April 11, 2024 Show with Timothy E Crockett on “One Independent Fundamentalist Baptist’s Journey into the Glorious Doctrines of the Sovereign Grace of God”

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer
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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend
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Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in 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, chapter 27, verse 17, tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse 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 two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.
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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,
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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet
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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.
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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 11th day of April 2024.
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And I want to start off the program by reminding you of a prayer request that I'd still like to announce.
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Please pray for the baby of a very dear friend of mine, or actually, she is the granddaughter of a very dear friend of mine, a name that will immediately be recognized by those who listen regularly to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
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Dr. Joe Moorcraft, he is pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia, and he is one of the largest financial supporters of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
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He asked me to pray for his newly born granddaughter, Rebecca Hope, and Rebecca was born at just a little over three pounds just very recently.
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And sadly, little Rebecca Hope has a fatal heart condition.
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The doctors do not expect little Rebecca Hope to last very much longer.
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So please pray that our great physician would touch this child, would miraculously heal this child of whatever ailment or disability is putting her life at risk, and guide the doctors that they would use every ounce of their gifts and abilities to, if at all possible, prolong the life of this baby.
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We hope to hear praise reports in the near future. But we ask of you also to be with not only my dear friend
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Joe Moorcraft and his wife Becky, but be with the parents of this baby,
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Joe and Becky's daughter, Mercy, and her husband.
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Be with them to be prepared to accept your will, whatever it may be in this circumstance.
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And hopefully I will be able to give you updates on this next week and so on.
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But today I am absolutely thrilled to have a guest on for the very first time. Many of you may recognize the name
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Gary George. He is the pastor of Sovereign Grace Chapel of Southbridge, Massachusetts.
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He contacted me very recently and he said, brotherness, as he always calls me, and in fact
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I think he calls every one of his brothers in Christ, brotherness, you've got to get my friend
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Timothy Crockett, pastor of Bible Way Baptist Church of Worcester, Massachusetts, on your show because he is from an independent fundamentalist
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Baptist background, an anti -Calvinist background, and he has come to embrace the doctrines of Sovereign Grace.
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And I think that your listeners will be fascinated and edified and blessed by his testimony.
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And I immediately, especially knowing Gary so well for many years going back to the 1980s, and since I have a very high level of appreciation and esteem for him and his discernment,
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I immediately took him up on his suggestion. And here we have it.
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We have our guest today for the very first time, Pastor Timothy Crockett of Bible Way Baptist Church of Worcester, Massachusetts, who's going to be addressing one independent fundamentalist
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Baptist's journey into the glorious doctrines of the Sovereign Grace of God.
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It's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Pastor Tim Crockett.
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Thank you so much, Chris, for having me on the program. I do appreciate Gary's very kind words.
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And yes, he does refer to people as your brotherness. He's been a real blessing over the years.
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I've known him probably close to 30 years. And my first encounter with Gary was back in 1995.
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I was saved in 94 and I was called to preach in 95. And when
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I approached my mentor about my calling to preach, he said, well, you're going to put in some work.
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And that meant a lot of things. But one of the first things that he told me I was going to do was start street preaching.
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I said, OK, that's interesting. And so he put me in contact with Gary. I called Gary on the phone.
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Gary was very gracious. And I met with Gary down it.
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The place where we met is Worcester Galleria or the center of Worcester, downtown
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Worcester. Back then in the 90s, it was a thriving area. A lot of traffic, foot traffic, bus traffic.
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And so I met with him. I wrote up a sermon. Thought that's what you do when you street preach, write up a whole sermon and went down.
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Of course, it was a blustery day and there was no way I was going to hold the papers. So I ended up preaching extemporaneous just from verses that I had memorized.
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And so we started to, you know, get along and talk. And there was a different group of people down there.
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I think they were from from different churches. And so I got to meet a lot of different people from different backgrounds, but with a common goal to share the gospel of Christ.
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Give away Bibles and to meet people where we're at. So that was my first introduction to Gary.
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And I also had an echoed enthusiastic recommendation after he learned of my intention to interview you.
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Our mutual friend, Pastor Josh Fryman in North Dakota, also was thrilled to hear
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I was interviewing you. And he asked me to give you his regards in Christ.
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Well, I appreciate that very much. Josh is a good man. Good man. Yes, he was almost going to be my pastor when
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I was planning to move to the town where he used to pastor on Long Island and Riverhead.
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But I unexpectedly moved to Pennsylvania. So, as I've told Josh many times, in God's providence, he dodged a bullet not having to be my pastor.
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Well, let's start the program, first of all, by having you give a brief description of Bible Way Baptist Church in Worcester, Massachusetts.
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Bible Way Baptist Church started in 1993 as a house church.
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I'm the second pastor. Started in 93 as a house church. They outgrew the house and then they rented,
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I believe it was a hall or the sanctuary from a Lutheran church and then transitioned from there to a place on James Street.
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And from James Street to the current location where the building, the land was purchased, the building built, and it was dedicated on July 4th, 2002.
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And I came to Bible Way in 2004. I was ordained in 2005.
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And I was called to be the pastor on December 24th, 2006. And I've been there ever since.
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It's a great group of people. The church started growing probably around 2016, 2017.
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I started to notice the trajectory going upwards. Then 2020 hit, everything kind of leveled off.
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And then once that dust settled from that, it just started to grow from there and it has continued to grow.
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I got a great body of believers. I'm blessed to have a great group of men that have come up beside me to help me in the ministry in many ways.
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Preaching sermons, teaching Sunday school lessons, helping just with church groundwork and outreach.
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We've got some great men who go door to door, who will go down to Elm Park.
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It's a park down the road from where the church is, in front of City Hall. Give away Bibles, tracts, door hangers, and invite people to church.
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And just faithful in that regard. And the people themselves, they're growing spiritually.
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Their love for the Lord is increasing. They desire a closer walk with God. They want to learn doctrine.
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They want to make application. And they want to thrive. And so we're trying to cultivate a good culture in the church where these things are able to happen for them.
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Great. Well, if anybody wants more details about Bible Way Baptist Church in Worcester, a .k
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.a. Auburn, Massachusetts, you can look up their website, BibleWayBC .org,
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BibleWayBC .org. God willing, we will be repeating that. Just out of curiosity,
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I don't know if you've seen the photo I found of you that I used in our social media promotion for the show, but is that gorgeous pulpit the one at Bible Way Baptist Church, or is that from when you were a visiting preacher somewhere and preaching at another church?
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That is our pulpit. Oh, wow. That is the background. Yes, sir. Yeah, that's gorgeous. Thank you. God has been good to you.
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He has. He really has. Well, I'm going to give our audience our email address right away if they have questions.
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It is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.
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As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the
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USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.
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Actually, I could easily expect that there will be listeners that do have very personal and private questions because they are going through the same journey, perhaps, as my guest,
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Tim Crockett. Perhaps they are still in a church that has attitudes towards the doctrines of grace all the way from barely tolerating them to the other extreme of being enraged with anger and disgust and fury when hearing about anyone in their midst believing in these doctrines, which we cherish, which others have tragically slandered as the doctrines of Satan and so on.
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So I understand that there may be many of you who want to remain anonymous because you're still in a situation where your pastor, your elders, your congregation, your denomination, whatever the case may be, may be very opposed to what is being said here.
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And you might even be the pastor yourself, and perhaps you're in a position where you are privately studying through these issues and starting to come to new conclusions from your searching of the scriptures and through the guidance of the
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Holy Spirit. And you're even in disagreement with your fellow elders, perhaps.
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Well, we understand that those things would compel you to remain anonymous, but if they're general questions, please give us your first name, at least, city and state and country of residence.
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Well, let's begin where I always begin with first -time guests.
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We always have our first -time guests give their salvation testimony in summary form on this program, and that would include the kind of religious atmosphere, if any, in which they were raised and the kinds of providential circumstances our sovereign
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Lord raised up in their lives that drew them to himself and saved them. And I'd love to hear the beginning of your story.
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Well, it is an interesting story, to say the least. I was born in 68. I grew up in the 70s and 80s.
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I was baptized in the Roman Catholic tradition, no confirmation, no communion, a nonreligious home, but a principled home.
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My dad was the breadwinner in the home. He was the disciplinarian in the home. He ruled not with an iron fist, but he was a disciplinarian but with principle.
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So there was really no religion. They weren't atheists or anything like that.
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So I went through all of that, and it was probably in the early 80s, my early teens,
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I began to have religious impressions. I'm still trying to figure out where they came from and trying to lock in on a specific time when
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I heard about God and sin and hell. But I realized that I was a sinner. I realized that I didn't deserve to go to heaven, and I surely would perish.
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So I began sort of inquiring about religion. And one of my first profound encounters with an evangelist,
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I don't know what his background was. I don't know if he was Baptist or Pentecostal. His name was Ed.
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He lived in a trailer park down the road. I remember the car he drove. I remember the trailer he lived in.
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And what he would do is he'd take us kids out fishing. We'd go fishing, and then we'd come back to his trailer, and he would open up the
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Bible, and he would talk about Jesus. And that's really all that I remember. It wasn't really a theological thing.
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I just remember talking about Jesus and going through all that.
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So that probably lasted about a year. But I wasn't really interested in getting serious about religion at all.
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I was too busy running after youthful lust rather than fleeing from them. Then it was about a year and a half later.
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I was at the Worcester Galleria, and I was on the second tier. I was with another friend of mine.
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And this evangelist came up to me, and he started going through the Bible, going through what
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I assumed to be the Romans Road. And my buddy took off because he didn't want to hear it.
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And he went through the whole thing, and then he got to a point where he asked when
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I think I should be saved. And, of course, I didn't know the answer to the question. And so he pointed to the text in Corinthians where it says today is the day of your salvation.
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And at the moment he read that, for whatever reason, I hadn't done anything that night that would have caused me to black out.
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But at that moment, I couldn't say anything. I literally blacked out. I fell backward.
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I ended up getting a big cut on my head. I woke up. He was there, my friend, with his jacket under my head.
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I ended up getting an ambulance ride to the hospital. I got eight stitches. The fellow that was witnessing to me was talking to me saying, well, that was the devil and the
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Lord fighting over your soul. I was just confused and kind of frustrated that the whole thing happened. But that was a really profound moment for me.
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And so we got past all of that. Now we fast forward to my early 20s.
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I started to slow down a little bit. I met my wife, and we started going together, and we started going to church, her church, where she got saved.
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It was a church that her family had started back probably 1920, 1925.
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It was an Italian Baptist mission on Shrewsbury Street here in Worcester.
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And so we started going there. At that time, I was working at a dealership, Ragsdale Chevrolet and Spencer, and there were two on -campus evangelists,
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Dave Garvey and Dave Lyons. Dave Lyons was the more vocal of the two, so again, talking about Jesus and sharing the
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Bible. But at that time, I was still really rough around the edges, and I gave him a lot of flack.
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Anyway, so fast forward. My preacher was preaching a sermon one
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Sunday and just really making the appeal to repent, get right with God.
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And so I did. I confessed Christ as my Savior, and I knew
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I was saved at that moment. I knew that I had been redeemed and that I was going to go to heaven.
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And when I went back to work, Dave Lyons picked up on the change in my conduct, my behavior, my language, and everything.
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And he called me up actually, and he said, you got saved. I said, I did. He said,
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I can tell. And he referenced the change in my conversation and so forth.
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So we became good friends after that. I used to go into his office after work and would sit down and talk about things from the
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Bible. About two weeks after that, I came to my mentor, and I told him,
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I said, I need to tell the congregation something. And so it was Wednesday night, and he gave me the floor, and I told the congregation that I had received
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Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, that I was born again. And then shortly thereafter, I was baptized and went to that church under his mentorship for 10 years before I came to Bible Wake.
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And what kind of a church was this? It was a Baptist church, conservative,
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Southern Baptist. Okay, but not necessarily—well, obviously, you've already gave it away by saying a
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Southern Baptist. It wasn't an independent fundamentalist Baptist, but there are Southern Baptist congregations who are very—who very closely resemble independent fundamentalist
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Baptists. Of course, there are a tiny minority in the Southern Baptist convention today. Right.
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But where did you discover and latch onto the unique brand, for lack of a better term, of the independent fundamentalist
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Baptist movement? When I joined Bible Wake. Okay, and so when did you begin to realize at Bible Wake that you had a calling placed upon your heart to enter into pastoral ministry?
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Well, that calling actually happened when I was at the other church. That was—I was saved in 94, and I was called in 95 -96.
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So I was mentored for 10 years under the previous church, and I had been at the
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Bible Wake Baptist church for about two years before I was called to be the pastor. So when you first arrived at and became a member of Bible Wake Baptist, as I've already mentioned before in introducing you, the independent fundamentalist
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Baptist movement is not monolithic. And I do want—in fact,
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I was planning on saying this at the very beginning of the show, and I forgot, but I want to say it now.
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I want to let everybody know that I am not denouncing everyone who identifies themselves as an independent fundamentalist
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Baptist. I'm not saying you're not my brothers in Christ. I am not saying that this is some kind of a wicked, dangerous cult or anything like that.
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We are just highlighting the journey of a specific brother in Christ who has come to embrace and has come to seek to champion the precious doctrines of sovereign grace that I love.
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And as host of this program, I try to feature guests such as my guest today as often as I can who come from all kinds of theological backgrounds into what has been nicknamed the doctrines of sovereign grace,
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Calvinism, Reformed theology, etc. And so we're not seeking to vilify brethren listening who are a part of the independent fundamentalist
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Baptist movement. Having said that, as I already mentioned, the movement is not a monolithic group.
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And you have folks like I have many friends who are independent fundamentals Baptist who know of my belief in the doctrines of sovereign grace.
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They love me. They're kind and gracious to me, but they just make it clear and friendly conversation that they are very strongly opposed to these doctrines.
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But then I have I have encountered others who question my salvation, who believe it is absolute heresy to believe in these things, who call it, as I've already mentioned, the doctrines of demons and so on.
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And so where on that spectrum would you say Bible Baptist or I'm sorry, the congregation that you joined there, the
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Bible Way Baptist Church, where on the spectrum of what
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I just described, would you say this church was at that time? At the time
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I joined IFB, definitely anti Calvinist. I don't know how else to describe to the to the length where they would call it the doctrines of demons and question somebody's salvation.
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I did. I did. Wow. I called it that. Wow. I've got
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I did that. That's that's a fairly lengthy testimony. And that goes back to when
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I met Gary George. There's there's a piece there that's that's important,
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I think, for this show. And then the transition in my thinking, by the way, and how that could you provide for us that piece when we returned from our first commercial break?
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Sure. And once again, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com. Give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence.
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If you have a question, don't go away. We'll be right back. Greetings. This is
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But today I want to introduce you to my senior pastor, Doug McMasters, of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.
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Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.
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In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt
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God's pleasure when he ran. He knew his efforts sprang from the gifts and calling of God.
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He sensed that same God given pleasure when ministering the word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God.
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That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a savior who died for sinners and that God forgives all who come to him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.
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I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area or Queens or Brooklyn or the
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Bronx in New York City. For details on New High Park Baptist Church, visit
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NHPBC dot com. That's NHPBC dot com.
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You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.
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That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's word and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.
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God bless you. I'm Pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven, an
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Have you noticed the gap that exists between the Sunday morning sermon and the Sunday school classroom or the small group study?
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So please go to royaldiadem .com today and mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now back with Pastor Tim Crockett, who is the pastor of Bible Way Baptist Church in Worcester, Massachusetts, also known as Auburn, Massachusetts, and we are discussing his testimony,
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One Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Journey into the Glorious Doctrines of the Sovereign Grace of God.
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And once again, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. If you have a question, give us your first name at least.
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City and state and country of residence. One other thing I wanted to have you clarify before you go into the missing puzzle piece with Gary George, you said that you were a vehement anti -Calvinist, even to the point of calling it the doctrines of demons.
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First of all, was that also the mindset of your pastors and fellow congregation members at Bible Way?
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I don't I wouldn't say that they were as aggressive, but definitely anti -Calvinist.
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And so I was the aggressive one as far as that was concerned.
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So there's and there's a lot there that I I can't retract. There was radio programs back in 2011.
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So it's it's a long journey, a long fall, if you will, from a from a place of ignorance as far as I'm concerned.
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And so they were, you know, anti -Calvinist as an IFB, typical IFB church would be.
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But I was pretty vehement against it. And then that, of course, goes back to my encounter with Gary.
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So there's if I can go into that unless you have another question to follow up. Oh, perhaps one more question.
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The independent fundamentalist Baptist movement is not monolithic, as I've already said, and I'm sure you are aware of that.
36:53
In fact, I was as an airtime salesman for WMCA Radio, a
37:01
Salem media affiliate in New York for 15 years, I was selling airtime.
37:08
And that's actually when I developed close friendships with quite a number of independent fundamentalist Baptist. And we would have meetings.
37:16
Well, they would actually invite me to their meetings. I can't remember how often it might have been once a month or every other month, but they would have meetings with all the pastors who participated.
37:28
Basically, this was a show that aired once a week and every week.
37:33
A different pastor from the group of independent fundamentalist Baptists would be the host and they would all share the cost of this.
37:44
And the program was called and I'm the one that actually came up with the title of the show, the
37:50
Fundamental Baptist Forum. And when
37:55
I would meet with them, it was painfully obvious that these guys were not all in harmony. And some of them had very significant disagreements over things like the necessity of repentance for salvation.
38:09
You had some who believed correctly that you needed to repent from sin and repent to God for salvation.
38:24
And there were others who believe that was rank heresy, which which is really puzzling when you consider how strict fundamentalists tend to be about the manner in which you are supposed to live.
38:40
And it's just odd to me that they wouldn't believe that repentance was necessary. But that that's another time for another topic.
38:48
But where were you in that orbit of fundamentalism? You do mean on on repentance, on repentance and perhaps other things that the fundamentalist
39:01
Baptist disagree over? I hold to repentance. And you always did when you were.
39:08
Yes. OK. Yes. Yes. But you are aware what I'm speaking of, right? Yes, I am.
39:13
Yeah. In fact, I guess there's a lot of sorry. No, go ahead. There's a lot of disagreements over a lot of little things as well.
39:25
Well, that's not a little thing. No, that's not. That's not arguing about what kind of music to listen to.
39:32
Right. Right. In fact, they did. They did that, too, during those meetings that like they would say, I don't like that country gospel music you play.
39:40
It sounds like a honky tonk and the other. What are you talking about? That's good old fashioned music. You know, you have all of that going on.
39:47
But anyway, so now we get a better idea of where you are coming from. You were at least biblically accurate in your understanding of repentance at the time.
40:00
Yes. OK, well, now you could introduce the missing piece to the puzzle with Gary George.
40:07
So it was probably about the end of the first season, maybe maybe into the second season of street preaching.
40:15
And it was after one of the meetings down there and a gentleman, Bruce Binney, had taken me aside.
40:20
I think at the time he was a member of Gary's church. I'm not sure. But he had taken me aside. Now, up to this point,
40:27
I had never heard of Tulip. Never heard of it. Total depravity, limited atonement.
40:34
I had never heard of it. I had never heard God presented that way. So Bruce sat down with me.
40:39
We I call it the grassy knoll because of the way the landscape was shaped.
40:45
And he went through he had a bunch of tracks and Bible and he went through every step.
40:51
And I remember in the conversation with him, I didn't have a whole lot to say. I was actually frustrated.
40:57
I was confused. And even at one point I was angry. I just couldn't reconcile what he was saying.
41:05
The way I was interpreting it was was through my emotions and certainly not reason. And so we finished the meeting and Bruce was a gentleman.
41:14
There's no fault on Bruce. He was perfectly clear in his presentation and certainly biblical.
41:20
And went through all the texts and was very patient. And I remember when
41:25
I left that meeting, just being really emotionally charged through the whole thing and could not believe that God would be presented that way.
41:36
You know, picking somebody, you know, arbitrarily, you know, before the foundation of the world.
41:41
The very thing that I preach now, you know, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. And so I went home and I must have had a booklet or something on my shelf.
41:51
It was hyper Calvinism might have been by John R. Rice, a 30 page booklet. So that's enough. That's all I need to review
41:57
Calvinism. So anyway, I told my mentor what had happened, how
42:02
I was feeling about all of it and wanting to separate from the group. And I think he was disappointed.
42:09
He didn't say a whole lot to me. But I wanted to, out of respect to him and to Gary, meet with Gary and tell him that I was separating from the group.
42:18
But I did. I went down, I met with Gary and I told him I can't I can't deal with this.
42:24
This is not this is not right doctrine. That's that was the conclusion I came to based on my emotions at the time.
42:31
Right. And I had separated. And Gary, I'll never forget it. Gary looked at me and he said,
42:38
I'll be praying for your brother. And, you know, we'll miss you. He was so gracious and he's always been that way.
42:44
One thing about Gary and I've known him for 30 years and, you know, he's he's a constant. He is just he's the same today as he was back then.
42:53
Very gracious. Yes. And I'm very privileged to know this man and come to know him even better over the last probably eight years or so.
43:03
And so that began my sort of anti -Calvinist, you know, trek and just continue down that road.
43:14
But the change started happening with me when I started really, really, really it started first with history.
43:23
I asked myself, why am I a Baptist? And I wanted to find out why. Why am I a Baptist? Somebody asked me, why are you a
43:29
Baptist? Why do you prefer the Baptist way? And so I began to do the research on that.
43:34
I came across Carol's Trail of Blood. And then I got other Landmarker, you know,
43:40
Baptist history books and so forth. So a lot of the great names that people know, like Roger Williams, John Clark, Obadiah Holmes, Elder Leland Francis Whelan, all of these very important figures, particularly in our nation's church history, were contributors to the liberty that we have now in America.
44:02
You know, Elder Leland, for example, in his work with James Madison and getting us the First Amendment to the
44:08
Constitution and the right to gather and worship freely without government or state oversight.
44:14
John Clark and Roger Williams petitioned King Charles II. I think it was
44:20
John Clark. He stayed 12 years. I think Roger Williams came back at the 10 -year mark. But they got the charter for churches to be able to worship freely without any interference from the state.
44:33
They called it a lively experiment. But what happened was, as I kept reading these books, these things were coming up.
44:40
These men have some Calvinist leanings. And then one of my men, it was probably back in 2015, that's when things really started to shift for me.
44:50
One of my men came to me, who was also an avid reader, and he slapped a book down on my desk. He said, have you read this?
44:56
And I said, no. And it was Obadiah Holmes' Last Will and Testament and full
45:02
Calvinist, full doctrines of grace, the whole thing. And so then as I began to peel back these layers,
45:10
I realized the hypocrisy in my own life in making statements like that from the pulpit.
45:16
Calvinists don't sew in their heretics, their doctrines of devils, the whole nine yards.
45:24
And I couldn't reconcile that and then get up and sing an Isaac Watts hymn. And I got Matthew Henry and Matthew Poole on my, you know,
45:32
I've got Charles Spurgeon, you know, the treasury of David, the morning and evening. And I had to face my own ignorance and I had to deal with that.
45:40
And that's what really opened the door. And of course, I'm a Baptist through and through. So as I began to read and read and read,
45:49
I'm finding these men, you know, held to the reformed doctrines of grace. And so what that did is that kicked that door wide open to look into what these doctrines were.
46:02
And it became easier for me to accept them. And the book that you had recommended was a tremendous, tremendous book.
46:12
I can't recommend it enough. By His Grace and For His Glory by Thomas Nettles. Oh, yeah.
46:17
That was an excellent, excellent book. And all it did, it just it just widened the girth on this knowledge of Calvinistic thought in all these major figures in Baptist history.
46:33
And that's not even including the first and second Great Awakening. You get down to George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards.
46:40
And because my favorite is Asahel Nettleton and people. Oh, yeah.
46:45
Have you read Revival and Revivalism by Ian Murray? Yes, I read that a couple of years ago.
46:54
Yes. Yeah, that's an excellent book that which compares and contrasts Asahel Nettleton with Charles Finney.
47:01
The first being biblically orthodox with a true gospel and the latter
47:06
Charles Finney being extremely heretical and problematic, to say the least. But I'm sorry
47:13
I interrupted you. No, no, that that's no, you're good. And so anyway, that began to open the door to other things.
47:23
And then I just I love reading Puritan literature. Thomas Manton is one of my favorite
47:30
Puritans and then certainly others along the way. And of course, again, all reformed in their theology.
47:39
And so they've blessed me in my study. They've blessed the congregation, you know, from behind the pulpit and Sunday school and preaching.
47:48
And it's it's really shaped my whole perspective on the reformers or reformed theology in general, at least in that piece of it.
48:01
And that's kind of how it all took place as an experience aspect of it, too, that began to concern me.
48:13
The altar call or, as you mentioned, revivalism, you know, this idea, you know, all these people getting saved, but there's no fruit.
48:24
And I know that's another critical issue with people. Who are you to judge? Yeah. But if you read church history, brother, you read like Asahel Nettleton.
48:33
If you read Asahel Nettleton compared to Finney, even Finney remarked how few of his converts, quote unquote, stayed with it.
48:42
When they polled converts for Asahel Nettleton, they were still serving. Yeah, they were still in churches 20, 30 years.
48:50
Amen. Well, how was what was the reaction of your fellow congregants to this new theology that you have fallen in love with when you made it public?
49:08
What is interesting about that? I have found that many of them are already there.
49:14
Wow. I had a conversation with a woman last Saturday and I was talking about election from Ephesians, chapter one, and she was right there.
49:25
And she said, thank you, pastor, for preaching that. And I admit
49:30
I was shocked. And then this was a few years ago. This story made me chuckle.
49:35
One of the gentlemen came up to me and he started talking about election and being chosen.
49:41
And it was just, to me, strange language coming from him. And I said, brother, that's that's interesting.
49:49
What are you reading? And he said, well, I'm reading Arthur, Arthur Pink Sovereignty of God. And I almost fell on the floor.
49:55
And I said, I said, brother, let me know what your findings are when you're done reading that.
50:02
And then as I continue to open up and talk to more people,
50:08
I'm finding that they're already watching John MacArthur.
50:14
They're already listening to Steve Lawson and John Piper and Paul Washer.
50:21
He comes up quite a bit. That infamous sermon of his. Yeah. And so, you know, so they're already listening to these things.
50:29
So the language that's coming from me, you know, in terms of the doctrine and, you know, key points of focus, many of them already recognize it.
50:40
Now, we do have a diverse group of people and they're at different levels of their understanding of the
50:45
Bible. And I preached last Sunday night a sermon on predestination. It was an overview.
50:50
It wasn't meant to be a detailed sermon, just an overview, just an introduction to it. And there was there was mixed reviews on it.
50:58
Some agreed to disagree and others said, we agree, Pastor, no problem. And then, you know, others, well,
51:03
I have to consider that and look at it myself and study it out like a Berean. And that's perfectly fine.
51:10
We want people to study their Bibles. We want them in their Bibles. But I think the thing with with the whole
51:15
Calvinist debate is we've we've isolated these these words because we're so afraid to talk about them because of the
51:25
Calvinistic implication. We're missing out on so much in especially doctrines of soteriology because we're afraid it's
51:35
Calvinistic. If you talk about election, you're that's Calvinistic. That's taboo. You shouldn't be talking about that or predestination.
51:42
Well, we're not going to get anywhere and we're not going to grow and learning. And I had a quote in the sermon that somebody brought to my attention at the churches to grow bigger.
51:53
It's got to grow deeper. And the point of the quote was, you've got to go deeper with God.
51:58
You've got to get closer to God. Amen.
52:18
Well, we have to go to our midway break right now. And once again, if you have a question you'd like to ask, we do have several questions from listeners who are waiting to hear them asked and answered.
52:29
But if you'd like to get in line and join the conversation with a question of your own. Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail dot com.
52:37
Give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence. Please be patient with us, folks, because the midway break in the show is always a little longer than the other breaks because Grace Life Radio 90 .1
52:49
FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show because the
52:54
FCC requires of them to localize. Iron Trip and Zion Radio geographically to Lake City, Florida, where the radio station is located.
53:03
And they do so with their own public service announcements and other local things. We, on the other hand, simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.
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Please use this time wisely. Write down as much of the contact information for as many of our advertisers as you possibly can so that you can more frequently and successfully respond to our advertisers.
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Keeping in mind that the finances that come into Iron Trip and Zion Radio through our advertisers are absolutely essential to our existence.
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So please try to respond to our advertisers as much as possible. And, of course, send in your questions to Pastor Tim Crockett, to Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com.
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Chris Arnzen at Gmail dot com. Give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence.
53:49
Don't go away. We're going to be right back. I'm Dr.
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Joseph Piper, president emeritus and professor of systematic and applied theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
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Every Christian who's serious about the deformed faith and the Westminster standards should have and use the eight volume commentary on the theology and ethics of the
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For details on the eight volume commentary, go to Westminster Commentary dot com.
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Go to IronSharpensIronRadio .com, click support, then click, click to donate now.
01:10:42
Last but not least, if you are not a member of a Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church like Bible Way Baptist Church in Auburn, Massachusetts, well,
01:10:54
I have extensive lists spanning the globe of biblically faithful churches, so no matter where you live in the world,
01:11:00
I may be able to help you find a church, as I have done for many listeners all over the planet
01:11:06
Earth, even sometimes within just a couple of minutes from where they live. So if you are in that predicament of not having a biblically faithful church home, send me an e -mail to chrisarnson at gmail .com
01:11:18
and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the e -mail address where you can send in a question to my guest today, and the e -mail address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,
01:11:32
chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence, and I'm sure that Pastor Tim would be thrilled to answer your question to the best of his ability.
01:11:47
Give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. And we are back with our conversation now.
01:11:56
And can I ask you before I go to listener questions, is there anything that might be considered uniquely an independent fundamentalist
01:12:09
Baptist teaching or practice that you believe is superior to what you have even experienced or witnessed in Reformed Christian circles that you have retained even though you have come to the doctrines of sovereign grace?
01:12:29
That's a good question. I'm trying to think of what that would be.
01:12:36
We still hold to a lot of the things, I guess, that would make us an independent fundamental
01:12:43
Baptist church. In terms of our view on the King James Bible, we still sing the old precious hymns.
01:12:51
We go soul winning, but that's not exclusive to the independent fundamental because we've met plenty of Reformed Baptists out soul winning as well.
01:13:03
So it's hard to say if there's one specific thing that's a carryover. I don't really have much to compare that to as far as a non -independent fundamental
01:13:14
Baptist church. We are making a lot of changes within the church in our worship style, for example, that is not uniquely fundamental.
01:13:27
At least not that I know of. Maybe there are some out there that do that. Years ago, before I went full time into the ministry,
01:13:38
I used to work at FlexCon out here in Spencer. Their philosophy was process improvement at all levels.
01:13:47
How can we make a better product? How can we do the process better? So I kind of carried that over to the church.
01:13:55
It worked for a while, but it was growing old with some of the people because of the process. This is a process.
01:14:01
It's not a process. But the mindset was, how can we improve what we're doing?
01:14:07
And then I went to a NERF meeting last year. Dr. Lars Larsen taught a lesson on Semper Reformanda, always reforming.
01:14:17
And I love that. And I think it really fit into what I wanted to do at Bible Way.
01:14:23
So we got rid of quite a few things and changed the service around. So we have a responsive scripture reading from the
01:14:30
Psalms. We still sing the hymns, but now we're starting to introduce the singing of the scripture.
01:14:36
In particular, the singing of the Psalms. We got rid of some of the stuff that went on in between, like the meet and greet type of thing.
01:14:44
And as far as the altar call is concerned, we transitioned out of that.
01:14:50
I give a call to know Christ throughout the sermon, even at the end of the sermon.
01:14:55
But what I do is a call to prayer. And that's an opportunity for people to pray.
01:15:01
And then we close with a benediction. So we're really trying to put as much of the word of God into that time that we have together.
01:15:13
Sometimes it goes a little over an hour, depending on the sermon. I changed, you know, Sunday mornings,
01:15:18
I preach expository. Currently going through the book of Mark and I'm getting, you know, prepared to go through Ephesians.
01:15:26
So I'm digging into that now. And that'll be the next book that I go through. So those are some of the changes that I made.
01:15:32
So a lot of, you know, the hymns. I love the hymns. I love the old hymns. And the folks really love the hymns.
01:15:40
And, you know, they were really great at one time. And I think they still are.
01:15:45
There's a lot of good theology in the hymns and good practical stuff that really does encourage the people.
01:15:51
But try to shift it a little bit more, including the singing of the psalms. So that's been a long process.
01:15:59
But our song leader is doing a great job, and he's trying to really bring that in to the services more.
01:16:04
I hope that helped you with your question. Now, would there be anyone within independent fundamentalist
01:16:11
Baptist circles that would object to the singing of psalms? I mean, I could understand objecting to exclusive psalmody where you don't sing hymns at all.
01:16:22
But would anybody object to using the psalter in addition to a hymnal in the independent fundamentalist
01:16:30
Baptist circles? I can't answer that question in the affirmative.
01:16:36
I don't know. I can't answer that. I do know that there are videos and some resources that I believe are independent
01:16:48
Baptist who put together these psalms to be sung in churches.
01:16:56
So I would say no. I would say that there are some that do sing them.
01:17:02
I'm not – I couldn't name one in this program. By the way, I want to recommend an interview that I conducted last year,
01:17:12
July 6th of last year. I want to recommend to our listeners my interview with Jason Cherry on the cultures –
01:17:20
I'm sorry, the culture of conversionalism – I'm sorry, the culture of conversionism and the history of the altar call.
01:17:29
And he really does a meticulous and really the best job
01:17:35
I've ever seen going through the history of this practice and how not only is it not found in scripture, but its arrival on the scene historically is surprisingly recent.
01:17:50
And I think that you will find this amazing, this book, especially if you've never heard this evidence before, because people wrongly think that if a church stops having altar calls or never did have them, that they don't have a concern for calling sinners to Christ.
01:18:14
And the fact of the matter is that calling sinners to Christ never manifested itself in a so -called altar call anywhere in the
01:18:24
Bible. That's why we who do not use that practice don't have it.
01:18:32
Anything to add to that? No, I can't say anything other than I agree.
01:18:38
I noticed some issues with the altar call, the overemphasis on it.
01:18:44
The manipulation that would be used to bring people forward, that was one of the experiential red flags that I had as a pastor.
01:18:57
And this kind of shift from that kind of thinking to exclusively the work of the
01:19:04
Holy Spirit and seeing the, I guess, pragmatism in trying to get people to do something.
01:19:13
And it's so much like Phinney, and that was Phinney's whole drive.
01:19:19
You know, if they came forward, then it's an indication that they got saved. But in reality, there was no conversion.
01:19:26
It was an emotional response. And we have to be careful of the emotion because it is a byproduct of the flesh.
01:19:32
And as Paul stated, in the flesh dwells no good thing. So we have to be careful that we don't gauge our spiritual life by our emotions because that can set us off in the wrong direction.
01:19:44
And one of the things with the altar call that I've noticed, and particularly in outreach, you know, one -on -one soul winning with people,
01:19:53
I would hear a lot. I walked an aisle. I raised my hand. I said the prayer.
01:19:59
And you try to engage people. Okay, well, let's talk about that. How's your walk going with the
01:20:04
Lord? Where are you going to church? I don't do any of that. And very hostile to having a conversation about spiritual things.
01:20:12
And that's problematic because one of the fruits of regeneration is a love for the brethren, a love for the
01:20:17
Lord, a love for the Bible, a desire to fellowship and to be in church and around God's people.
01:20:24
And a hatred of sin and not want to live in sin or in bondage to sin.
01:20:29
You're set free from that through the work of the spirit. You're a new creature in Christ. There should be some manifest change.
01:20:37
It might look different to different people, but there's a change. And today we just walk down the aisle.
01:20:43
Okay, 300 people walk down the aisle. We have 300 souls saved. But how do you know that? That's right.
01:20:50
How do you know that? That's right. And my independent Fundamentalist Baptist friends are typically rightfully extremely opposed to the heresies of Roman Catholicism.
01:21:04
And if so, you've got to be consistent here. I've never seen an independent
01:21:10
Fundamentalist Baptist church with an altar. Why are you calling it an altar call? Am I making sense?
01:21:17
Yes, it is. Yeah, I wondered the same. Right. And so one other thing
01:21:24
I wanted to ask you about to have you clarify something. Earlier on, when you were describing predestination and election,
01:21:35
I don't know if you use this term because of the way you used to view it when you did not believe in unconditional election, or if you still use this description now.
01:21:48
But I do not believe that God's choice in predestination and election is arbitrary, which means on a whim, without any reason.
01:21:59
Now, obviously, those whom God elected did not deserve it at all. There's nothing in us that is worthy of being elected.
01:22:08
In fact, everything in us is worthy of being punished eternally in hell.
01:22:16
So I think there's a difference between being unworthy of election and God not choosing people because of things he foresaw in us that were good, even a choice to follow him.
01:22:29
But at the same time, I don't think that that's the same thing as arbitrary. Do you want to comment on that? Thank you for the correction.
01:22:36
Yes. One of the proof texts that I use when I talk about election is
01:22:41
Deuteronomy 7. I refer to that quite often as an example of God choosing the nation of Israel.
01:22:48
And it states in that text very clearly he chose them for no reason other than the fact that he loved them.
01:22:53
And it wasn't because of their might. It wasn't because of their numbers. It wasn't because of their strength. He chose them because he loved them.
01:22:59
So, yes, the clarification would be God chose because he loved. Yes. He loved us.
01:23:04
Amen. And even though there was nothing lovely or lovable in us. Exactly. While we were yet sinners,
01:23:11
Christ died for us. Amen. God commended his love toward us. Yep. Hallelujah. Well, we have a listener from Mike in Worcester, Massachusetts.
01:23:22
With your understanding of church history, are your eschatological views shifting at all from a dispensational to a more reformed standpoint, i .e.,
01:23:32
amillennial, etc.? Why or why not? The first part of that answer would be no.
01:23:41
I need more information or more historical information to make that decision.
01:23:48
So I'm still dispensational. I guess I would line up with John MacArthur in terms of my eschatological viewpoint.
01:23:55
But as far as a historical application or understanding,
01:24:02
I need more information from resources. And I have not really come into a lot of material on that specifically in my reading.
01:24:15
Most of the focus is on the soteriological aspect of it or the doctrines of grace.
01:24:21
That really comes to the forefront. So I haven't really run into that all that much. I mean,
01:24:27
I understand the default to Darby and his take on dispensational truth.
01:24:36
But in terms of going backwards and looking for it, I would need more history on that.
01:24:42
If it comes up empty, well, then we're going to have to revisit that. But there's literature out there, and I can't remember the name of the book.
01:24:48
But there was a book that came out a number of years ago that traced the history of the premillennial viewpoint going back to the
01:24:59
New Testament. I can't remember the name of it. I wish I had pulled that aside. So I can't answer that in the affirmative as far as where I stand right now.
01:25:11
The doctrines, always, again, semper reformanda, looking at the doctrines that I believe and certainly my arguments and my understanding of our eschatological view.
01:25:25
So, you know, digging into that. And I do have a number of guys in the church. Actually, two of them are amill, and then
01:25:32
I think we have a pre -wrath fellow. And then the majority of the people are dispensational.
01:25:39
The pre -trib rapture, that typical theological or eschatological bent there.
01:25:45
So we've certainly had a fair share of discussions. That's for sure. Okay. We have
01:25:52
Bart in Flanders, Long Island, New York. And Bart says,
01:25:57
I heard you mention that your church still uses exclusively the King James Version of the
01:26:04
Bible. Are you King James only? Do you vilify other translations and those who use them?
01:26:12
We are King James only. We do not vilify. We have actually have a number of folks in the church.
01:26:21
In our worship time, we preach and teach from the King James. We have King James Bibles in the pews.
01:26:27
There was a time when those Bibles were checked at the door.
01:26:33
Not by me, but by others to see whether they had an NIV or whatever. They were vilified at that time.
01:26:40
And that is no longer the case. So going forward, we have folks that will read the
01:26:50
King James alongside the NIV or the NASB or the ESB. And I think the latest one,
01:26:56
I think it might be LSB. I read exclusively, well, almost exclusively. I'm partial to the
01:27:02
Geneva Bible. I like the notes in the Geneva Bible. And that was the first Bible that came over with the pilgrims.
01:27:09
The King James had replaced that sometime after. So that was the first one that came over. And I like it.
01:27:16
John Knox had contributed quite a bit to the notes in the Geneva Bible.
01:27:21
And I appreciate many of the notes that are in there. But as far as vilifying people, I understand that, you know, people will, you know, they use
01:27:30
New King James Version, the NIV, and what have you. So the vilifying that,
01:27:37
I guess, that corner of the IFB that says you can't get saved unless you're reading the
01:27:45
King James Bible. I'm not of that camp. Yeah, I have a friend who is a pastor of a free
01:27:52
Presbyterian congregation in Northern Ireland. And they exclusively use the
01:27:59
King James Bible. But now I'm not saying that this view is representative of that entire denomination,
01:28:06
Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster and also Free Presbyterian Church of North America. But he said that he believed it was heresy, even though he exclusively used the
01:28:16
King James Bible. He believed it was heresy to identify other modern translations as satanic and not the word of God.
01:28:27
So I was just wondering if you would have any sympathies towards that view that this pastor had.
01:28:35
You mean it's heresy to say that they are the word of God or they're not the word of God?
01:28:41
That they're not, which would be very frequently something you hear from King James only folks.
01:28:49
No, I would have to agree with him. What do you do with missionaries that go in?
01:29:00
I couldn't hold to that position. Missionaries go into a foreign field and they're translating from probably if they're
01:29:09
King James, assuming they're translating from the Texas Receptus to the language of the place where they're doing their missions work.
01:29:19
But it's still a translation. Just out of curiosity,
01:29:29
I have a very long, decades -long friendship with Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries.
01:29:35
Have you ever read his book, The King James Only Controversy? Many, many years ago, yes. I was just curious if you want to revisit that.
01:29:45
It's on my bookshelf somewhere. Okay. Well, I can make sure you get another copy if you'd like one.
01:29:53
We have the aforementioned Gary George, pastor of Sovereign Grace Chapel of Southbridge, Massachusetts.
01:30:04
And Pastor Gary says, Tim, has your evangelism been impacted, or I'm sorry, has your evangelism been impeded since your theology has changed?
01:30:14
Not holding to free will as you did before, are you comfortable offering the gospel freely now?
01:30:23
Yes, and it has not changed. It's actually increased. And do you care to describe what might be the reason for that?
01:30:31
I mean, I can even tell you what I have heard from missionaries who became believers in the doctrines of Sovereign Grace.
01:30:38
It gives them a lot more confidence and less reasons to be disappointed and depressed when they see very little fruit, at least initially, and perhaps for years.
01:30:55
Because they know that the word of God will not return void, and they know with confidence that he has a remnant who are
01:31:04
God's elect from every tribe and tongue and people and nation who are going to believe. It might not even be in the lifetime of the missionary, depending upon where they are, but that does not mean that their efforts are failures.
01:31:19
Is that something to do with your not having your evangelism impeded?
01:31:27
I would agree with that. Definitely confidence, and then when you incorporate the whole body of knowledge that goes with soteriology in general.
01:31:38
So now you're bringing in a lot of factors that you wouldn't normally bring in when you talk about justification or you talk about adoption or even predestination.
01:31:48
I personally, I like adoption and I like the way that presents because it takes us from being a child of wrath, a child of the world, lost, undone and in a perilous condition, unloved as far as the world is concerned.
01:32:05
And then God getting a hold of you and adopting you into the family of God and loving you and embracing you as a child.
01:32:18
I think there's something to be said about that, at least for me personally. The confidence that I have with these doctrines also rests on the
01:32:28
Holy Spirit. So rather than trying to perform or engage in some kind of pragmatic device or way, a giveaway or whatever, now the confidence is in the work of the spirit to do the work in the hearts of men.
01:32:48
So the shift in my thinking has gone from pragmatism, let's get them forward, let's get them to raise their hand, let's do a quick prayer and get them to say these words.
01:33:01
Now it's the gospel, this is the gospel, death, burial, resurrection of Christ, the word won't return void as you said.
01:33:09
We're born again, not of corruptible, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.
01:33:14
Faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God. Now the focus has gone from not trying to get somebody to say something and feeling like I left or I failed
01:33:29
God to, God, this is your word and you've asked me to preach it and share it with every creature,
01:33:37
Mark 16. Now we're praying for the work of the spirit in this person's heart. So the confidence has shifted from my efforts to God, this is your word, and let the spirit do his work in the hearts of these people.
01:33:55
Amen. We have a question from Boyd in Pearl, Mississippi.
01:34:01
And Boyd says, one of the things that absolutely baffles my mind in regard to many who are independent
01:34:11
Fundamentalist Baptists is their absolute disgust over the term sovereign
01:34:18
God, claiming that word is nowhere found in the Bible. But sovereign obviously means a supreme ruler, somebody possessing supreme or ultimate power.
01:34:34
How on earth can they not view God in such a description? I think part of the problem is the
01:34:44
Calvinistic implication. So when you mention sovereignty of God, the mind defaults to Calvinism.
01:34:51
And that's the biggest hurdle that people have to overcome when it comes to doctrinal terms.
01:34:59
The word Trinity isn't in the Bible. Right. But we have no problem using that to describe the nature of the
01:35:07
Godhead. So sovereignty just simply encompasses God's power, his control over all things.
01:35:17
But the hurdle to overcome is the connection to Calvinism.
01:35:22
And what I'm finding with a lot more people that I'm talking to is they are they're coming away from that term
01:35:29
Calvinism, you know, and I'm hearing we don't worship a man. We don't follow a man when we're following the doctrines of the
01:35:35
Bible. This is what we believe. And I'm seeing more and more people are hearing of more and more people that are doing that because of the implications.
01:35:43
You mentioned election and people just automatically default right to Calvinism and the barriers go up and you can't you can't engage any further than that because they've already been told
01:35:55
Calvinism is evil. Calvinism is this. Calvinism is that. And you're just not going to you can't break through that.
01:36:03
So you have to be patient with people and explain and define your terms. I had an interesting encounter.
01:36:12
It was years ago. We had a fellow who was the on campus evangelist.
01:36:19
He he was the one he loved sharing the gospel and he would spend hours with people just talking to him.
01:36:24
So we'd be down in front of City Hall and he just he'd be going for an hour with one person just going through patiently.
01:36:32
And there's a group that comes down. I think it's Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Brother Mike Abendroth.
01:36:38
Oh, yeah. I know Mike. Yeah. And Steve Cooley is associate pastor. I've never
01:36:45
I don't think I've ever met Steve Cooley. I haven't met Mike actually. And he's got a group of people.
01:36:51
I was just going to say Steve is a former Mormon. He was saved by the grace of God. No kidding. Yeah. Praise God.
01:36:58
And well, what happened was they're they're they're guys come down to guys and gals.
01:37:04
There's a little group of them that come down and we'd exchange pleasantries and they'd go on their way sharing the gospel of Christ. Well, the the fellow came up to me and from our church and said, hey, you know.
01:37:16
You think I could ask them, like how they share the gospel. Now, you might think, well, that's kind of question is that?
01:37:22
Well, it's an important question because he he doesn't understand or didn't understand. How does a
01:37:27
Calvinist share a gospel? Because he's already got roadblocks up as far as what Calvinism is or Calvinism isn't and what they do and don't do.
01:37:36
So he was curious. How does a Calvinist share the gospel? So he he went aside. He asked.
01:37:42
It was a tall fellow. I can't remember his name. Took him aside. They they went together for about 10 minutes or so, and then they parted ways.
01:37:51
And the fellow came up to me and he said, that is the clearest presentation of the gospel that I've ever heard.
01:37:59
And so doors were opened and an explanation was given from a Calvinist perspective on how they share the gospel.
01:38:08
And some might think that's a foolish question. Of course, they share the gospel. Well, rather than making strong denunciations from the pulpit about what
01:38:16
Calvinists do or Calvinists don't do, why not ask a Calvinist? We've got a young man in our church that just started coming back after being away for a while.
01:38:26
And I handed him a 1689 Baptist confession and we got to talking and he had remarked to me.
01:38:33
He said, you know, I heard a lot about how bad Calvinists are. He said, I want to know what they believe.
01:38:39
You know, I want to read their literature. I want to learn what what they teach. And so we had a very engaging conversation.
01:38:47
In fact, I got to follow up with him. He mentioned last night he's been listening to a preacher.
01:38:55
Now, I forget his name. I'm in the middle of this conversation. I forget his name. But he William Lane Craig and something about monolism.
01:39:03
And I and I'm really not familiar with the term. Monolism was monolism.
01:39:09
I'm not familiar with the term. So I have to do some research on. I can't really contribute much more than that. But it just opened the door for some discussion on on this doctrine.
01:39:20
Apparently, that is believed out there. I don't know to what extent. So I'm going to do some research on that.
01:39:28
We're going to our final break right now. And if you have any questions that you'd like to add to our conversation, send them immediately.
01:39:35
Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.
01:39:43
Give us your first name at least, city and state, country of residence. We'll be right back. Please do not go away. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.
01:39:55
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That's ptlbiblerebinding .com. I'm Pastor Keith Allen of Linbrook Baptist Church, a
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Christ -centered, gospel -driven church looking to spread the gospel in the southwest portion of Long Island, New York and play our role in fulfilling the
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Great Commission, supporting and sending for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth. We're delighted to be a part of Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron radio advertising family.
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At Linbrook Baptist Church, we believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the inspired word of God, inherent in the original writings, complete as the revelation of God's will for salvation and the supreme and final authority in all matters to which they speak.
01:42:12
We believe in salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This salvation is based upon the sovereign grace of God, was purchased by Christ on the cross, and is received through faith alone, apart from any human merit, works, or ritual.
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Salvation in Christ also results in righteous living, good works, and appropriate respect and concern for all who bear
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Lord's Day, we'd love to have you come and join us in worship. For details, visit linbrookbaptist .org.
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That's l -y -n -brookbaptist .org. This is Pastor Keith Allen of Linbrook Baptist Church reminding you that by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves.
01:43:01
It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
01:43:07
May the Lord bless you in the knowledge of himself. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.
01:43:27
Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland, who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,
01:43:36
Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai, in County Kildare, Ireland, going back to 2005.
01:43:46
One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron radio,
01:43:53
Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, are largely to thank, since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.
01:44:02
Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.
01:44:08
Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards, and Dr.
01:44:13
Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight -volume commentary on the larger catechism. Heritage is a member of the
01:44:19
Hanover Presbytery, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, and tracing its roots and heritage back to the great
01:44:29
Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Heritage maintains and follows the biblical truth and principles proclaimed by the
01:44:36
Reformers, Scripture alone, grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, and God's glory alone.
01:44:42
Their primary goal is the worship of the Triune God that continues in eternity. For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit
01:44:50
HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com. That's HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com,
01:44:55
or call 678 -954 -7831. That's 678 -954 -7831.
01:45:03
If you visit, tell them Joe O 'Reilly, an Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener, from a tie in County Kildare, Ireland, sent you.
01:45:20
Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005.
01:45:26
The publishers of the New American Standard Bible were among my very first sponsors. It gives me joy knowing that many scholars and pastors in the
01:45:35
Iron Sharpens Iron Radio audience have been sticking with or switching to the
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NASB. I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President and Professor of Systematic and Homiletical Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylors, South Carolina.
01:45:51
And the NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Chuck White of the
01:45:57
First Trinity Lutheran Church in Tonawanda, New York, and the NASB is my Bible of choice.
01:46:03
I'm Pastor Anthony Methenia of Christ Church in Radford, Virginia, and the NASB is my
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Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Justin Miller of Damascus Road Christian Church in Gardnerville, Nevada, and the
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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Bruce Bennett of Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York, and the
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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Rodney Brown of Metro Bible Church in Southlake, Texas, and the
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NASB is my Bible of choice. I'm Pastor Jim Harrison of Red Mills Baptist Church in Mayapac Falls, New York, and the
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NASB is my Bible of choice. Here's a great way for your church to help keep
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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio on the air. Pastors, are your pew Bibles tattered and falling apart?
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Consider restocking your pews with the NASB, and tell the publishers you heard about them from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
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Go to nasbible .com. That's nasbible .com to place your order.
01:47:16
O Hail the Power of Jesus' Name This is
01:47:24
Pastor Bill Sousa, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.
01:47:29
Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support
01:47:35
Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially. Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers, which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our
01:47:51
Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the end for which we strive is the glory of God.
01:47:57
If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some
01:48:11
Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.
01:48:20
Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.
01:48:29
This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our
01:48:34
Sovereign Lord, God, Savior, and King, Jesus Christ, today and always.
01:48:46
Greetings. This is
01:49:00
Brian McLaughlin, President of the SecureComm Group and supporter of Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Program.
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SecureComm provides the highest level of security systems for residential buildings, municipalities, churches, commercial properties, and much more.
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We can be reached at securecommgroup .com.
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That's securecommgroup .com. But today, I want to introduce you to my senior pastor,
01:49:34
Doug McMasters of New High Park Baptist Church on Long Island.
01:49:43
Doug McMasters here, former director of pastoral correspondence at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.
01:49:49
In the film Chariots of Fire, Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt
01:49:56
God's pleasure when he ran. He knew his efforts sprang from the gifts and calling of God.
01:50:02
I sensed that same God -given pleasure when ministering the Word and helping others gain a deeper knowledge and love for God.
01:50:09
That love starts with the wonderful news that the Lord Jesus Christ is a Savior who died for sinners, and that God forgives all who come to Him in repentance, trusting solely in Christ to deliver them.
01:50:22
I would be delighted to have the honor and privilege of ministering to you if you live in the Long Island area, or Queens, or Brooklyn, or the
01:50:29
Bronx, in New York City. For details on New High Park Baptist Church, visit nhpbc .com.
01:50:38
That's nhpbc .com. You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672.
01:50:48
That's 516 -352 -9672. That's New High Park Baptist Church, a congregation in love with each other, passionate for Christ, committed to learning and being shaped by God's Word, and delighting in the gospel of God's sovereign grace.
01:51:06
God bless you. Chris Arnzen here.
01:51:19
I am forever grateful to Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service for their generous financial support of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
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But that's not the only reason I love them. CVBBS .com carries the finest in theologically reformed literature from 16th century classics like Calvin's Institutes, 17th and 18th century
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IRON. That's CVBBS .com, enriching minds and maintaining the theologically reformed influence of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio through their financial support.
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Now shipping worldwide. Welcome back. I want to remind our listeners that this program is paid for in part by the law firm of Buttafuoco &
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Associates. If you are the victim of a very serious personal injury or medical malpractice anywhere in the
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United States, please call 1 -800 -NOW -HURT, 1 -800 -NOW -HURT, or visit 1 -800 -NOW -HURT .com,
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1 -800 -NOW -HURT .com. That's the law firm of Buttafuoco & Associates. Please make sure you mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.
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Also, for all men in ministry leadership, you are invited to the next free
01:53:04
Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Pastor's Luncheon on Thursday, June the 6th, 11 a .m. to 2 p .m.
01:53:10
at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania. It is absolutely free of charge.
01:53:15
And this time around, our keynote speaker for the very first time ever is Dr. Joel Beakey, founder and president of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
01:53:26
Not only will you be able to get into this event for free and eat for free, but you will receive, as everyone attending will, a heavy sack of free brand -new books, personally selected by me and donated by Christian publishers all over the
01:53:43
United States and the United Kingdom. It's all absolutely free. If you'd like to attend, please send me an email to register at chrisarnson at gmail .com
01:53:51
and put Pastor's Luncheon in the subject line. Okay, we are now back. And before I ask a listener question,
01:53:57
I just wanted to comment on a previous listener's question who was basically quoting what many independent fundamentalist
01:54:07
Baptists would say if they are King James only. They would say that the word sovereign is not in the
01:54:16
Bible. And what they mean by that, it's not in the King James Bible, which they think is the only Bible, because the word sovereign is a word used in the
01:54:25
English translations of the New American Standard Bible. Let's see, there's Psalm 103, 19, referring to God's sovereignty.
01:54:34
There's Isaiah 17, 3. There is 1 Timothy 6, verse 15.
01:54:42
And there's Revelation 6, verse 10. And the
01:54:48
English Standard Version also uses the word sovereign on a number of occasions.
01:54:55
So I believe it is a very fine word, and there's no reason to be squeamish about it.
01:55:01
Let's see here. I just had another question staring at me. Oh, here it is.
01:55:08
We have Cora in Brandon, Mississippi.
01:55:13
And Cora says, are there any independent fundamentalist Baptist churches that you are aware of that you believe are so vehemently opposed to the doctrines of grace you would consider their gospel a false gospel?
01:55:29
Interesting question. And I'll throw in my own question about that. It becomes very problematic when you have that element that is vehemently opposed to preaching repentance from sin to people, and actually say that it's damnable to preach repentance from sin, because they wrongly think that you're adding works to faith for justification, which is just not true.
01:55:56
But anyway, if you could comment on that, Pastor Tim. Well, I think in addition to the repentance aspect, one of the other things that I hear coming up quite a bit is lordship.
01:56:09
And that one baffles me why anybody would take issue with lordship.
01:56:16
Maybe I'm on the outliers here on this. But if we call upon Jesus as our
01:56:22
Lord and Savior, then doesn't that necessitate our acknowledging his lordship in our life?
01:56:32
And the necessity of it. Exactly. And so to answer that question,
01:56:37
I guess, you know, it's not a matter of, I guess, you can become so vehemently anti -Calvinist that you do become unscriptural.
01:56:48
Because of these doctrines, you avoid these doctrines, and they're critical to a healthy spiritual life, a healthy church life, and just go back in history.
01:56:58
And again, the contest between Asahel Nettleton and Finney.
01:57:04
Finney opposed regeneration. He opposed that. That's a critical doctrine. You can't avoid that.
01:57:12
And if you're so adamant against Calvinism and the doctrines of grace, and you lump these doctrines in with that, then yes, you're teaching false doctrine.
01:57:26
And it would border on heresy. Was it Finney that taught or did not believe in the substitutionary atonement?
01:57:33
Right. He also believed that the Holy Spirit was not involved in regeneration.
01:57:40
Yes, that's correct. Which is a real—that is worse than Rome's understanding.
01:57:48
So anyway, well, unfortunately, we've run out of time. I loved every second of today's interview.
01:57:53
And I want to remind our listeners about your website for Bible Way Baptist Church in Auburn, Massachusetts, a .k
01:58:04
.a. Worcester, Massachusetts. It is BibleWayBC .org, BibleWayBC .org.
01:58:11
Do you have any other comments that you could briefly make before we go off the air? None at the moment, brother.
01:58:18
I appreciate being on here. I appreciate the listeners sending in their questions and feedback.
01:58:24
And again, thank you just for inviting me on your program and giving me this opportunity to share a little bit about my journey.
01:58:31
The journey isn't over. Still certainly a lot more to learn, and I'm excited to see what the
01:58:37
Lord has for myself, for my family, and certainly for the church family as we see a lot of things heading in an upward direction.
01:58:45
And so I'm looking forward to—who knows? Maybe we'll have another interview down the road and give some updates and talk about some other things.
01:58:54
I would love to have you back on frequently. That would be great. I'd love that. And I would like to remind all of our listeners that I hope you never forget for the rest of your life that Jesus Christ is a far greater