September 12, 2017 Show with Bruce Bennett on “Are You My Brother? A Biblical Litmus Test for True Christian Brotherhood”

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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 September 2017.

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I'm so delighted that as far as I know, everyone that I know and love in Florida is doing well in spite of perhaps power outages and other nuisances.

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I don't know of anybody that was seriously injured and obviously that would go along with fatalities.

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I don't know of any fatalities and I don't know of any friends, at least personal friends, who have had serious structural damages to their homes or businesses, but I'm sure there are many others who have had that kind of damage.

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So we we do praise God for his mercy in the midst of Hurricane Irma.

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But I'm delighted to have back on the program today a friend of mine who I've known for quite a number of years, even before he was a pastor.

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His name is Bruce Bennett, pastor of Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York. We're going to be finding out more about the

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Word of Truth Church and we're also going to be discussing an important event that the

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Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, is conducting in cooperation with the

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Long Island Spurgeon Fellowship and that's the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the

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Protestant Reformation. And the keynote speaker, who I actually am the one who urged them to invite

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Dr. Tony Costa of Toronto Baptist Seminary to speak at this event, I'm so glad that they took me up on my suggestion and I do plan on being there,

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God willing, from the 29th of September through the 1st of October on Long Island to attend two events, the first at the

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Word of Truth Church in Farmingville and the last being the Sunday morning worship service at the

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Hope Reform Baptist Church of Medford, Long Island, New York. But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trump and Zion Radio, Pastor Bruce Bennett.

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Hey Chris, always a joy to be with you, thanks for having me. Oh, it's my pleasure and you are a friend who stuck by me through thick and thin, in fact you are one of the very few pastors that visited me when

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I was in St. Charles Hospital waiting to be admitted to the

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Christian Rehabilitation Ministry in Boone, North Carolina, the Hebron Colony Ministries, and I fondly remember you coming up to visit me there at St.

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Charles Hospital and it was a true evidence of not only

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Christian brotherhood, which is our topic today, but a true evidence of friendship and I will never forget you for that, brother.

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Again, it was my joy, Chris, being your friend, it makes it even easier, so praise

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God. I appreciate that, and in studio with me is the Rev. Buzz Taylor, my co -host. And it's good to be with you again, and Chris, might this remind us from what you just said that you were once thin?

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Well, a lot thinner than you, Buzz. Anyway, let's see, well let's start off with a description of the

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Word of Truth Church, and then I want to get your personal testimony. You may have given it on the program before, I don't remember, but if you could give us your testimony of salvation.

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Sure. Truth Church is a church plant that was put out in 2009, raised up by the

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Church of Patchogue, where I served as assistant pastor starting in 2005.

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So actually, you did know me prior, Chris, at the various debates that used to have between James White against Catholic apologists.

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Yeah, I think that you are still, if I'm not mistaken, you may have still been in the Church of God Cleveland, Tennessee denomination when

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I first met you, but I'm not a hundred percent certain about that. That actually is true, because if I'm not mistaken, you had your first debate,

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I believe it was 1995? Yes, it was, at the Coral House Catering Hall, Baldwin, Long Island, between Dr.

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James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries and Jerry Matitex, the

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Roman Catholic opponent who heads Biblical Foundations International, which is an interesting title for somebody who rejects

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Sola Scriptura. But yes, that was on all of the major dogmas of Mary.

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Yeah, I remember it fondly, and I just want to, again, thank you, not just for that event, but I guess it was almost a decade of Catholic versus Protestant debates that you sponsored, you up, you moderated, you were, you know, the instrumental person to bring those together, and to this day and forward,

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I will be ever grateful for you for doing that, because not only was it immensely helpful in my journey towards Reformed Theology and getting away from Arminianism and Pentecostal doctrine, which

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I was, you know, raised up in as a Christian, you know, it also encouraged me to better plumb the depths of the word, and also sharpen my apologetic skills and my polemical skills, specifically in debating.

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And I'm bivocational for my other job as a solstice teacher. I did the Mock Trial Club in the high school

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I teach at, and through the Mock Trial Club and other venues, I've been able to actually hold 18 publicly moderated debates, including one against Dr.

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Michael Brown, as I know you were there for that one as well. Yeah, that was held at the very church where I was a member before moving to Pennsylvania.

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Yeah, the topic with Dr. Michael Brown was, who makes the final choice in salvation, God or man?

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So it served not only as a definite inspiration just on a personal level, but also on a ministerial level, and again,

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I want to thank you for that immense labor of love that you put out, and putting together those debates, and may the

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Lord, by His grace, also, you know, raise up somebody in the future to do things likewise, especially here in Long Island with so many

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Roman Catholics that need to hear the glorious gospel of grace. I just wanted to flesh out the rest of the answer to the question.

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I was sent out in 2009, Grace Gospel Church, had a church planning program, we were sent out as the fourth of four church plants.

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And this is a congregation within the Evangelical Free Church denomination. That's correct, that's correct, and the senior pastor at the time had a real vision for church planning, and I was really blessed to be able to participate in that plan, and I was the fourth of four churches that went out.

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So we went out in 2009, and we started in my living room, and today we are now in Farmingville, and by God's grace,

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He's grown the congregation, you know, to the place we can have our own building. We rent it, but it's, you know, a decent -sized building, and the

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Lord's been using us to reach Farmingville and the surrounding communities with the gospel of grace, and that's really the distinctive of our church.

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We're Reformed in an area that doesn't have really many churches that are Reformed, and not only are we

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Reformed, but we're also, our pneumatology is a little more along the lines of contemporary

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Evangelicalism, in a sense that we have not a strict hymnody that's based on the

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Psalms or or hymns, but we have, we're eclectic, we have some, you know, traditional hymnody, but we also have contemporary music, and we also,

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I call myself a neo -cessationist. I believe that, you know, sign gifts have essentially ceased, but we wouldn't stop someone if they felt like they had a biblically -oriented prophetic word or a biblically -oriented tongue, you know, that was going to be interpreted during our sharing time.

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I'm sorry, we're out of time today, but it was great having you. No, I'm kidding.

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I was fully aware of that before Pastor Bruce came on the program. Just one of the differences that we have as brothers in Christ.

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You know, and it's good that we can agree to disagree on these secondary issues, but at the end of the day, we, you know, if you came into my church just off the street and you were, you know, aware of these deeper issues in theology, you would probably think we're just sort of the mainstream evangelical church, but you certainly, we uphold, you know, the

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Reformation standards as the foundation of our ministry, and in that sense, we're in lockstep with all the other

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Reformation churches, Reform churches, that is, you know, in our area. In fact, the Loyal and Spurgeon Fellowship, and I know you had

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Pastor Rich Jensen on, who spearheaded that fellowship, was recently put together back in 2015, where we're trying to get together with all the

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Reformed congregations in Nassau and Suffolk County, you know, to bring about some unity, to bring out some encouragement, and just be there to practically, you know, facilitate and love each other, and it's been a real blessing, because even though we do disagree, whether it's eschatology or some of the finer points of ecclesiology or pneumatology, we stand solidly on the five points of the

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Reformation. So in that regard, we're just so blessed to be able to, you know, hold out the gospel of grace, and in a very dry area, very spiritually challenged area.

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We have a humongous amount of Catholics in this area, and if you're not Catholic, you're probably just a straight old materialist hedonist, which the

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New York City metro area is known for. We're about 55 miles east of the city. And a lot of, in your area, especially further east from you, you have a lot of these breathtakingly gorgeous, old, historic,

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Protestant churches that are tragically in the hands of just out -and -out liberals and apostates now.

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Yes, that's so true, so true. So yeah, we have a good dose of liberal Protestantism. Unfortunately, the evangelical churches in this area are predominantly

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Pentecostal, which just about everyone would be Arminian as well, and like I said, the amount of Reformed churches that I can count in Nassau and about a dozen that I'm aware of, at least anyway, that we would associate with in the fellowship.

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Right. Well, I strongly urge you to contact my dear friend, Pastor Ron Glass of Wading River Baptist Church, who is not only a friend but sponsors this program, and he is a thoroughgoing

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Calvinist, even though you would disagree with his dispensationalism. Having been one of two people, the

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Reverend Buzz Taylor being the other, who edits his sermons for his radio broadcast, he very rarely even brings up those unique distinctives of dispensationalism.

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His message, his primary focus of preaching, is the gospel and the doctrines of sovereign grace and just expository preaching, wherever the texts lead him.

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But just to put a bug in your ear there, he's a fine man of God. Yes, I think we've been reaching out to him.

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I have to check with Pastor Rich to make sure he's on the list, but we're trying to round up, you know, everyone that we're aware of, but I appreciate the reminder,

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Chris. I'll have to, in fact, make a note of that right now, and hopefully he'll be able to join us in the upcoming meeting.

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And if you could now give us your testimony of salvation, what kind of religious atmosphere were you raised in, if any, and what kind of providential circumstances did

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God bring about in your life to draw you to himself and save you? So I was raised as Roman Catholic.

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Again, Long Island, New York City metro area is pretty heavy in Catholic population, so I just assumed that that was, you know, quote -unquote

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Christianity, but I didn't know Christ, and I didn't consider myself to be a Christian until I was 18 years old when

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I was starting to read the Bible in my first semester in college, and I experienced the

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Lord's presence in my dormitory room as I was reading the Gospel of Matthew in a living

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Bible translation, believe it or not, somewhere around Matthew 16, ironically. I'm sorry, we're out of time, but it was nice having you.

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I'll never forget it, Chris. Tears often well up in my eyes, you know, when

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I think of what the Lord did. But I never had the Gospel presented to me, to my remembrance.

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I remember as a lifeguard reading Gospel literature that Christians apparently were leaving at the beach that I worked at as a teenager.

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I remember Jehovah's Witnesses coming to the door and, you know, show me the pictures of, you know, their paradise, their

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Shangri -La with the picnic basket and the multicultural family playing in this beautiful, you know, field, and don't you want to go to paradise?

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And eventually the conversation, you know, steered towards Armageddon, nuclear war, and stuff like this.

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But the Scriptures they brought out, you know, in the Catholic Church, the Scripture is so minimized.

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But I always wanted to get into Scripture. So my first semester in college, I made a point of bringing that Bible that I was given as a 14 -year -old.

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I remember asking my mom for a Bible. I just never read it, unfortunately, prior to that. Maybe a piece here and there, but I remember making a point, and in college

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I was able to do that finally as the Lord was dealing with me. You know, some issues in my own life that He was putting

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His finger on in terms of conviction. And part of the reason I was reading it was to simply, you know, do a test and see, you know, were these things like, you know, sexual morality and alcohol misuse, were these things, you know, what did

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He think of those things? And this is part of the reason why I was drawn to the Scripture. But I just remember that's, you know, how

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He drew me to Himself, was just actually getting into the Bible. And He, sometime like around 8 o 'clock in some mid -September, part of the week of September of 83, in SUNY Geneseo, my first college

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I attended as a pre -business management major. And when He touched my heart, using the word there, when the

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Spirit got a hold of me and that love, that joy, that peace, and as I embraced Christ at that time, that's my salvific testimony.

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That's my testimony of salvation, where I knew that I was born again. He had regenerated my heart and gave me the faith to trust in Christ.

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So the first people I met on campus were all Pentecostal. I had no idea that, you know,

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Christianity or biblical Christianity was outside of Pentecost, because no one ever witnessed them.

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I never knew, you know, anything other than Pentecostalism. And the fellowship I went to was called BASIC, Brethren, Sisters, and Christ.

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It came out of the Elon Bible Institute. And I met these folks, because one day

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I was in a student union, they had a table set up, and they invited me, hey, come on a Wednesday night.

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So I said, yeah, I'm gonna come on a Wednesday night, because I love Jesus, I want to be with Jesus' people. And I go in, and they're all speaking in tongues, and got hands up, and I was about to walk right out.

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I was like, what kind of weirdness is this? But I stayed, and eventually they, you know, they showered me with love and blessing, and said, hey, why don't you come out

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Sunday to our church? The first, you know, Christian church I was in, because I don't consider the

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Catholic Church to be Christian. The first Christian church I was in was called

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Dayspring Ministries, in Alvon, New York, and, which is up by Rochester.

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And I walk in this place, and they got trombones, trumpets, violins, a full choir, people dancing, you know, flags being waved, it was incredible.

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Dancers in full dress, and again, I was taken back, but I just was caught up with the

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Word, and just the loving atmosphere, and I just entered into Christianity as a

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Pentecostal. I came back to Long Island after that. You know, my whole life has changed, and I want to, you know, see what

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God's will is, so I just went to a local community college. I found out about a Bible college in the area called Christ for Nations, just trying to seek

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God's will. That's where Michael Brown was on the faculty. In fact, he was one of your teachers.

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That's correct. That's where, that's how I know Michael Brown, so I was able to get Michael Brown to debate me, because we're friends through exactly our relationship as faculty students back in the 80s, when he was a professor at Christ for Nations.

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So yeah, I was able to sit under his teaching for three years, and you know, it was a real blessing in the sense that I really learned how to worship,

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I learned how to pray, because there's one thing you can't take away from the charismatic Pentecostals, they know how to pray.

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They're steadfast, and I wish we as Reformed folks could pray as fervently, with as much zeal and outward, you know, demonstration of piety, like, like it says in Timothy, with hands uplifted.

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I don't know why I go to a Reformed church and no one wants to obey 1 Timothy, which is to pray with your hands uplifted, but either here or there.

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Obviously in my church we allow that, and I'm the one doing it, so, but I can tell you this,

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I did learn that part. There's other parts I obviously had to let go of over time.

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By the way, Reverend Buzz Taylor, he used to pastor a church where everybody lifted their hands, but there were also

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German flags on the wall. I have a question, though. He made that up, by the way.

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But you mentioned Elam and Avon, and when were you there? I was, is that Buzz?

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Yes. Okay, Buzz, yeah, so I was a student at CFN -IBS,

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Christian Nations Institute of Biblical Studies is the full name, in Stony Brook, New York, from 1984 to 1987.

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Okay, so we came pretty close in our circles there, because I knew some people from my own town that had been,

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I don't know if they were taking courses there, but at that time I was pastoring in Sandusky, New York, a little town outside of Arcade, and we had people that were going to Elam.

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Jeff Hokanson, I believe, was the guy's name, but yeah, our circles might have crossed back then.

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Yeah, Buzz was formerly a charismatic, and now he's Presbyterian, and a cessationist

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Presbyterian. Oh, okay. Excellent, yeah, as a matter of fact, I considered going to Elam, but to be honest with you,

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I just felt like I had to go back home in my new Christian walk, just to, you know, because my mom had big questions, what happened to you, and she took me to the

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Catholic priest, and the Catholic priest asked me what happened to me, and I said, I read the Bible and found Christ. He goes, the Bible? Yeah.

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Noah really was in the Bible? I said, yeah. Noah really built an ark with animals? I said, yeah. He said, you really believe that Adam and Eve were in a garden and a snake caught them?

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I said, yes, I'm leaving your church. By the way, just a comment on something you said about the

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Pentecostals really know how to pray. There's a lot I admire about charismatics and Pentecostals, the very, what's the word

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I'm looking for, extroverted Christianity, I guess is the best way to put it, where they are very, and of course, this is a kind of broad brushing here in a good way.

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I'm not saying everybody who's Pentecostal or charismatic does this, but they are known for being very open in the public about being a

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Christian. They are very fervent in prayer life, as you mentioned, very often, and they are also, they demonstrate, in many cases, a lot more compassion and willingness to roll up their sleeves to reach out to the most despised among us in ways that, even though I know for a fact there are

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Reformed and Fundamentalist Baptists and other conservative Christian groups that do those kinds of ministries, and I'm speaking specifically of reaching out to drug addicts, drug dealers, prostitutes,

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AIDS patients, transsexuals, and all these people in the city that may be overlooked by your average

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Christian who doesn't even want to go near them. Charismatic and Pentecostal Christians have been known to dominate those areas of ministry, and I must say that it is humbling and a rebuke to all of us outside of those circles who do not regularly or ever involve ourselves in that kind of outreach.

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Yes, Chris, and honestly, the vision of my church, honestly, and everyone who gave us the blessing to go out to Plantis Church on the church board that gave us that blessing, we're aware that I wanted to marry the best of what

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I experienced in the Pentecostal church that I was in, and that was 14 years, and then

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I was 11 years in the Evangelical Free Church, thankfully it was reformed, but the senior pastor was a very strict cessationist, and he was aware that I really didn't agree with those positions.

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And a former charismatic himself. Yes, that's true, but I do, and I'm not going to apologize for this,

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I do think that the weakness amongst most reformed folks that I know and that I've experienced is they have a tendency to become overly cerebral, and they have a tendency to quench the spirit.

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One of the things I was going to say that I forgot to though, I'm sure you would agree with me wholeheartedly, in spite of your compliment or your commendation to Pentecostals and Charismatics knowing how to pray, there is also an element within them that have heretical and even blasphemous prayers in my opinion, and I'm talking, when you go enter into the extreme of the

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Word of Faith movement where you have people demanding God, that it is their right to receive blessings from God, that I can remember a charismatic, a very well -known charismatic radio host who is now deceased, his name escapes me right now, but he was a

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Word of Faith Pentecostal, very well -known, a hero to the Copelands and the

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Higgins and other folks, in fact it might have actually, now that I'm thinking about it,

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I think it may have been Kenneth Higgins himself, I think that's what it was, but he, I can remember even as an unbeliever, hearing him on the radio when

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I was in this period of searching and investigating different religions and so on,

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I remember shuddering and instinctively knowing that this was not correct, when he said, you don't have to fall on your knees and beg

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God to answer your prayers, you stand up like a man and you boldly storm the throne of grace and demand what is rightfully yours, and I remember even as a non -believer saying, that ain't right, that can't be right, so do you get where I'm coming from, that there is obviously an element within the group that you're describing that have very blasphemous prayers and very unbiblical and anti -biblical prayers?

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Yes, and the root of it is Arminianism. Right, or even Pelagianism, really.

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Where self is held up in an inappropriate way, where self is seen as the determiner of salvation and the axis on which the

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Christian life turns, where it should be Christ and him crucified. So yeah, Christian making a valid point, absolutely.

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And so, going fast forward to when you realized that you received the call to the pastorate, was that before you entered into Christ for the

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Nations College? No, actually, I was actually going to be a missionary. I fought for missionary service.

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When I was in the local community college here in Long Island, I had met an Operation Mobilization missionary who was speaking at our

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Christian group. And, you know, being a baby Christian and, you know, being filled with the

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Spirit, I just had this tremendous zeal to want to reach the lost, you know, who I'm freshly aware of, because I was only a lost a few months prior to that, and I had such a burden to want to reach out to folks with the gospel.

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And I just figured, hey, it's common sense, it's such a need, I guess I'm here to meet the need, and the greatest need is in Asia and one of the greatest countries is

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India. So I ended up doing... I thought that's where it was gonna, you know, be long term.

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But the Lord had arranged me to be there for three months, but to come to America, and I actually was doing youth ministry as soon as I got back to America and the church

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I was in. My pastor had me doing the youth ministry for eight years. And during the youth ministry,

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I got to see pretty clearly that my teaching gift, my leadership gift, wasn't for youth pastoring, it was actually for pastoring adults.

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So at that point, I began to look at how to, you know, go out and either fill a pulpit or, you know, start a church.

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And I was actually asked to fill the pulpit of an Assembly God Church, and I was also asked to fill a pulpit of an independent

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Pentecostal church, but I could not take the call with a clear conscience with the restrictions that they had given me.

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You know, for example, I had to take the AG license, and the AG denomination actually says within its own bylaws that if you teach eternal security, which

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I don't believe in eternal security, I believe in the perseverance of the saints. But in that sense, they would believe, you know, eternal security, that you could actually lose your credential.

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Yeah, and amazingly, isn't it, that our dear late friend Al Stein, who I know you used to invite to speak at your conferences, what a precious brother in Christ Al Stein was, and still is in heaven.

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But Al Stein used to, not only was an Assemblies of God pastor, but actually excelled to the point where he was a bishop and overseer of Long Island.

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And he got around that, thanks be to God, by merely saying in his credential papers that he had to,

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I guess, re -sign every year or something like that, that he believed in evidential security, not eternal security.

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And evidential security, what he meant by that was that you should have no security that you are saved unless you are giving evidence of it.

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And because of the fact that many of these Arminian denominations and individuals who have such a disdain for eternal security do so because many who claim that doctrine as their own twist it to the point where all you need to do is say a one -time prayer, accepting

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Jesus in your heart, quote, quote, and you could actually live like Satan for the rest of your life, and you should expect fully to be welcomed with open arms into heaven on Judgment Day.

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Even someone as highly respected and well -known as Charles Stanley wrote that in his book on eternal security, and quite a tragic heresy in my opinion.

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Oh, no, I agree 100 % with you. We're going to a break right now. If you would like to go on the,

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I was going to say if you'd like to go on the air. If you would like to send in your questions to be read and answered on the air for Pastor Bruce Bennett, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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

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USA. If you're asking about a personal and private matter, perhaps you disagree with your own pastor or something on something, perhaps you disagree with your own spouse, or perhaps you are just thinking through issues and you don't want to identify yourself.

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I understand that, so you will be granted, your request will be granted to remain anonymous if that is the case, but if it's not a personal and private matter, please give us at least your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside the

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USA. Don't go away, God willing, we'll be right back after these messages with Pastor Bruce Bennett of Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York.

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Welcome back.

36:42

This is Chris Arnson. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with about 90 minutes to go is

36:49

Pastor Bruce Bennett of the Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York. We are discussing the theme,

36:55

Are You My Brother? A Biblical Litmus Test for True Christian Brotherhood. And we have been for weeks now promoting the fact that the

37:04

Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York is joining hands with the Long Island Spurgeon Fellowship for the 500th anniversary celebration of the

37:14

Protestant Reformation. And in fact, before we go on to continue on our topic today,

37:20

Pastor Bruce, why don't you tell our listeners about this important event that you are cooperating on with Hope Performed Baptist Church of Medford, Long Island, New York.

37:32

Actually, it will be our eighth annual Bible conference, and as you said, we're happy to join hands with the

37:41

Long Island Spurgeon Fellowship and have some of their pastors teach alongside of Dr.

37:50

Tony Costa, who will be our keynote speaker. But again, as you said, we're going to be celebrating the restoration of the gospel in the

37:59

Protestant Reformation, which started in 1517. We all know Martin Luther laid the initial charge against Rome's false gospel on the church doors of Wittenberg, Germany, on October 31, 1517.

38:14

So Reformation Day is coming up, and we're just so pleased to be able to thank

38:22

God for 500 years of the gospel being able to be proclaimed and distributed throughout the world, the pure gospel, based upon the five solas.

38:35

And we're welcoming Pastor Kayla Bunch, who's pastoring in Massachusetts, Pastor Chris Pandolfi, who's pastoring in Medford, and myself will be also giving a couple of teaching sessions.

38:51

So we welcome folks to join us Friday, September 9, starting at 630. I'll be leading off the first session with the history of the gospel reformation, starting at 630.

39:03

Then at 8 o 'clock, after a 15 -minute, 10 -minute Q &A, Dr. Tony Costa will present the formal cause of the reformation.

39:11

On Saturday afternoon, we'll reconvene. Session three will begin

39:16

September 30, Saturday at 1 p .m. Pastor Kayla Bunch will be sharing on the glory of God as the foundation of the

39:24

Reformation. Session four, Dr. Tony Costa will be presenting the material cause of the

39:33

Reformation. That will start at 215. And then that session four, session five will be led by Pastor Chris Pandolfi, and Pastor Chris will be sharing on Solus Christus.

39:54

And then we have dinner, 430 to 6, and then session six, Dr. Tony Costa, the gospel of the

40:00

Reformation Restored. And then session seven will be a panel discussion of all the pastors who will be there.

40:07

Some of them who are not speaking, like Pastor Rich Jensen, for example, and others will be invited to join us.

40:14

And Anthony Duvino will be moderating a panel discussion on the celebration of the 500 years of the restoration of the gospel.

40:24

And they'll be answering questions from the audience that may arise based upon any of the speakers and also the panel discussion.

40:33

So that is the conference in a nutshell for us. And if anybody wants more details, you can go to wotchurch .com,

40:41

that's W -O -T standing for Word of Truth, church .com, wotchurch .com,

40:46

or call 631 -806 -0614, 631 -806 -0614, and we will be repeating that,

40:54

God willing, later on in the program. So going back to your discussion, a little bit more details for your testimony.

41:02

You originally were intending to go out on the mission field, and then God, as He very often does, had different plans.

41:10

And how did you know that you received the call to be a pastor? Well, I had this incredible desire to study the

41:18

Word, to really plumb the depths and get other study tools, the concordances, you know, the lexicons, you know, the commentaries.

41:25

And I became a bibliophile with all kinds of books.

41:31

I got a library of over 3 ,000 books. And my wife's like, why are you buying all these books? I'm like, honey, God's going to call me to pastor one day.

41:38

So, you know, on vacation, I got to stop at a bookstore and find some good old Christian literature.

41:44

And I just had this sensational appetite, Chris. Like, for example, when you had those debates, I didn't miss one of them.

41:50

I would do anything to be at that debate, to learn from such an astute, learned teacher like Dr.

41:58

James White, you know, and to go deeper and deeper and deeper. And I just knew that it wasn't for me.

42:04

It was for me to give out to others. So I just knew that eventually it would happen.

42:12

And, you know, being God's providence, it did in 2009. So I guess that's the short answer to your question.

42:19

I mean, many of the confirmations and et cetera went there, but to bring me to that position.

42:25

But I can only tell you that it's my greatest joy, greatest privilege, and greatest responsibility to rightly divide the word of truth before my congregation and serve them in expositional preaching and whatever other ways

42:39

I can help them understand God's word so that they can know God, glorify God, and enjoy him.

42:45

Amen. Well, let's get to the topic at hand.

42:52

Are you, my brother, a biblical litmus test for true Christian brotherhood? And I'm going to start with a highly misused text.

43:04

I believe it's misused. And perhaps you can comment on it. In Luke chapter 9 verses 49 and 50, one of Christ's disciples says,

43:16

Master, this is John speaking, we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him because he is not one of us.

43:25

And Jesus said, do not stop him for whoever is not against you is for you.

43:32

And I have heard that text used by Christians, even some friends of mine, not necessarily reformed

43:40

Christians, but those who are friends of mine, those who are conservative evangelicals who will rebuke me very often when

43:51

I inform them that if you have a different gospel, for instance, we can have no

43:57

Christian fellowship at all. Like for instance, it is clear from the

44:02

Council of Trent, it is not a matter of sheer opinion, but the

44:07

Council of Trent has dogmatically declared that Protestants, the reformers, and those who are their heirs living today have a different gospel than they do.

44:19

Therefore, when it comes to the discussion of the Roman Catholicism and truly historically

44:26

Protestant and reformed Christians, when it comes to the discussion on those two religions, it is clear that there are two gospels.

44:36

There are two different gospels. In fact, so radical is the difference that the Roman Catholic Church would torture and execute people if they disagreed with Rome's gospel in that century.

44:49

And so therefore, we know that there are two different gospels. And those of my friends who want to have these ecumenical relationships with Roman Catholics, not only as individuals, but as churches and as parachurch organizations,

45:05

I say, I love the Catholics. I very often enjoy the company of Roman Catholic friends of mine more than some of my professedly

45:17

Calvinistic friends, or should I say just Calvinistic brothers, because there are some

45:22

Calvinists out there that are not my friends, even if I know them well. But there are people that I know that are

45:27

Roman Catholic that I truly just enjoy being around more than some of my own brothers in Christ. So it has nothing to do with bigotry or hatred.

45:35

It's just a matter of fact that when it comes to Christian fellowship, we're talking about participating in worship, and we are talking about any kind of involvement or gathering that gives the impression to the world, and even to those present at the gathering, that we are one in Christ.

45:56

I cannot participate in events like that. Now, how do you respond to that same kind of argumentation from Luke 9, 49 and 50?

46:06

Yeah, so I don't think Jesus is referring to us yoking up with a Roman Catholic or Jehovah Witness or a

46:13

Mormon or a person who belongs to Christian unity or the way or any of these other cultic associations.

46:22

And I define a Christian cult as failing one of four tests. The first test is, do you have the correct view of God, meaning do you believe in the

46:31

Trinity? The second test would be, do you have the right view of Christ? Is he fully

46:38

God? Is he fully human in his incarnation, lived the perfect life, died on the cross, the atoning sacrificial death for his people and for the calling of the world to repent of their sins, and did he rise from the dead?

46:54

Is he seated at the right hand of the Father, and is he coming again in a physical body? The third test, the third piece of what

47:02

I would say the litmus test would be, do you have the correct view of salvation? Do you believe that a person is saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, upon repentance?

47:17

And then finally the fourth prong of what I believe unites us, truly unites us, would be authority.

47:25

Is your final and sole source of authority the 66 books of Scripture?

47:33

And I would say if you miss on any of those four prongs, then you are cultic to some extent, in that you are led by men and not

47:42

God. You're led by man's opinion and not God himself and his word.

47:48

So for example, the Catholics get the first two right, but they miss it on the last two, whereas most other cults miss it on all four, like the

47:57

Mormons and the Jehovah Witnesses, for example. Yeah, and for our listeners who are hearing you use the word cultic, that word, especially when you're talking about hearing that word in the secular society, they are immediately conjuring up images of authoritarian organizations and religions where people don't have freedom to leave, where you are, every moment of your life is controlled, even the way you spend your money, and it's even sometimes as extreme as who you would marry.

48:37

You really have little freedom, if any, and they are very oppressive and typically think that their one group is the only way that you can have access to eternal life or whatever their version of it is.

48:53

But you're using the term more broadly here. Yes, I am, Chris, absolutely.

49:00

So we are faced as Christians, and specifically we are

49:07

Reformed Christians. Let's start with some of the areas of division where it isn't all that easy at all times whether to draw the line or where to draw the line to say,

49:22

I'm sorry, I love you, but you are not my brother, and I cannot have true

49:27

Christian fellowship with you in the sense that I can't worship with you, and I can't do anything with you that has the appearance of Christian fellowship or unity, giving the false impression that we are one in Christ.

49:43

Let's start with what we've already began the program with. You and I disagree on the signed gifts.

49:52

You believe that they are possible, although you believe they are rare. Now where in the realm of charismatic and Pentecostal belief and behavior would you draw the line and say, oh,

50:02

I'm sorry, my friend, but you are not my brother, and I will not be a part of your joint worship service, or you cannot become a member of my church unless you repent of certain things.

50:15

Where do you draw the line? Well, with the four -pronged litmus test items that I just mentioned before, the correct view of God, the correct view of Christ, the correct view of salvation, and the correct view of authority.

50:29

So as long as they maintain orthodoxy on those four standards,

50:35

I would consider them my brother in Christ, although they may be in error in, again, pneumatology, in ecclesiology, in other areas, you know, eschatology and so on.

50:48

And, again, we need to, at that point, still consider each other brethren and lovingly challenge each other, you know, on those issues, but allowing the unity of the body to still prevail, you know, even though we may see things differently in those regards.

51:08

And I think the differences are rooted primarily in a lack of understanding, a lack of maturity.

51:18

For example, Arminianism. I see my Arminians, my Arminian brothers, as I was for my first 14 years in Christ, because it took me seven years of study to come out of Arminianism.

51:31

I was so against Reformed theology. I remember teaching as, you know, a

51:36

Bible teacher when I was in Pentecostal, at Calvinism's heresy. And I was so dead set against it when

51:42

I first heard about it. I said, oh, it just can't be. It just can't be, you know, this way.

51:48

It's just so unfair. And, of course, that was all based upon my lack of knowing

51:53

Scripture, because I was exposed to Romans 8 -29 by a brother when I was only, you know, three months or four months old in Christ.

52:01

And I just said, nope, nope, predestination can't mean that. And I just kind of stayed with that thinking until the

52:07

Lord showed me otherwise. But that was a whole process, and it took, you know, a lot of humbling and a lot of study, honestly, to reach the conclusion that Scripture really does teach the gospel of grace, sovereign grace at that.

52:22

And the point is, I think we need to be gentle.

52:28

We need to be kind to those who aren't mature enough or well -versed enough or just plain obstinate enough that they don't want to plumb the depths of Scripture.

52:47

They don't want to be a slave to it. And so, you know, we eventually will disagree with. And there is a substantial question, honestly, on point three.

52:55

At what point does an Arminian cease to uphold the proper view that I described before, by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone?

53:03

And I've never heard, even from well -astute, learned, you know, scholars in the

53:08

Reformed fields, what line there is. In fact, let's pick up right where you left off there.

53:15

That's very important. We are going to our elongated break right now. It's our midway break and we have to comply with the regulations of Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida, so it is a bit longer than our normal break.

53:27

If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com.

53:35

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Pastor Bruce Bennett of Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York, right after these messages from our sponsors.

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01:00:00

Welcome back. This is Chris Arns. And if you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours with a little less than an hour to go is

01:00:06

Pastor Bruce Bennett of Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York. We are discussing

01:00:12

Are You My Brother? A Biblical Litmus Test for True Christian Brotherhood. We're also promoting the 500th anniversary celebration of the

01:00:21

Protestant Reformation, which will be held at the Word of Truth in Farmingville, Long Island, New York on September 29th and 30th, to be followed by a morning worship service with the same speaker,

01:00:34

Dr. Tony Costa, on Sunday morning, October 1st at 11 a .m.

01:00:39

And God willing, I do plan to be out there due to the generosity of one of my sponsors.

01:00:47

I do plan to be out there for this event, and the sponsor I'm speaking of is BatteryDepot .com.

01:00:54

Just another reason for my listeners to always remember BatteryDepot .com whenever you need batteries of any kind.

01:01:02

Please always try, whenever you can, to support our listeners, or I should say our sponsors, by either purchasing the products that they offer or using the services that they offer, whenever you can.

01:01:15

And I truly appreciate it if you would also always remind them that you heard about them through Chris Arnzen on IronTruppin's Iron Radio.

01:01:24

Before we return to our discussion with Pastor Bruce Bennett on Are You My Brother? I have some important announcements to make, including the one

01:01:34

I just mentioned. I'll mention it again. The Gospel of the Reformation's 500th anniversary celebration will be held at the

01:01:39

Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island on Friday, September 28th and Saturday, September 29th.

01:01:46

I think I was mixing up things here. I think that you actually, Pastor Bruce, have the dates wrong on your flyer.

01:01:55

Isn't Sunday, October 1st? Can you hear me? Yeah, well, barely

01:02:00

I can hear you. Okay. Is this better? No, it's not. It's worse. Worse?

01:02:05

Why? Interesting. Okay. What happened? I mean, we're going to need your voice back if we're going to conduct the interview properly.

01:02:12

Do you know what's going on? How's this? Is that better? That's much better. Okay, great. All right.

01:02:18

What happened was Anthony had put out a new edition of the poster.

01:02:27

You know, Anthony had me at the poster. So, Anthony and me had talked about it and it did have the wrong date on it, you know, but he clarified that.

01:02:36

So, all the stuff on my website and on my Facebook, his Facebook post has the correct date. So, it is the 29th and 30th.

01:02:42

Right. And if anybody would like to attend that event, go to WOTChurch .com,

01:02:48

WOTChurch .com or call 631 -806 -0614. 631 -806 -0614.

01:02:56

And as I said earlier, on Sunday morning, October 1st at 11 a .m., the Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Medford, Long Island will also feature

01:03:03

Dr. Tony Costa of Toronto Baptist Seminary. If you'd like to go to that event, if you want more details, go to hopereformedli .net,

01:03:11

hopereformedli .net. Or call 631 -696 -5711.

01:03:18

631 -696 -5711. Another one of our sponsors, the

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Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is having their Quaker Town Conference on Reform Theology from November 17th through the 18th at the

01:03:33

Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania. I plan to be there as well with an

01:03:38

Iron Sharpens Iron exhibitors booth. The speakers include Kent Hughes, Peter Jones, Tom Nettles, Dennis Cahill, and Scott Oliphant.

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If you would like to register for this event, go to alliancenet .org, alliancenet .org,

01:03:53

click on events, and then click on Quaker Town Conference on Reform Theology. The theme this year is for Still Our Ancient Foe, obviously a line from Martin Luther's classic hymn,

01:04:05

A Mighty Fortress, referring to Satan, our ancient foe. So once again, go to alliancenet .org,

01:04:12

alliancenet .org, click on events, and then click on Quaker Town Conference on Reform Theology.

01:04:18

Then the G3 Conference is returning to Atlanta, Georgia from January 17th through the 20th, and the theme is

01:04:27

Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship. And thanks again to my sponsors. I plan to fly out to Georgia for that event and man, an

01:04:36

Iron Sharpens Iron radio exhibitors booth. The theme is

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Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship, and the speakers include Stephen Lawson, Vody Balcom, Phil Johnson, Keith Getty, H .B.

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Charles Jr., Tim Challies, Josh Bias, James White, Tom Askell, Anthony Mathenia, Michael Krueger, David Miller, Paul Tripp, Todd Friel, Derek Thomas, Martha Peace.

01:04:59

In fact, I just got an email from Rose in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, asking me when

01:05:07

I'm going to have Martha Peace on the program, and I already have interviewed Martha, but hope to have her again on the program many times.

01:05:13

What a delight it was to interview the wonderful Martha Peace. And also Justin Peters, who has a wonderful ministry, and he is a newly added addition to the lineup.

01:05:29

January 17th is exclusively a Spanish -speaking edition of the conference, and the 18th through the 20th is exclusively an

01:05:38

English -speaking segment of the conference. If you would like to attend that conference, go to g3conference .com,

01:05:47

g3conference .com, and please, if you contact any of these organizations who are running these events, please let them know that you heard about those events from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:05:59

Now I have to pick up my tin cup and humble myself and embarrass myself and do something that's very uncomfortable, but I have to beg you for money.

01:06:10

First of all, I want to thank all of you who responded to my more urgent plea for donations that I have been making the last few days.

01:06:22

There has been, as you may have noticed, more of a sense of urgency in my pleas for new sponsors and donors to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio to keep us on the air, and thankfully some of you have taken those requests seriously and have responded, and I am starting to receive checks again after a brief dry spell.

01:06:44

It goes against my nature and my desires to make these public appeals. I feel very awkward about it, especially because of the horrific damage that Word of Faith Pentecostals and other charlatans have done in the name of God, besmirching the image of the

01:07:03

Church and the character of God and putting an ugly blot on our reputation as Christians with their horrible and evil and greedy manner of robbing people of money in the way that they so -called raise money or ask for donations.

01:07:24

So it is very awkward for me to, in light of that, ask you for donations, but I know that there's nothing illegitimate in doing that or sinful, and my advertisers who have kept

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01:09:20

Now we are back to our discussion with Pastor Bruce Bennett of the

01:09:26

Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island. We are discussing Are You My Brother? A Biblical Litmus Test for True Christian Brotherhood.

01:09:33

Before I go to any of the listener questions, if you could continue your train of thought about different levels or degrees of Arminianism.

01:09:45

You were mentioning that typically Reform people, there are cultic folks who are in some way connected to Calvinism and Reform theology, or a caricature of it, or a hyper -Calvinist version of it, who would deny brotherhood and Christian fellowship of any kind to Arminian Christians.

01:10:13

They would identify them all as being still damned, still dead in their sins and lost, but obviously most

01:10:21

Reform Christians are not that extreme or sectarian or even cultic.

01:10:26

We typically, as did Charles Spurgeon and many of our great heroes, we typically extend the hand of fellowship even to Arminian brethren, albeit recognizing our theological differences.

01:10:43

And George Whitefield is another one of our great heroes who did the same. But what are you speaking of where, when you're treading in Arminian waters, there comes a point when you are going to drown if you go into deeply?

01:10:57

Yeah, so Paul reminds us in Galatians 1 .8, if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than the one that we preach, you're going to be accursed.

01:11:08

And there is that question, at what point does the Arminian end up with a false grace, a false faith?

01:11:18

And I'm not sure, Chris, exactly where that would be. I can only say that the more learned, the more that someone understands, they're closer to that line that would be crossed.

01:11:31

But I can say myself, 14 years I served the Lord as an Arminian, and I know

01:11:38

I was a Christian, I know I was saved, and I think the thief on the cross didn't know much about Reformed theology either.

01:11:47

Well, I could give you an example of where I think that someone needs to be warned as to whether or not they are truly regenerate, to where they should be warned about crossing the line into something that is deadly serious and approaching what could be called damnable heresy, or even jumping clearly way over that line and plunging right into it, damnable heresy that is.

01:12:22

I can recall hearing or seeing, I should say, a documentary that was produced by Jerry Johnson, a

01:12:33

Reformed Christian Presbyterian brother who has, in the past, I don't know if he's done things lately,

01:12:40

I think he's on hiatus for a while, but he has produced some really helpful and excellent documentaries, including

01:12:48

Amazing Grace, the History and Theology of Calvinism, and other things on Charles Finney, and other things,

01:12:55

Charles Finney being clearly a heretic and a Pelagianist, not even an

01:13:02

Arminian. But he had a quote from an

01:13:08

Arminian seminary professor where this seminary professor was actually rebuking his fellow

01:13:16

Arminians for referring to the death of Christ as a substitutionary atonement, or as providing a substitutionary atonement, because he was actually logically consistent in what he was saying.

01:13:29

He was dead wrong, but he was logically consistent as an Arminian, and he was saying, I want you fellow

01:13:35

Arminians to stop using the phrase substitutionary atonement, because if Christ did indeed die as a substitute for every single person that has ever lived and will live, everyone will be therefore in heaven.

01:13:53

There will be no souls in hell if Jesus truly died as a substitute for every single person.

01:13:59

Now instead of rethinking his understanding of what

01:14:06

Christ accomplished on the cross and what Christ's intentions were when he died on the and received the wrath of the

01:14:14

Father in order to redeem sinners from death and damnation, he was challenging his fellow

01:14:30

Arminians to rethink considering the death of Christ as him standing as our substitute or serving as our substitute, because that would be logically true if a person's consistent.

01:14:46

If Christ indeed did die for every single individual past, present, and future, then if he died as their substitute, they will be in heaven, will they not?

01:14:58

Yeah, I mean that's a huge problem with Arminian you know, soteriology that a lot of Arminians are unaware of, that they cannot hold to a penal substitutionary atonement.

01:15:09

Although they use the word very often. Arminians routinely use the term the substitutionary atonement that Christ provided.

01:15:18

Yeah, and it's a huge problem for them because they cannot hold to an Arminian construct of, you know, approaching the scriptures with penal substitutionary atonement.

01:15:29

It's just impossible. So, the reason I brought that up is you have a difference between a truly born -again

01:15:36

Christian who just hasn't wrapped his mind around limited atonement, otherwise known as definite atonement and particular redemption, and substitutionary atonement.

01:15:48

He hasn't really thought through prayerfully and clearly the ramifications of what it means if Christ truly died as a substitute for all humanity.

01:16:01

And there's a difference between a person like that and somebody who had knowingly is adamantly declaring that Christ did not die as a substitute for anybody.

01:16:13

In fact, there are Arminians who will say Christ's death saved no one, it only made men savable, which is also a logical and consistent conclusion that one would draw if you harmonize all the theology of Arminianism.

01:16:32

I mean, that's another one that would indeed is a logical conclusion to draw, but it's also, would you call that a damning conclusion to draw, to say that Christ is not our substitute and saved no one on Calvary?

01:16:45

Yeah, I would think that would be crossing over the line, yes. Okay, do you have any more examples in the realm of Arminianism?

01:16:55

You want me to give more, or are you going to give more? No, you. I'm saying if you have any. At the end of the day,

01:17:02

I want to be very, very, very careful because, again, it's

01:17:07

Matthew 13, it's the harvest will eventually lead to the angel separating the wheat and the tares, and you know,

01:17:16

Jesus warns us there in Matthew 13 not to do it prematurely, and that's why we have to be very guarded, we have to be very broken and humble before this question, and side and err on the side of mercy.

01:17:33

Mercy triumphs over judgment, and we have to give our brethren the benefit of the doubt.

01:17:38

However, there are, again, the key litmus tests, which, again, the four points, the correct view of God, the correct view of Christ, the correct view of salvation, and on the very specific view of salvation, do they affirm salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone?

01:17:54

And, again, if they can at least affirm that, as Michael Brown did in our debate, then

01:18:01

I can call him my brother, even though I believe Michael was not being consistent on the cross -examination on certain issues

01:18:09

I raised. For example, faith. When I said, is faith a gift that's to be received, or is it mental energies that are being conjured up, it seemed like he was, although he didn't state it explicitly, denying that faith, you know, was in fact a gift, and instead was actually mental energies that are conjuring up an alleged trust in God.

01:18:37

Yeah, in fact, it was funny when I heard at that debate, and I don't mean to be insulting to Dr.

01:18:47

Michael Brown, but when he totally dismissed as a trivial matter, and an easy matter for an

01:18:54

Arminian to respond to, Acts 13 .48, that the Gentiles, who were ordained unto eternal life, believed.

01:19:03

Not that they believed and then were ordained unto eternal life. The true

01:19:08

Reformed Ordo Salutis is contained right there. Those who were ordained unto eternal life believed.

01:19:17

And he said something that I don't remember exactly what he said, but it was quite an inadequate and anti -climatic response to that text.

01:19:27

But I think that's the hardest text for Arminians to even deal with, to be perfectly honest.

01:19:35

Well, I would say Romans 9, 11 to 23, but we can agree to disagree on that.

01:19:41

Well, I wouldn't say that those are easy to respond to. I agree with you, but they have their answers for that.

01:19:47

They're very few that have any kind of reasonable answer for Acts 13 .48.

01:19:54

In fact, a friend of mine, Lagarde Smith, who is a, he wouldn't call himself

01:20:00

Arminian, but he certainly is, he, and semi -Pelagian, he wrote a book called

01:20:11

Troubling Questions for Calvinists and the rest of us, and he was honest enough in that book to say that he had no answer for Acts 13 .48,

01:20:21

and he believed that most Arminians who have answers to it are involved in eisegesis.

01:20:29

They're putting things in the text that aren't there, so I commend him for his honesty on that. But as far as the

01:20:37

Pentecostal and Charismatic folks that you would bar from fellowship and worship as brothers in Christ, obviously if the doctrine of God is a primary litmus test, the oneness

01:20:54

Pentecostals cannot be a part of that equation. And also, if even adding into that, their requirement that you speak in tongues as a litmus test for salvation, that's what they have as a litmus test.

01:21:08

One of them is that speaking in tongues must be present for somebody, for someone to be deemed as redeemed.

01:21:17

Yeah, clearly oneness Pentecostalism fails clearly in terms of satirological categories.

01:21:26

Yeah, and of course the error is rooted in denying the

01:21:31

Trinity, which they would say there's only three manifestations of the Godhead. He manifests as the

01:21:37

Father, manifests as the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which to my knowledge, and correct me if I'm wrong, but T .D. Jakes had been asked directly, do you believe in the

01:21:45

Trinity? He says, well, I believe God manifests himself, and that's classic monarchial -modalistic language that denies the

01:21:53

Trinity. That's easy for you to say. But yeah, T .D.

01:21:59

Jakes, when he has responded to Trinitarian theologians and scholars, they have never to date been satisfied that he is giving a genuinely biblical definition and a

01:22:11

Trinitarian definition of his view. We have a first -time questioner,

01:22:18

Kerry from Manteca, California, and I'm assuming I'm pronouncing that city right.

01:22:25

Kerry from Manteca, California says, would your guests consider some people who are heavily into the word of faith, who command

01:22:37

Jesus in his name to answer prayers for healing, jobs, money, etc., to fail the four litmus questions he mentioned?

01:22:46

Also, what about the fact that they speak out to Satan, binding him?

01:22:52

Thank you both. I really appreciate this radio program and the many discussions

01:22:57

I'm able to listen to. That's Kerry from Manteca, California. No, I wouldn't see that as a disqualifier from being included in the body of Christ.

01:23:09

I would just see it as poor theology, poor methodology, and they need to be instructed as to the sovereignty of God.

01:23:19

With that said, I have to say this, though, that oftentimes in Reformed circles we overemphasize the sovereignty of God at the expense of what

01:23:32

God has charged us to do within the redeemed will that he's given us, where we do have the responsibility of participating in the means of grace, sanctifying graces, that is, like prayer, like coming against the enemy.

01:23:52

There is a time and place to come against the enemy, but I wouldn't be arrogant about it.

01:24:00

The book of Jude warns us about the arrogance, about coming against the devil with an arrogant spirit, that even

01:24:06

Michael the archangel said, the Lord rebuke you, Satan. So certainly a majesty and a reverence that's needed before the

01:24:18

Lord when we're engaging in spiritual warfare, but Luke 10,

01:24:24

Jesus does say that we have authority over the enemy, and it does say to cast out.

01:24:31

Cast out means rebuke, or specifically go away in Jesus' name to the enemy, and I know that the

01:24:40

Lord does deliver upon that prayer, but to insist upon things that aren't his will obviously is not scriptural.

01:24:49

You know, when Jesus said to ask whatever, he didn't mean ask whatever without exception, whatever without distinction, just like the word all, you know,

01:24:59

God wants all to be saved, that doesn't mean all without exception, all without distinction, you know, all types of men, you know, kings and those in authority and so on.

01:25:09

We understand that in prayer, you know, the sovereign will of God has to be bowed down to, and yes, we should stand and look to the mountain to be thou removed, we can speak against evil and speak against things that we believe are not of God, with the understanding that the sovereign will of God ultimately will prevail and ultimately we bow down to it should the

01:25:32

Lord say no or wait to that particular prayer request. When it comes to demons and the devil,

01:25:40

I do believe that we can, if the enemy is directly attacking us or attacking another person, we can speak to the demon to go in Jesus' name, again, with the humility, with the brokenness before God, but also with authority and confidence in the power of Christ that we can cast out spirits.

01:25:58

So I think when it comes to that, we can do it, but again, with humility. When it comes to asking things, we have to always ask, yes, with faith, yes, believing, yes, even speaking to the mountain that stands before us, but realizing that if God says no or wait, we have to take that as an answered prayer.

01:26:18

When we return from the break, the Reverend Buzz Taylor has either a question or a comment to give, and we will get to him first thing when we return.

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01:34:57

Welcome back. This is Chris Sorensen. This is the last 25 minutes of our interview today with Pastor Bruce Bennett of Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, on the theme,

01:35:06

Are You, My Brother, a Biblical Litmus Test for True Christian Brotherhood? If you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own, do so now because time is evaporating very quickly.

01:35:17

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01:35:29

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01:35:37

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01:35:47

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And we thank Todd and Patty Jennings for their faithful support of Iron Trump and Zion Radio. Before the break, also,

01:36:05

Reverend Buzz Taylor had a question or comment that he wanted to give. Well, to be honest,

01:36:10

I'm a little bit afraid of the question and here's why. I mean, other than the fact that it reminds me of a

01:36:16

Dr. Seuss book, Are You My Mother? But I think since, you know, even as we share, you know,

01:36:25

Chris, every time you have a guest on, you have them share some of their background, how they came to Christ, and many of us were saved in different circles than we now spin in.

01:36:36

And to a large degree, we are saved in ignorance. I remember when I was saved for a year before I went away to Bible college and when they put me in the

01:36:45

New Testament survey class, it was the dummy class, and I was wondering if it was a dummier class because I knew so little about the

01:36:52

Bible that I was way behind. As they say, some things never change. You know, we're saved in ignorance.

01:36:59

We don't know that much scripture. I mean, we used to think Jimmy Swagger was the cat's meow.

01:37:05

I mean, you know, there's things you got to learn as you go along. But we are commanded in the scriptures to repent and believe the gospel.

01:37:13

And Paul makes it very clear that the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And those are the two feet with which we march to heaven, repentance and faith.

01:37:22

In believing the gospel, Paul doesn't say, and then, you know, you look at that word faith under a magnifying glass and try to find every nuance of it.

01:37:30

We just don't do that. We do in time, as we go to church, we hear the word preached, we hear it taught. And I believe that there's just as much a grace to knowledge as there is to salvation, because, well, even

01:37:41

Paul said, what do you have that you did not receive? And if you had received it, why do you act as if you had not received it?

01:37:50

You know, I am very thankful that the Lord put in me, in my heart, a desire to know the truth that caused me to search for it.

01:38:02

I consider that just as much a grace as anything else. And anything that I know today, I know that I've received because I sought and God blessed.

01:38:12

But I would say, as we come to Christ, where I would start to caution people, is if they're being exposed to truth, and they are vehemently opposed to it, that might be a red flag.

01:38:23

But there again, coming from their particular background, I had years of fruitful ministry before I understood

01:38:31

Reformed Theology. And I was preaching the gospel, I was preaching the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, I was telling people that they needed to repent, and they were doing so.

01:38:39

So, you know, to say, well, is it possible? I wasn't even saved yet, because I didn't understand

01:38:44

Reformed Theology. I don't think I'm just willing to go that far with it.

01:38:50

And I think, you know, Jesus said, by their fruits, you shall know them. And a good tree cannot produce bad fruit, a bad tree cannot produce good fruit.

01:38:59

We're talking there about a person's moral condition. So, you know, to actually draw a line and say, if we don't understand certain facets of theology, we cannot be saved.

01:39:10

I think that's a dangerous question to be asking in the first place. Well, I agree with a lot of what you said.

01:39:18

And I have a feeling that you would agree with the caveats that I'm giving to what you said.

01:39:23

And I'm sure Pastor Bruce would agree too. Jehovah's Witnesses believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.

01:39:30

Of course, they don't believe in the bodily resurrection. Mormons believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.

01:39:36

The Judaizers that Paul contended with, from what we know, believed in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.

01:39:42

They probably did because they were alive when Jesus was alive. But did they repent? Of course, but that's a big factor, what you just said.

01:39:51

I mean, they didn't continue on and remain in those heresies, the

01:39:57

Arian heresy, or the polytheist heresy, or the Judaizing heresy.

01:40:04

Uh, those who are truly purchased by the blood of the Lamb don't remain in those heresies.

01:40:09

It's not just a flippant, it's not just a flippant gospel of, yes,

01:40:14

I believe in the death, burial and resurrection. Well, there are details involved about who that person is who died.

01:40:20

But I've seen that the average sinner doesn't know all those details when it comes to Christ. So you believe that a genuinely born -again person can be

01:40:28

Arian, in other words, deny the deity of Christ and deny the... A person can be saved without even knowing what

01:40:33

Arian means. Well, if they believe that Jesus is not God, you believe they could be saved? No.

01:40:39

That's, again, what is the gospel? It's the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. It was the Christ. It was the one who was to come.

01:40:45

Yes, there's certain things you have to know. That's what I'm saying. There's certain theology you have to believe. But we're talking way beyond that when we're talking about whether somebody believes in the election or not as to whether or not they're saved.

01:40:55

I mean, that's going way, way beyond, I think, what we're supposed to be doing. Well, none of the three of us believe that you have to be reformed to be saved, right?

01:41:02

Pastor Bruce, you already told us that you believe that many Arminians are our brothers. Absolutely.

01:41:08

I'm an Arminian. I was saved 14 years before I arrived at Reformation Church. Okay. And one of the things

01:41:16

I wanted to say about your comments about saying that Word of Faith Christians passed your litmus test, that was brought up by Kerry in California.

01:41:28

Obviously, you have to clarify if you're talking about a run -of -the -mill churchgoer who is deceived into Word of Faith theology that may be truly born again, but there are leaders in that movement who know that they are charlatans.

01:41:45

And in fact, we just had Kosti Hinn, the nephew of Benny Hinn, on the program recently. He is certain that his uncle,

01:41:54

Benny Hinn, is a knowing, conscious, charlatan deceiving people.

01:41:59

And you also have within that element people who fail your litmus test on God because you have people believing that God the

01:42:08

Father has a body of flesh, blood, and bone. You have people in that realm who believe that Jesus Christ became a demon on the cross.

01:42:18

And you have all kinds of insane and blasphemous and heretical understandings of theology in that camp.

01:42:26

So don't you need to clarify when you say that they passed the litmus test? Well, I wasn't speaking broadly.

01:42:33

I was speaking as to the question which was concerning, you know, sort of a name -it -and -claim -it theology or, you know, demanding from God certain things that they believe are owed to them and so on, which is obviously bad theology and it's wrong, but doesn't necessarily mean they're not a

01:42:52

Christian. So yeah, obviously, if you're teaching the things that you're bringing up, we have much bigger issues.

01:43:00

But it's on a case -by -case basis, and again, we need to be very cautious and always on the side of mercy, on the side of love, on the side of gentleness, and give the person an opportunity to explain what they mean by it, what's their intent.

01:43:19

So I think that the John 17, 21 call to unity is often overlooked in Reformed circles.

01:43:27

You know, we found these great truths, you know, we're so cocksure of our, you know, theology that we often sideline and minimize other brethren who haven't, you know, reached the maturity level yet, or quite frankly, their giftedness isn't just there where they're able to see these things.

01:43:48

Jesus said some bear thirtyfold, some bear sixtyfold, some bear a hundredfold. I think we just have to bear with each other's weaknesses more than I think we're probably doing.

01:44:01

So that's what I'm trying to say. And we have Rose in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who says,

01:44:09

Dear Brother Bennett, would you please explain what you mean by the church often overemphasizes the sovereignty of God?

01:44:16

Because I'm not sure the sovereignty of God can ever be overemphasized.

01:44:21

Can you perhaps give an example of that? Okay, well, in the sense of evangelism, in the sense of prayer, where you have churches,

01:44:33

Reformed folks that would say, well, yeah, I prayed about it, and God knows my request, I need to pray about it again, where Jesus tells us in Luke 11 and Luke 18 that our prayers have to be persistent, even like to the point of bothering an unjust judge, you know, or banging on somebody's door to get a loaf of bread.

01:44:51

The idea of, you know, well, you know, my evangelism is done, and that's it, but how about praying for, you know, the

01:45:01

Lord to send out labors? How about praying for the minds of the people to be opened up and really, you know, consistently, you know, pressing in prayer in that regard and not giving up until you know you're done with your mission?

01:45:16

And I just see people throwing in the towel that way too much. I also see sort of a resistance to the

01:45:24

Spirit's presence in our meetings, where it's kind of like, well, God is everywhere.

01:45:29

Well, of course God's everywhere, but then there's this special presence of God that you read about, for example, in 2 Chronicles 7, where the

01:45:35

Holy Spirit came so strongly in the temple, in the temple in Byron's, as was being dedicated by Solomon, it says that the priests and the people there were all facedown before the

01:45:46

Lord because the glory of God was so strong and so present. I know there's a special presence of God that manifests as we worship

01:45:54

Him, we press into worship, and oftentimes we'll be in a Reformed worship service, and you can just sense, you know, to a minor degree that the

01:46:05

Lord's presence is trying to fill our hearts and be in our midst, and all of a sudden we just kind of like, we did our six songs and we're done, and no, if you sense this

01:46:14

Lord's presence moving, let's continue to worship so He saturates us, fills us, like Paul says, we fill with the

01:46:19

Spirit, and fills the room that we're in with His presence, because that is a real phenomenon.

01:46:26

You know, let our peace be upon this house. There is that presence of God that brings that peace, that joy, in a physical location, like you see in the temple in 2

01:46:33

Chronicles 7. That's what I mean by that. Yeah, and some of Rose's apprehension or misunderstanding in the intent of your comment may be semantics, because perhaps it would be clearer to say that there are

01:46:56

Calvinists who do not, or should I say professed Calvinists, who distort not only the teachings of Calvin and the historic teachings of the

01:47:06

Reformers, but distort the Bible, where they do not teach the whole counsel of God, and the whole counsel of God includes both the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man.

01:47:18

And there are hyper Calvinists who, in so trying to isageete

01:47:26

God's role in redemption everywhere, and nowhere is the responsibility of man to be found in their understanding, they are in fact denying a very vital portion of what the scriptures teach.

01:47:42

Does that make sense, what I just said? Oh, absolutely, yeah. Yep. I guess the biggest, the thing that bothers me the most in some

01:47:52

Reform circles I've been in is just this tendency to quench the Spirit and just say, well, we did our thing to God, but not really wanting to have that intimacy where the

01:48:01

Spirit is really filling themselves in that room with his presence, like I believe we need to yearn for.

01:48:11

And obviously there are going to be differences of opinion and disagreement amongst brethren as to what you said it actually means, because you will have charismatic and Pentecostal people believing that that means we are to have either complete or nearly complete freedom in a worship service, in a gathering of God's people to express their joy in any way they deem fit, because they will say that the

01:48:39

Holy Spirit is guiding them to do that. And you will have other of your more traditionalist cessationists saying that the worship service is to be conducted in an orderly fashion, and you will have extremes on both issues, both sides of that coin going too far with that.

01:49:01

You could have bedlam and chaos in the one extreme, or you could have a dead, rigid formalism that does not have an evidence of the joy and thanksgiving to God that only he deserves.

01:49:20

So there is a, in other words, there are charismatics who may visit a reformed worship service and may wrongly think that these people are dead or lifeless or without the

01:49:32

Holy Spirit just because they're not always perpetually beaming with smiles and clapping their hands and jumping up and down and waving their hands in the air.

01:49:42

So wouldn't you agree that you have to be, even as a charismatic or a non -cessationist or a continuationist or a continuous, however you want to call yourself, don't you have to be guarded in the criticisms that you would oppose or provide toward the cessationist who may be more reserved in his worship?

01:50:07

The person could be reserved and yet be totally broken before God and filled with rejoicing and thanksgiving without perhaps worshiping identically to the way you worship in your charismatic congregation.

01:50:21

Yeah, I have nothing to do with physical outward expressions at all, Chris. I'm not insinuating that.

01:50:27

What I'm insinuating, what I'm actually saying, is that, you know, our spirit bears witness with his spirit that we're children of God.

01:50:34

At the end of the day, the only way I know I'm actually saved is exactly what I just said, which is said in Romans 1 and Galatians, and it is a subjective experience, although it matches up to the objective word of God.

01:50:46

And there is a subjectivity in terms of our sanctification that I believe is suppressed in many

01:50:52

Reformed circles, in most Reformed circles I've been in, and this is what I'm talking about. And it's, for example, the spirit of God moving in our midst, and it just is a reality.

01:51:03

It's often suppressed because we don't want to press into worship. We don't want to press into the point where we feel our spirit being filled with his spirit, for example.

01:51:14

And I just noticed that, and one leader told me this.

01:51:19

He said, listen, to fill your spirit means to fill your mind with the word of God. And I'm like, excuse me? I'm like, really?

01:51:26

No, your mind is not your spirit. Paul said, I pray with my mind, I pray with my spirit. There is a spiritual dimension that Sam Storms, John Piper, R .T.

01:51:39

Kendall, you know, Wayne Grudem have, all his Reformed brethren have identified, and many others.

01:51:46

I even believe C .H. Spurgeon would agree with this to some extent. I know that he even allegedly even prophesied at times in his congregation, had words of knowledge.

01:51:55

Really? I had never heard that, really. Yeah, yeah, actually, yeah. And R .T. Kendall was

01:52:01

Calvinist? Oh yeah, full five -pointer, absolutely. But what

01:52:06

I'm saying is that there's an element of sanctifying worship, sanctifying prayer, that I think we as Reformed folks just side too much on the side of, okay, well, the word says to do this,

01:52:20

I did it, it's decent, it's in order, okay, amen. I'm not saying you have to necessarily raise your hand or necessarily have to be able to be more free to have the

01:52:29

Spirit show up, but you do need to press in to the point where the Spirit does show up, and we can experience

01:52:36

Him in that way. And I find that you'll see that, unfortunately, more in areas where there are

01:52:42

Charismatic Pentecostal folks who don't understand how they've actually been saved, but they do know that they need to press in in worship and prayer to the point where they're sensing

01:52:51

God's presence in their midst, and they're sensing being filled with the Spirit and allowing the

01:52:57

Lord to minister to them in that regard. So that's kind of how I meant it. Right.

01:53:03

And I assume you would agree that in that realm, though, there is a danger of trying to draw attention to yourself, something that is pride -driven, and also using just your fleshly feelings as a barometer of being filled with the

01:53:26

Spirit. There are people who, just because they get goose bumps in their arms, they're convinced the Holy Spirit's in the house, and you know,

01:53:33

I mean, I can feel the Holy Spirit's present here today. It's just because people are all emotional and really revved up, if you will.

01:53:43

That's a real serious danger, because you could experience that in any false religion, or many false religions. Oh, absolutely, and I believe even the enemy will come with a false presence of God as well.

01:53:53

I've actually experienced that going to, for example, a funeral of a New Age practitioner, and they had this like New Age music playing, and I could sense almost like a false, like a demonic spirit trying to imitate the true peace of the

01:54:05

Lord, the true joy of the Lord. So absolutely, and it has nothing to do with the outward, it has nothing to do with the goose bumps, it's the inner reality of what we've already experienced.

01:54:13

Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice, and they follow me. So there is this ongoing sanctifying process where we, it's not the audible voice, obviously, but it's spirit -to -spirit communication, that's what

01:54:22

I'm talking about, that I think is under -emphasized and even quenched in most

01:54:28

Reformed circles I've been in. Right, and one last comment in defense of the frozen chosen.

01:54:37

You know, I hear the criticism a lot by my Charismatic and Pentecostal friends who have visited the worship services of Reformed Baptist congregations and have complained, what do you stick to those dry, dead, old, dusty hymns for?

01:54:51

You know, why don't you use some of the new music that's out there? Well, there may be some good new music like the

01:54:57

Gettys and other people out there that are biblically faithful and providing us with wonderful new music that has biblical depth to it, but I think that you may agree that a lot of the old hymns that we sing in Reformed churches are so pure biblically and so deep theologically that many, and perhaps the majority, of modern contemporary

01:55:26

Christian music is just so shallow, so repetitive, or repetitive,

01:55:31

I should say, and basically no more meaningful than a soppy pop love song.

01:55:43

Oh yes, but I think we also can make an equal mistake, for example, like on the issue of repetition.

01:55:50

You know, Psalm 136 is quite repetitious, so I think we have to be careful you know, and just eliminating a song just because there is a line, you know, it's stated over and over again.

01:56:05

I just would just encourage our Reformed brothers and sisters to be more open to experiencing the presence of God, where Paul says in Ephesians 5, 18, to be filled with the

01:56:17

Spirit. That's a real experience. Yes, there's a subjective element to it, but it's objectivity, where the

01:56:22

Holy Spirit does fill us in, for lack of a better word, a quantifiable way, and we shouldn't be satisfied with just going to a service without really meeting with the

01:56:33

Lord, or in a prayer time to really meeting with the Lord, where we know that our cup, our spiritual cup, is being filled on the inside.

01:56:40

Do you have a last comment, about a minute and a half, about litmus tests for true

01:56:47

Christianity? Well, again, the four prongs of litmus test, the correct view of God, the correct view of Christ, the correct view of salvation, and the correct view of authority, you know, it's the

01:56:58

Bible alone, salvation by grace through faith, by grace through faith alone, in Christ alone, that Jesus is fully

01:57:07

God, fully man, the atoning death of Christ, his resurrection, and, you know,

01:57:15

God being the Trinity. Those, I think, would be the four things that would unite us as brethren.

01:57:21

We need to be merciful and gentle and kind to each other, because if we are wrong, it's because we've been deceived or we're ignorant.

01:57:27

In both cases, we need to be instructed into the truth, decide on mercy instead of judgment, let the angels weed out the wheat and tares, but where there's obviously cultic groups like the

01:57:38

Catholics, the Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, which miss it on any one of the four prongs, we have to just gently call them to repent and come into true biblical alignment.

01:57:48

So that would be where I stand on the litmus test. And I'm sure because of the fact that the authority that one holds to have over them, meaning the inerrant and fallible and God -breathed scriptures,

01:58:04

I'm assuming that would cover a prohibition and denouncing of those who claim those things that you mentioned but are active homosexuals and so on, because they are really denying what the inerrant

01:58:17

Word teaches about those things being condemned. Yes, so they're denying

01:58:23

God's character at that point. So if they believe that God is okay with the sin of homosexuality, then there'll be a direct attack against God's character, and really would be attacking point four and indirectly point one by having a false

01:58:43

God. But definitely point four, because they'd be denying the sufficiency and the perspicuity of Scripture, which is so crystal clear that that lifestyle is an abomination and sinful before Him.

01:58:55

Well, I know that your church website, again, for Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, is WOTChurch .com.

01:59:02

WOTChurch .com. Do you have any other contact information you care to give? 631 -806 -0614, 631 -806 -0614 is the number.

01:59:12

We can reach out to church, and we just encourage folks to go on our website for more information about our church and about the conference coming up September 29th and 30th.

01:59:22

Well, I look forward to being there, God willing, and I thank everybody who listened, especially those of you who took the time to write in questions.

01:59:29

I want to thank you, Pastor Bruce, for once again being a guest. I thank Reverend Buzz Taylor for being my co -host today.

01:59:34

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.