in church all of my life, and this thing you call conviction of sin, I've never experienced.

01:36:43

Well, I knew he wasn't a true Christian. But a few weeks later, God converted him.

01:36:48

But it was the confrontation of a holy God that made sense out of the cross. And without that, you don't understand the love of God.

01:37:00

Amen. We have, let's see here.

01:37:05

We have Donna from Waterboro, Maine. She says, Hi, Chris, Jeff, and Donna Herbert from Waterboro, Maine.

01:37:16

First of all, the trip. Excuse me? I know this couple.

01:37:21

Their last name is Hebert. Oh, I'm mispronouncing it. Yeah. Hebert. Okay, it's

01:37:28

French, obviously, I'm assuming. Yeah. Okay. She says, First off, the twins say hi,

01:37:34

Mr. Durham. Hi, Jeff. So now she says,

01:37:41

How do we keep the balance of having right theology and being passionate about it without being called a cold, calloused

01:37:49

Calvinist? It seems like folks already have this mindset that all Calvinists are cold and that they are more passionate about their correct doctrine than loving the brethren.

01:38:00

I know that that's inherent in our theme today, but I've got to be honest that I know a lot of angry, bigoted, dead, lifeless, professing

01:38:14

Christians who are anti -Calvinists. So I don't think that we run the market on that or own the backyard on that.

01:38:25

But the difference is, I think, that we are, what's the word

01:38:32

I'm looking for? We have less excuse to believe that way.

01:38:38

Because if we believe what we have is biblical truth, then we don't have any excuse to believe the way that we believe and when we behave in a hateful and cold and mechanical way.

01:38:50

But if you could respond to Donna's question. Again, the answers are going to start sounding the same, is that you have to know and fight to keep a vital, intimate relationship with Christ.

01:39:09

You have to keep Christ foremost, and the way you do that, in a brief few moments, is through the

01:39:16

Word of God by the Holy Spirit. John Owen, for example, you need to read his book on communion with God.

01:39:26

Excellent, excellent. Look, you would think you are reading a mystic, and he's not a mystic in the unbiblical sense.

01:39:36

But as John Murray said, an intelligent mystic, he's basing his relationship and the experience of Christ on the

01:39:44

Word of God as the Spirit would blow, and he would call it the gust of God.

01:39:52

The gust of God. Where God's Spirit blows upon His Word and gives you a sweet sense of His presence.

01:40:00

That's what he called the gust of God. And that's what we need as Christians daily.

01:40:06

Again, it doesn't matter the strife. But you're right, Chris. We of all people who are

01:40:12

Reformed in our theology, we ought to know this, and we ought to know our God because we've been brought down to the depths of His soul and His heart in His electing love.

01:40:24

And that should be what is fueling this desire to know Him. I want to know this

01:40:31

God who loved me when I was so unlovable and found no reason in me to love me.

01:40:41

Practicing the presence of God on a daily basis. Amen.

01:40:47

Yeah, and the other thing I think that differentiates the cage -stage

01:40:52

Calvinist or the bigoted Calvinist or the cold mechanical

01:40:57

Calvinist from those who are of different theological persuasions is that typically the

01:41:05

Calvinist who is acting wrongly will look down on his non -Calvinist brothers and sisters as stupid, and the non -Calvinist who is acting in a sinful way towards us will look at us as unbiblical and relying upon the thoughts and writings of men over and above the

01:41:30

Scriptures. I think that's where the difference would be, where you might have the academic

01:41:36

Calvinist or the person, the Christian, who is using his academic credentials or aspirations as an idol.

01:41:46

You may have that more typically amongst Reformed Christians, because it is true, it seems, that they are more academically inclined, but you have the same kind of idol that the non -Calvinist raises up, thinking wrongly that their theology is pure Bible free from the traditions of men, but nothing farther could be the truth.

01:42:09

Exactly, exactly. And again, academic, we don't mean somebody who's got a Ph .D. behind his name.

01:42:15

You can be an academic Calvinist who's never attended grade school, never finished grade school. Again, it's just taking the doctrine and making that the end pursuit and thinking because you know something that somebody else doesn't know that that means you know

01:42:30

God personally and have this vital, intimate, vibrant relationship we've been talking about. The two are not the same.

01:42:38

The knowledge should lead me to that. That's why you said we have the least excuse of anyone.

01:42:46

Right. But the problem is it often does begin with the knowledge. I have a feeling this listener, which is a first -time questioner from Texas City, Texas, I think he's another one of your friends because of something that he says.

01:43:02

He said, it's good to hear Michael on your program today. Audrey and I are enjoying hearing his comments.

01:43:08

I'm assuming he knows you, that he brought up your comments. Thank you, brother. And he says, here are his questions.

01:43:18

Michael, what are some of the resources you enjoy reading that are solidly

01:43:23

Reformed that you feel keep you from being merely academic in your understanding of biblical truth?

01:43:30

That's his first question. Well, and I don't mean to take

01:43:37

Michael's question flippantly, and God bless you, brother. It's good to hear from you. But the

01:43:43

Bible, the scriptures, I have found as I get older, I read the Bible a whole lot more than I used to, and a lot of other books a lot less.

01:43:53

Now, I don't want to be misunderstood. I've got six books over there on my bookcase, top of my bookcase,

01:44:00

I just bought, and I need to categorize them and put them in my library. And I've got two more over here on the desk

01:44:06

I just purchased. I read a lot. But the bulk of my reading has become more scripture than other books.

01:44:14

And, again, I wish I had another two hours with you, Chris. How you read the scriptures is fundamental here.

01:44:22

How we read, why we read. Well, we could have you back for two hours to talk about that in the future, in the near future.

01:44:28

Well, I'd love to because it's really helped me tremendously. It's made the

01:44:35

Lord Jesus so much more precious to me, the scriptures themselves and how I read the scriptures.

01:44:41

But I'm still practicing my reading Spurgeon quite a bit. Another one,

01:44:49

I think Spurgeon was the most balanced preacher I have ever read. The man was just so balanced and didn't seem to go to any extreme in any direction doctrinally.

01:45:05

I do do a lot of reading of John Owen. I do do that.

01:45:12

I'm trying to think of somebody here. But that would probably answer some of those questions.

01:45:18

The Puritans are awesome. You know, the New Reform Movement wants to emulate the

01:45:26

Puritans, but they fail to emulate them in this very vital area. We would love to preach like the

01:45:33

Puritans. The problem is we preach long, but we never learned how to apply the word of God like the

01:45:39

Puritans did, and we just bore people with long lectures. Now, that's an overstatement. It's hyperbole, but I think it makes the point.

01:45:47

The Puritans were powerful preachers because they knew how to take the doctrine and make application to the person so that the person listening thought, that man's talking to me.

01:45:57

So I think the Puritans are excellent to keep your soul and heart bathed in that fountain, and that keeps it warm.

01:46:07

Well, Michael's second question is, Michael, the regulative principle is a major emphasis amongst many

01:46:14

Reformed Baptists. Could you address what you see as strengths and weaknesses regarding the regulative principle?

01:46:20

And, of course, if you could give us a summary definition of the regulative principle.

01:46:27

Well, you may need to correct me, Chris, but the regulative principle states that if it's not in Scripture, then it shouldn't be practiced in our worship.

01:46:38

Exactly. That's what I know, the regulative principle. The silence in Scripture is meant to be taken as a prohibition rather than as a license or freedom.

01:46:49

Exactly. The streaks, well,

01:46:55

I think the Bible is the best hymnal that we have.

01:47:01

The book that we call the Bible, the Holy Scriptures, teach us how to worship, and that's the essence of doxologies we talked about, how to walk with God, how to exalt in God, how does

01:47:17

Peter state it in his epistle, that even though you've not seen, you have believed, and you have believed even with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

01:47:29

It was this that Edwards believed was the very essence of New Testament Christianity, the affections of the heart.

01:47:36

And there's nothing better than the Scriptures, and so the Scriptures should regulate our worship. It should tell us what

01:47:41

God is pleased, what sacrifices of worship are pleasing to Him, and what are not. I think the weakness of the regulative principle is the very thing you just mentioned, in the areas where the

01:47:51

Bible is silent. I think we can become, there we can take our convictions and press them on people as the

01:47:59

Word of God, and it not necessarily be so. That's my opinion. And we could go on and on and on for hours about that, because there are problems with denying the regulative principle, where people start doing very strange things in worship services.

01:48:15

Absolutely. And they tell you, you can't tell me not to do that, just because it's not in the Bible. Remember, you don't believe in the regulative principle.

01:48:21

Yeah, exactly. Well, thank you very much, Michael and Audrey in Texas City, Texas.

01:48:28

And you have won as first -time questioners a free New American Standard Bible, so please send me your full mailing address in Texas City, Texas, so that cvbbs .com

01:48:39

can mail you a new New American Standard Bible. Thank you so much for your participation.

01:48:45

We hope to keep hearing from you with questions for our other guests. We have Ted from Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

01:48:53

And Ted says, I'd like to ask a question that might have me dismissed as a heretic to the

01:49:01

Reformed cause, but is it possible that the ever -burgeoning conference culture among the

01:49:09

Reformed may be actually contributing to the problem? We Reform folk love our conferences.

01:49:14

Well, I happen to love conferences, and I think that conferences can only be a bad thing if they're bad conferences.

01:49:23

And, of course, if you're going to many of them yourself, that might be a bad thing if you're separating yourself from your own local fellowship.

01:49:30

But what's your opinion on that? Well, Chris, I don't go to a lot of conferences, to be quite frank with you, except if I'm preaching them.

01:49:42

My schedule doesn't always allow me to do so. But I think the listener is picking up on something.

01:49:51

We are preaching to the choir most often in the conferences. And, you know,

01:49:59

C .T. Studd, I think, as a missionary, and this is where my missions and evangelism blood comes to the surface here, but, you know, why give the gospel to people who've had it, who have access to it, when there are people in the world who don't have it?

01:50:16

And so, you know, I do think that there is a tendency to be preaching to the choir all the time.

01:50:25

And I think, if I can take his question one step further, I think there's a danger, too, with the celebrityism, the cult of celebrity that the conferences can produce, and we need to be careful there.

01:50:40

Yeah, I agree with that. And I think Josh Bice, who runs the G3 Conference, fully knows that well, and his rosters not only include very well -known people that you and I both know and love, like Paul Washer, who might be considered today a celebrity amongst

01:50:59

Calvinists especially, but he also has pastors and speakers that many people in that audience have never heard of before.

01:51:08

So I can tell you that I know quite a number of Arminian pastors that have come to embrace and fall in love with the doctrines of grace because of conferences, and I can say that pastors who need to be preached to on occasion find conferences very valuable because they are doing, as far as their own lives are concerned, their own preaching.

01:51:32

And I think that going to conferences can help break away from a cultic, idolatrous view of your own pastor, and people do have that.

01:51:48

Well, yeah, we've hosted our own pastors. Our Real Truth Matters, we host pastors' conferences, but we do it just for the very reason you stated.

01:51:59

We want to minister to these brothers because they do need preaching too.

01:52:04

We all need accountability. We all need the Word of God. We need to sit under the teaching of the Word as well as preach the

01:52:10

Word, and so for that reason we do it. I'm not against conferences. I hope

01:52:16

I wasn't interpreted that way. I don't attend very many. Number one, my schedule doesn't allow it, and number two,

01:52:27

I like them. I enjoy them. I remember years ago

01:52:33

I used to go to the Founders Conference quite a bit, and that was a wonderful thing for me at the time.

01:52:38

I needed it. Maybe at this time in my life I don't need it as much because I do have a lot of good

01:52:44

Christian fellowship, pastoral fellowship, ministerial fellowship. But anyway, I'm not against conferences, but I do think the man has asked something that is not disqualifying him or disbanding him,

01:52:55

I hope, from the radio program, but I hope that there is some insight there that we maybe need to listen to.

01:53:05

Yes. Yes, Ted is an old listener of Iron Trap and Zion Radio. I'm not referring to his personal age.

01:53:11

He's been listening since 2005 and contributing some very insightful questions, and,

01:53:17

Ted, there's a lot of other reasons I find you to be heretical. I'm only kidding. Thanks for the excellent question,

01:53:24

Ted. We have Lee from Denton, Texas. What do you feel is missing from most modern -day preaching that contributes to the issue of cold

01:53:36

Calvinism? Well, that's a question that I need more than two or three minutes to answer.

01:53:48

What is the one thing? I think it's the sense of the presence and the power of God.

01:53:57

Amen. That, to me, is the number one thing that I feel is lacking in much of our preaching today.

01:54:06

Now this, again, I'm painting with broad strokes, and I don't mean every last person, but I hear preaching, and when

01:54:17

I'm in other conferences preaching, or if I'm in a local church and hearing preaching there, even though I'm also one of the speakers,

01:54:29

I often sense a lack of the manifestation of the presence of God.

01:54:34

And I don't mean weird things. I mean just a sense that God, the holy

01:54:39

God of scriptures, is in that room, and that you get a sense of the glory of God.

01:54:46

That, to me, is the aim of preaching. And if that's not there, if that's missing, then

01:54:52

I think the preacher has missed it. Amen. Well, thank you, Lee. In fact, give me your full mailing address in Denton, Texas, because as a first -time questioner, you have also won a free

01:55:04

New American Standard Bible, so make sure we get that address so CVBBS .com

01:55:10

can ship that out to you very soon. We have Joe in Slovenia. Dear Brother Chris and Michael, I absolutely love the rich Reformed theology of the doctrines of grace.

01:55:20

I'm daily blessed by books I receive from Iron Trip and Zion Radio, and podcasts from a number of Reformed teachers and preachers.

01:55:27

The humility and passion for Christ and his gospel that God has brought me in Reformed Baptist doctrine is a daily blessing.

01:55:35

For all these and many other reasons, I'm puzzled by the seeming general lack of excitement for engaging in missions, evangelism, and church planting among Reformed Baptist churches.

01:55:48

As an international missionary, it is discouraging that it is so difficult to find Reformed churches that want to partner in missions.

01:55:56

Please encourage the churches to be proactive in adopting missionaries for mission engagement.

01:56:02

Every church needs to be intentionally invested in the Great Commission globally. Thank you both for leading us in greater faithfulness to our

01:56:10

Savior. That is Joe in Slovenia. Well, that wasn't a question.

01:56:15

That was a proclamation. That was good preaching. All I can do is say amen to that. Amen as well.

01:56:21

And if you could now, since we only have a little over two minutes left, I want you to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

01:56:33

That you can have as much of Jesus as you want. And anything and everything that you receive in the

01:56:44

Christian life is not by your obedience or by your performance or by your faith.

01:56:50

It's through the person of Jesus Christ. And I pray that people today would have a revival in their hearts for a longing for Jesus Christ.

01:57:04

This is what I see that is missing so much. For example, one of our pastors,

01:57:11

Pastor Lee from Providence Chapel said Sunday in a great message on heaven as our home.

01:57:18

He said, it's only proportion as we are troubled by the physical separation from our

01:57:23

Savior here and now will we take comfort from the encouragement of John 14, 1 -3. You know, the passage says, let not your heart be troubled.

01:57:31

If you believe in God, believe also in me and my Father's house or many mansions. If we're not so, I would have told you, I go to prepare a place for you that where I am there you may be also.

01:57:39

And he said, you know, if you just hear that encouragement, you think, oh well, that was good.

01:57:46

Yeah, that was, yeah, heaven's my home one day. That might tell you that your love for Jesus Christ is low.

01:57:54

That was the essence of what he was trying to say and I took away from that. And he was right.

01:58:01

What's missing in most of our, in many people's hearts, in many churches, in many pastors' hearts is this flame for Jesus Christ alone that fuels everything about their

01:58:11

Christian life. And they're trying to please God, they're trying to obey God, thinking that this is the way we receive

01:58:18

Him. No, you receive through Christ every good thing that has come from the Father comes through Christ and you engage

01:58:25

Him as a person and as a person you receive from Him. Faith in a person developed in a relationship.

01:58:33

I hope that summarizes it. Yes, and we are now out of time, brother, and I want our listeners to remember our guest

01:58:39

Michael Durham's website is realtruthmatters .com, realtruthmatters .com. And don't forget about the

01:58:45

Fellowship Conference New England this August 2nd through the 4th. Go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com,

01:58:51

fellowshipconferencenewengland .com. I want to thank you, Michael, for being my guest. I look forward to your future and frequent return.

01:58:58

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