July 8, 2024 Show with Co-Host Brian Mclaughlin & Guest Kevin Christian on “Bringing the Gospel to Indonesia”

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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 a 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 Monday on this 8th day of July, 2024.

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Before I introduce to you my co -host and guest for the day and our topic,

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I have an important reminder for all men in ministry leadership. Would you like to attend a free pastor's luncheon where you get fed for free, not only physically but spiritually, with a keynote address that is sure to edify and bless and challenge you, in addition to having a fun fellowship, rest, relaxation, and edification with fellow ministers in the gospel?

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And on top of that, a heavy sack of free brand new books personally selected by me and donated by generous

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Christian publishers in the United States and United Kingdom. Well, if you do want to receive all that absolutely free, please register for my next free

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio biannual pastor's luncheon, this time featuring for the very first time as our keynote speaker,

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Dr. Joe Boot, founder and president of the Ezra Institute. And I want to thank

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Dr. Boot for sending me today an absolutely superb commendation that he wrote for Iron Sharpens Iron Radio after his last interview, which was his second interview with us.

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But this will be his first time as our keynote speaker. And the event will be held

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Thursday, October 10th, 11am to 2pm at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania.

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So if you'd like to register, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail dot com, chrisarnson at gmail dot com, and put pastor's luncheon in the subject line.

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That's Thursday, October 10th, 11am to 2pm at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, which is

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Perry County, Pennsylvania, featuring Dr. Joseph Boot, founder and president of the

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Ezra Institute. Well, I am absolutely thrilled to have a returning guest who is actually serving as my co -host today.

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His name is Brian McLaughlin. You hear his voice every day on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio because he is the president of securecomgroup .com,

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which is a major sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. He is also a deacon and board member at New Hyde Park Baptist Church on Long Island.

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And today we are going to be interviewing an old friend of his, actually a closer friend of his son's.

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His name is Kevin Christian, and that's an alias we're using today because he is a missionary to Indonesia and will be discussing bringing the gospel to Indonesia, the country with the largest

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Muslim population in the world. And first of all, let me welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Brian McLaughlin.

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Hey, Chris. Pleasure to be here, an honor to be here and to be with Kevin is incredible.

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I really can't wait to dive into everything that God has done in this young man's life.

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He's starting, I guess, over 20 years ago, and you're going to hear tremendous and incredible testimony and just where, how and where God is using him to bring the gospel to a lost people.

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So I'm really excited about it. And welcome to you, Kevin, for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

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Thanks. It's good to be with you guys. Appreciate it. Well, I'm going to give our email address right away for any listeners who would like to ask questions about being on the mission field in a predominantly

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Muslim country and anything that would be associated with evangelizing

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Muslims. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name, at least city and state or country of residence.

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And if you live outside the USA and only remain anonymous, if your question involves a personal and private matter, let's say you are a

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Muslim and you're beginning to question the authenticity of your own religion.

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And you obviously don't want to draw attention to your identity at this point. Well, things like that, we would understand immediately being valid reasons to remain anonymous and there may be many others.

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So we will obviously honor anyone's request to remain anonymous when submitting questions.

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But if it's a general question, we would just ask you please to give us your first name, city and state and country of residence.

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Well, first of all, Kevin, as a first time guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, we have a tradition here where whenever we have a first time guest, that guest gives us a summary of their salvation testimony that would include any kind of religious atmosphere, if any, in which the guest was raised and what kind of providential circumstances our sovereign

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Lord raised up in that person's life that drew him or her to himself and saved them.

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And we would love to hear your story, Kevin. Sure. I grew up in a pretty secular part of New York.

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You know, there was a pretty good population of people that I would say are Catholic in the sense of, you know,

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Christmas and Easter, but very secular otherwise. And Brian happened to be the first person that I that I met that I can recall that actually believed

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Jesus was a historical person. Wow. So, I mean, I just kind of had my head in the clouds and just went through life.

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And, you know, as Brian shared and I think you mentioned earlier, I was best friends with with Brian's son,

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Chris, and, you know, just always being at their house. And are you still there,

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Kevin? You sound like you dropped off, you know, Brian, this just remarkable, you know, father and, you know, just just an all around great, great guy.

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And we had gotten into a discussion and he believed that not only was

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God real, but, you know, the Bible was accurate and trustworthy. And that just kind of sparked in me a strong desire to refute that.

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You know, my my life was just self -absorbed, you know.

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Yeah, it looks like we're having some technical difficulties with Kevin's connection.

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We'll let we'll let Kevin reconnect. But the the story of what took place with our first encounter, it was around Christmas and I wish

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Kevin a Merry Christmas. And I said, what do you think of Christmas?

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Kevin turned to me, the 17 year old cocky kid.

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He turns to me and he goes, there is no God. Well, well, that sparked that sparked the conversation.

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And Kevin, I'll let you pick it up again from there. Yeah, I mean, that that sparked a series of conversations that that turned into some real deep self -reflection on my part, you know, that for the next couple of years of my life,

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I spent reading the Bible, you know, trying to to disprove it in many ways, you know, with the acknowledgment that that if what if what if what this is about.

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And what this book was saying was true. I was a condemned man and there was no doubt about it.

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And, you know, a few years go by and I had kind of worked through the Bible from cover to cover a number of times and started filling out these marble notebooks of, you know, just questions.

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I had things that that disturbed me about the scriptures or just I couldn't make sense of.

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And I would kind of bring those home and, you know, talk with Brian about it. And at some point he connected me to the pastor of church that he was attending.

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And, you know, God just brought deep conviction into my life through his word.

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And I I reached a point in my senior year of college where I knew the scriptures were true and I knew that that I I was condemned before God.

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And I struggled for another about a year and a half after that with. Just trusting that there was hope for me and, you know,

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I just just sharing this with Brian the other day, I you know, it was it was for me, it was a moment

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I had I had come to the realization. That that Jesus had died for my sins, that he didn't just die in a general sense, you know, for the sins, you know, of all people for all time, but that he took names to the cross and that that verse that says everyone, everyone who calls on the name of the

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Lord will be saved. That verse worked in my heart to produce a confidence that God had produced this this conviction and this crying out for him.

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And that his word, it just came to life to me. And I just I in a moment,

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I trusted that he had died for me. And I remember just having alien thoughts, alien conviction in my heart, grievous, just a grievousness over, you know, sins from, you know, 15 years earlier.

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And, you know, and just as a young kid, I'm just recalling these, you know, grievous things that I had done in the sight of God and just repenting over that.

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Well, you know something, you said something that was one of the most profound aspects of my own transformation after I was saved by the grace and mercy of Christ.

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I initially, like most Christians, was an

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Arminian, although I would never have used that word because I didn't know what it meant. I was somebody who after attending services and Bible studies at the church where I eventually was saved and baptized,

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I was beginning to hear the doctrines of sovereign grace taught and discussed, and I had never heard anything like that before.

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And my immediate reaction, my immediate reaction was, these people are nuts. And I and when it came to me being baptized and I was being interviewed by the elders,

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I said, I love you guys. I want you to be my elders. I want this to be my church.

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I really feel confident that this is where God wants me to be. But I got to tell you, I don't think

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I'm ever going to buy into this Calvinism stuff. And someone in the church had later heard about my struggles believing these things.

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And he gave me a booklet published by Chapel Library, George Whitfield's letter to John Wesley on election.

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And when I read that booklet, my first reaction was, oh, no, this is true, but I still hate it.

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And then within about two months or less,

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I came to fall in love with those teachings. And one of the primary reasons why it felt like a radical transformation of my thought process was because Jesus's death was no longer an attempt by Jesus on Calvary to save a faceless, nameless sea of humans.

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He specifically died for me and mission and mission accomplished. He redeemed me on that cross with the certainty that he would later at some point in my life, give me the gift of faith and draw me to himself, adopt me.

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And so I am just praising God for that. And it's a very similar thought process as you had regarding the contrast in the way most professing

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Christians view Christ's death for them and what the

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Bible really teaches about it. Amen. Hey, Chris, can I add to that?

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Because I also struggled when God saved me in 1996, same thing.

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I felt God revealed himself to me and then I made this choice of repenting and surrendering and trusting

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Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. And what took place after that,

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I was raised at a Catholic home, a pretty active

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Catholic family and everything, attending church all the time and going through catechism and everything else.

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So when this took place, there was shock waves through my family, my immediate family, extended family.

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And one of the things that took place was I'm trying to,

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I guess, debate, argue, convince, especially my wife, that what

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I now believe, and this was over months after coming to faith and then, let's say, a year later and studying more and kind of understanding the gospel more.

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But I'm kind of like, how don't you get this? I'm explaining this to you.

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I'm your husband. You should believe what I'm saying. I'm getting frustrated, but I'm frustrating my wife and I'm not really loving my wife the way

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Christ loves the church. I'm not loving my wife and being patient with my wife because I think

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I have to debate her, convince her into the kingdom. So it was a difficult time for us and it was definitely a difficult time for her.

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And I was wrong in how I was relating to her and communicating to her.

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The day that God opened my eyes to the sovereignty of God and how

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He saves fallen, unregenerate, dead sinners, the day

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I understood that from Scripture, and it was actually Pastor Gary Scott who mentored Kevin, mentored me, was so patient with me and just kept pointing me to the

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Scriptures, pointing me to the Scriptures. And then one day, I always kind of say this.

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It's almost like being born again, again, when you understand that before the foundation of the world that God had sovereignly, according to His good pleasure and will, decided to save a wretch like me and that it was all

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God. None of me. And it stopped me in my tracks. And I said, how can

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I be upset with this woman, my wife, who's 10 times better than me, nicer than me in every way, shape or form, compassion and everything.

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She's a wonderful woman, wonderful wife. And I'm like making her miserable because I'm trying to debate her into the kingdom.

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Anyway, the day that happened, I understood. I said, wait a second.

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I said, you need to love your wife. You need to be patient with your wife. You need to trust

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God in whatever He decides to do. That's salvation of the

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Lord. I can plant, I can water, but He's the one who gives the increase. He's the one who removes hearts of stones and puts in a heart of flesh.

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And it was an incredible thing that took place over years.

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This is 25 years almost to the time that really that my wife and I are yoked together.

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We attend church together. My wife has trusted Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior.

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And what made such a difference in how God used me instead of using me as a sledgehammer that was unproductive and counterproductive of softening me to my wife and just loving her and just being patient.

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A woman who never, she didn't want me praying. She really hated everything about what was going on in my life.

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And all of a sudden I see God softening her heart little by little by little. And I can just obviously praise

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God for everything that took place. But what a difference coming to the understanding of the doctrines of grace and that it is nothing of us and nothing that we decided to make a decision and of ourselves in coming to faith in Christ.

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It was that God moved first. God gave us a heart to love Him. And that's when we act upon that faith that God gives us and that we now respond.

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And it's all 100 % because of Him. Amen. If anybody listening is in that theological system outside of the doctrines of reformed theology, the doctrines of sovereign grace, also nicknamed

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Calvinism, I want you to really challenge yourself with just these two questions.

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I know that if I asked you, do you give 100 % of the praise, honor, and glory to Christ through your salvation, you would say yes, like every single right -minded

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Christian, authentic, truly regenerate Christian would say. But then begin to ponder if that is really a consistent and logical answer if you really delve into what you believe on how you became saved, how much you believe you contributed to that, even if it was just your faith that you believe it was conjured up somehow by your own will from your own dead heart.

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And also, contemplate for a moment what your view is of the cross.

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Did Jesus only make the salvation of men possible on the cross?

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Did He only make men redeemable? Was this a hypothetical salvation

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He provided, or did He actually redeem men on the cross? Those are things for you to contemplate because in Christianity, only the reformed faith actually, logically and consistently teaches that Jesus Christ actually redeemed everyone for whom

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He died because He only died for those who are His elect who will eventually on this earth come to saving faith in Him and follow

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Him. But Kevin, tell us when it was and how it was that you began to develop a heart of compassion for the

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Muslim people. Well, I think like so many things, you kind of come into the church and you are focused in on some things first, and God sort of begins to put more of the piece together.

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So as I came into the church, doctrine and understanding the doctrines of grace, the work of God in all of Scripture and history and developing sort of a systematic theology was where the beginning of my

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Christian life was. And it wasn't until a couple of years into that where I had kind of been part of some local ministry.

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I was running a youth program for unchurched kids. We were, you know,

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I had gotten married. We were sort of investing in different stateside ministries.

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And our church had invited a missionary to come in and speak at the church. And he began, you know, talking about unreached people groups.

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And this was something I had never heard before. You know, it was a concept that was new to me.

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You know, I kind of had, I think, done what many, you know, many Christians who have kind of come into Christianity in the

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West have done is you sort of just lump evangelism and mission into kind of one category.

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And the guy that had come and spoken, he talked of mission as distinct from evangelism as something that, you know, has overlap with evangelism.

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Of course, you know, mission is opening the gospel, opening the scriptures to people.

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But mission usually entails crossing some kind of geographical or language or cultural barrier.

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And it's kind of the thing that makes evangelism possible in a sense. And, you know, those two concepts, you know, just what is mission and what are these unreached people groups, it caused in my wife and I at the time this sense that something was greatly lacking in our

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Christian walk, that we had invested ourselves into the local church. We were invested in local ministry, but we had not yet looked outside of that into this bigger picture of what

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God was doing in all the world. And, you know, we went home that day that the preacher had sort of I think he was borrowing from John Piper and he said, you know, when it comes to mission, you can you can you can respond in three ways.

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You can go, you can send or you can disobey. And, you know, we went home and we thought,

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OK, well, we we had some means we were I was working full time. We were doing well.

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We had just bought a place. You know, and I thought, well, well, clearly the Lord has called us to send because we're people of means.

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And so we tried to reorganize our life in more of a posture towards, you know, participating in global mission.

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So, you know, we adopted some some missionaries and we began giving more in that direction.

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And, you know, after a couple of months, we sort of did an inventory and we looked at looked at the way our life was was working and not working,

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I should say. But, you know, there was still this really. Gross imbalance in where we were investing our time, our money, our prayers, our energies.

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And, you know, that was a personal thing. I think that was the Lord's calling us into mission. We were we were not satisfied with the level of engagement that we had in global mission.

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And so we started asking the question, why shouldn't we go? Why shouldn't we be the ones who go?

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And little by little, we began to reorient our lives in the posture of go. You know, for us, that meant attending a mission conference out of state.

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It meant, you know, looking into some mission training. What does it look like to pursue the qualifications of an elder in the church?

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And, you know, those sort of things. Well, we have to go to our first commercial break.

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If you do have a question, once again, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

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Give us your first name at least city and state and country of residence. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages. Greetings.

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This is Brian McLaughlin, president of the SecureComm group and supporter of Chris Arnzen's Iron Shopping Zion 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. That's SecureCommGroup .com.

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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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I sense 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 nhpbc .com.

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That's nhpbc .com. 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. Hello, I'm Phil Johnson, Executive Director of Grace to You with John MacArthur.

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We are now back with Kevin Christian, which is an alias.

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He is a missionary in Indonesia to the Muslim people, and co -hosting the program with me is

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Brian McLaughlin, who is not only an old friend of mine, but a proud sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio through the

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SecureCom group and also through New Hyde Park Baptist Church on Long Island. If you have questions, send them to chrisorenson at gmail .com.

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Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence, and Brian, obviously, feel free to chime in whenever you have a question.

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Since I can't see you, I don't know when you are poised to ask a question, so just jump right in whenever you feel the moment is appropriate, and also—

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I am always ready, sir. I am always ready. Well, before you do that, let's have

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Kevin tell us why of all the world religions and cults did you choose the

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Muslim people of Indonesia to be the primary people to be blessed through your mission endeavors?

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Sure. Our goal when we were finishing our mission training was not actually to go to a

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Muslim country or to pursue— Okay, we're losing

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Kevin again. Hello? Hopefully, we'll get him back.

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Just real quick before Kevin comes back is I actually tried talking

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Kevin out of going into foreign missions.

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I wanted him to stay local because he was so effective with the youth on Long Island and the group of young men, adolescents, teenagers that he was reaching.

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I think God was really convicting himself and his wife very strongly about that this was the path that God was carving out for them, was calling them to pursue, because I was actually trying to discourage him and keep him local.

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I mean, I love Kevin and know him so long and just seeing God save him and God grow him in the faith.

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And so, I didn't want to lose you, man, you know? But to see what

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God has been doing now for over a decade in their lives is incredible.

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It's beautiful. So, Kevin, pick up where you left off.

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Sure, thanks for that. We weren't particularly targeting a religion or a country.

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We kind of started with looking at where the most unreached and unengaged peoples were.

39:07

So, it became apparent to both Sarah and I that the gift that God really gave us was a willingness to go where the gospel had never been.

39:16

And, you know, as we kind of just took stock of what research has been done, we're looking at hundreds of unreached people groups.

39:27

There was this concentration in Indonesia, something like 240 unreached people groups within Indonesia alone.

39:36

Wow. And we started investigating that.

39:41

We took a trip over there in 2012, I believe, or 2013, if I'm not mistaken.

39:50

And we started moving from different regions of Indonesia and meeting with missionaries and pilots and, you know, trying to figure out what work was being done, what work was not being done, and then what work was not being done that the

40:07

Lord might allow us to be part of. And the key word there is privilege. I mean, that God would allow us to minister to anybody,

40:16

I mean, is a remarkable grace that he would allow us to pursue bringing the gospel to where it hasn't been.

40:26

I mean, there's an honor in that for him to open that door is a tremendous privilege and an honor.

40:35

And you can say we were pursuing that. We wanted to be part of that. Well, tell us what you first experienced when you stepped off the plane into Indonesia.

40:46

Oh, well, some of the first things you can notice in Indonesia is there's a lack of sleep,

40:57

I would say. You're going to hear the mosques, and it's usually not just one. If you're in a village area or anywhere where it's not a major city, you're going to hear multiple mosques going off at slightly different times at four in the morning, seven in the morning.

41:15

And it's just going to be blaring Arabic recitations.

41:21

And they're not in sync. There's not a sort of it's not an organized single denomination.

41:29

There are many denominations of Islam. There are many individual mosques that sort of operate with a level of autonomy.

41:39

And so just the glaring sound of the

41:44

Koran and the Islamic teaching just blaring from those mosques all day long and especially first thing in the morning, there's a heaviness to that that just weighs on your heart from morning till night.

41:57

Now, was that in the area, the specific area that you were in, was it underdeveloped?

42:03

Was it rural or was it inner city? Tell us about that. The first place that we went to, and we went there because we were learning the

42:12

Indonesian language. We were trying to study the general culture. I mean, there's 14 ,000 populated islands of tribal people.

42:23

So even on an island like Java, you have the Javanese and you have the Sundanese and you have different tribal populations.

42:32

And so we went to this one farming community in central and there's rice paddies in our backyard and people still using oxen to plow their land.

42:46

And, you know, four minutes away on a small city center type area where there's a market and there's shops and everything like that.

42:58

And is that basically the atmosphere where you wound up staying?

43:06

No, once we were proficient with the Indonesian language, we began exploring where some of these most unreached people groups were.

43:18

And just in the Lord's Providence in direction, we got turned on to a very small island off the coast of Sumatra, a village that maybe at maximum, if you kind of expand out into the jungle, there's maybe 3 ,000 people in the history of their people.

43:37

There's been one evangelical guy that went there and was murdered about 25 years before we got there.

43:45

And it just became apparent that, you know, if we if we had been serious about trying to bring the gospel where it hasn't been, that was a place that fit the bill.

43:56

And so we began seeking the Lord if he would allow us to be part of that. And when you say we, you're talking about you and your wife.

44:03

Yes, sir. Did you have any children at this time? We had we had one one child that we brought with us to Indonesia, and then we had two boys in the first first three years while we were learning language.

44:17

So we were a family of five when we moved into the village on that island. Wow. So that takes a lot of conviction because you are, in essence, not only risking your own life, you're risking the life, the lives of your wife and children as well.

44:37

And what what was tell us about their attitudes? Are you there,

44:45

Kevin? I'm there. Yeah, I'm just trying to to think through that. That's a heavy question.

44:52

So Sarah and I have always really wrestled with fighting for the balance of wanting to take risks as a family with our kids, but to not risk our kids on the altar of ministry.

45:08

And so we've at times, you know, failed in doing that well and at other times had to, of course, correct and have done well.

45:17

But we have tried to make all of our decisions as a family and to move slowly and and carefully into the work that God has given us.

45:29

OK, we have a listener in Hewlett, Long Island named

45:35

Marco. Marco wants to know how proficient is the average

45:42

Indonesian in Arabic, if at all? And is there one major language in Indonesia or are there multiple different languages?

45:53

That's a great question, Marco. Thanks. There's over 800 individual languages in Indonesia.

46:00

Most Indonesians can speak at least two languages. Many will speak three languages.

46:08

But Arabic is is usually not one of those languages. So I think this is a generally true statement.

46:15

It may not be true. Across the board in every part of the Islamic world. But it is considered more holy to memorize the

46:24

Koran than to understand it. And so being able to memorize the Koran, even though you can't understand the

46:31

Arabic language, is considered an honorable or holy deed.

46:36

And I would say I very rarely, if ever, met an

46:41

Indonesian that was proficient in Arabic. Oh, that's interesting, since their

46:49

Koran must be in the Arabic language. Am I right?

46:56

I'm sorry, Chris, would you say that one more time? Don't most truly conservative

47:02

Orthodox Muslims believe the Koran that they read must be in Arabic? Yeah, that's my understanding.

47:10

And now again, you have to bear in mind when I'm speaking about Islam, the Indonesian government regulates the religious systems in Indonesia.

47:18

So the Islam in Indonesia is not going to be the same Islam that you would get in Saudi Arabia or even in other parts of Southeast Asia.

47:26

So the government is regulating some of the terms in which they worship. In fact, that follows right into the hands of a question from Deshawn in Hollis, Queens, New York.

47:40

Deshawn says, is there Sharia law in Indonesia? And if so, is it as strict as some other countries where Christians would automatically get the death penalty?

47:55

Yeah, great question. In certain parts of Sumatra, the local government abides by Sharia law.

48:04

There are movements to increase the adherence to Sharia law in other parts of Indonesia.

48:10

But from the central government or the federal government, if you want to think of it in those terms, they would not.

48:18

They would not be desirous to implement Sharia law. So that's sort of an internal struggle within the world of Indonesia.

48:27

You have sort of the purest Muslims that are pushing for Sharia law.

48:33

And then you've got sort of the moderates that are seeking to kind of put that aside. That's fascinating because you would think that a country where the predominant religion by far is

48:46

Islam, you would think the automatic assumption that most people would likely have is that they would be unrestricted

48:53

Sharia law. Yeah.

49:00

Kevin, can you speak to, it's interesting because of Islam being there, but it seems like it's this kind of mix of Islam with some really, really,

49:17

I don't know how I'd put it, I don't know, hardcore superstition and that these people, the bondage that they're in is incredible.

49:31

And Kevin's told me many stories of the type of superstition that these people live under that I think goes,

49:40

I think is way outside of, let's say, the general teachings of Islam that we're familiar with.

49:49

If you can elaborate on that a little bit. Absolutely. When we were living in Java, you would see the mosque overflowing on a

50:02

Friday, which is the high religious day of the week for Muslims. But Monday through Thursday, you would see people visiting the local witch doctor or they would be, if you heard a wedding going on, they would have particular rituals that would ward off the evil spirits and protect them from all the bad jinn and the different spirits that were native to that region and to the forest that was around it and things like that.

50:35

We call that syncretism. They have their core island belief or tribal belief or traditional belief.

50:45

And at some point in history, I think around the 14th century, Islam was adopted beginning with the royal class and it just became this outer layer that was adopted.

50:59

So it's like clothing that you wear on the outside and you just incorporate this outer layer of Islam into your traditional tribal belief and animism.

51:11

So we would call that folk Islam. Huh. And some of those bizarre animistic beliefs would no doubt violate some of the strict teachings of the

51:28

Koran and the Hadith, wouldn't they? Absolutely, yeah.

51:33

I mean, there are all kinds of different rituals and sacrifices that are unique to Indonesian Islam that many outside of Indonesia would not approve of,

51:51

I guess is the right way to say it. But it's tolerated in some sense. Yes, it's considered normal.

51:59

It's almost considered, you know, I don't I don't want to speak in a negative way, but in a sense that the sort of when you're dealing with a country that spread out over 14 ,000 populated islands, the government had come in.

52:15

And how do you put how do you take these people, you know, 800 plus languages, all of these differences in different spiritual beliefs and different superstitions?

52:25

How do you make them one people? And so one of the core tenets of being an

52:31

Indonesian is almost this syncretistic view of life where you have different layers.

52:38

You have sort of what your family holds to and what your family believes. And then you have this kind of outer layer that you kind of wear, you know, for public appearances.

52:46

You can change your you can change what language you're using based on, you know, what what activity you're doing.

52:54

So you may use formal Indonesian to attend church or to attend the mosque, but you would use your your tribal language or your island language to deal with personal matters.

53:05

And, you know, there's just that layered approach to life. OK, we have to go to our midway break right now.

53:11

So use this time wisely. Try to write down as much of the contact information for as many of our advertisers as you can so that you can more frequently and successfully contact them, knowing that our advertisers and the funding that comes through their campaigns is what keeps us in existence.

53:31

And also send in your question to Kevin Christian about being a missionary in Indonesia.

53:39

And the email again is chrisarensen at gmail .com. Give us your first name, at least city and state and country of residence.

53:45

Please don't go away. We'll be right back. It's such a blessing to hear from Iron Sharpens Iron radio listeners from all over the world.

54:03

Here's Joe Riley, a listener in Ireland, who wants you to know about a guest on the show.

54:09

He really loves hearing interviewed Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai, in County Kildare, Ireland.

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Going back to 2005, one of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is

54:25

Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron radio, Dr. Moorcraft and Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia are largely to thank, since they are one of the program's largest financial supporters.

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Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming is in Forsyth County, a part of the Atlanta metropolitan area.

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Heritage is a thoroughly biblical church, unwaveringly committed to Westminster standards. And Dr.

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Joe Moorcraft is the author of an eight -volume commentary on the larger catechism. Heritage is a member of the

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For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com.

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That's heritagepresbyterianchurch .com. Or call 678 -954 -7831.

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Joe O 'Reilly, an Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener, I'm a toy, and Count Gildero sent you.

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When Iron Sharpens Iron Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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Hello. My name is Anthony Uvino, and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Quorum, New York, and also the host of the reformrookie .com

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59:02

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That's 631 -696 -5711. Tell the folks at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Corham, Long Island, New York, that you heard about them from Tony Costa on Iron Sharpens Iron.

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If you love Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, one of the best ways you can help keep the show on the air is by supporting our advertisers.

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Always mention that you heard about them from Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio. Before I return to my guest,

01:07:47

Kevin Christian, and his conversation about his missionary endeavors in Indonesia, and as I said before,

01:07:58

I'm joined by my co -host Brian McLaughlin, who is a deacon and board member at New Hyde Park Baptist Church of Long Island, and also the president of a prominent advertiser on this program, securecomgroup .com.

01:08:14

Before I return to that conversation, I want to remind my listeners that Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio is right now going through a very frightening financial crisis.

01:08:28

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01:08:48

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01:11:25

Last but not least, if you are not a member of a Christ -honoring, biblically faithful, theologically sound, doctrinally solid church like New Hyde Park Baptist Church in Nassau County, Long Island, well, no matter where you live in the world,

01:11:40

I have extensive lists spanning the globe of biblically faithful churches, and I've helped many people in our audience all over the planet earth find churches that are biblically faithful, sometimes even within just a couple of minutes from where they live.

01:11:54

And that may be you too, if you are without a biblically faithful church home, no matter where in the world you live.

01:12:01

Please send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com, and put

01:12:07

I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Kevin Christian, which is an alias.

01:12:13

He is a missionary in Indonesia, and my dear friend Brian McLaughlin, a deacon and board member of New Hyde Park Baptist Church, is my co -host today interviewing

01:12:25

Kevin with me. And we do have another listener, and let's see, looking, it's

01:12:34

Cliff in Yonkers, New York, and Cliff asks, the major sects of Islam that I am personally aware of are the

01:12:45

Sunni, the Sufi, the Shia, and the Ahmadiyya.

01:12:51

Is there any of those that are the dominant Islamic sect in Indonesia, or are they equally distributed?

01:13:01

Kevin, are you there? Hello, Kevin. Brian, are you there? Yeah, I'm here,

01:13:07

Chris. It looks like we don't have Kevin again. Yeah, well, I'm sure, yeah, he'll be back shortly.

01:13:15

In fact, Kevin and I were kind of chatting back and forth during the advertisement time, and, you know, the area that he's in,

01:13:27

I'm not sure if any of those, like, major, let's say, dominant Muslim denominations have a stronghold in that area, where he is in Indonesia.

01:13:43

It really seems that it's, there's a real spiritual superstition.

01:13:56

Like the folk religion that you were speaking before, that's somewhat of a counterfeit of Islam. Yeah, that's correct, yeah.

01:14:04

Okay, but now that you're back, Kevin, how strong of a presence do any of those have,

01:14:10

Sunni, Sufi, Shia, or Ahmadiyya? Yeah, Indonesia, it's like 99 %

01:14:17

Sunni, that is what they would say. But again, within, from mosque to mosque, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of the way

01:14:25

Baptist churches are, you know, each, each mosque is going to follow, you know, they're going to pick and choose the different hadith that they follow, they're going to pick and choose sort of, you know, the gurus that they are gravitating to.

01:14:38

And so you're going to get, you're going to get, you know, you're going to get a lot of difference across the board. Okay, we have

01:14:46

Darlene in Atlanta, Georgia. And Darlene wants to know, can you publicly and openly, without any hiding, evangelize, proclaim, and declare and teach the

01:15:00

Christian faith without harm coming to you in the area of Indonesia where you and your family live?

01:15:09

Well, we do proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ without compromise and without fear.

01:15:16

We have not been harmed. But if we were to be recorded, or if somebody were to be motivated to sort of report us, it is illegal to preach the gospel as an exclusive gospel as the only means by which anyone can be saved.

01:15:38

So that would violate a blasphemy law in Indonesia. Indonesia holds to a general rule that, you know, all of the five government regulated and approved religions within Indonesia, you know, are sort of five equal paths to heaven.

01:15:54

And so if you were to say that, you know, Islam is not a path to heaven, that would be grounds for being kicked out of the country or thrown into jail.

01:16:03

Well, obviously, if you are having any kind of communication with Muslims, and they say, why should

01:16:10

I leave my treasured religion of Islam? You're going to have to tell them the truth about that, aren't you?

01:16:17

Absolutely. Yeah, there's no side skirting it. There's no way around the exclusive claim of Christianity.

01:16:26

If you are not in Christ, you are outside of faith, and you are outside of the grace of God, and you are condemned by His holiness.

01:16:35

There's no other means by which men can be saved. And so that's the gospel we preach, and God opens the eyes and the hearts of those that are prepared to receive that.

01:16:45

Amen. Chris, if I could interject. Many years ago, I was on a radio program, call -and -radio program, where Roman Catholic priest

01:16:59

Mitch Pacwa was the guest on that show. Was that when

01:17:05

I was interviewing him with James White? You know what? I was filling in for Andy Anderson, and I had—

01:17:13

Well, maybe you'll remember my question and his answer.

01:17:19

It's very possible. It was a very long time ago. And I asked him,

01:17:25

I said, please explain to me why would a Roman Catholic go into a

01:17:34

Muslim country and proclaim the gospel? I remember that very well.

01:17:41

If according to the—was it the 1982 Catechism of the

01:17:47

Roman Catholic Church? Where they adore the same one true God according to the Catechism, the

01:17:52

Catholics and the Muslims. And they too will participate in paradise.

01:17:58

I asked him that question, and if you remember, he repeatedly said to me,

01:18:04

I don't understand your question. He would not answer the question.

01:18:10

It was very nice and everything else. And then I finally gave up. And now you look at Kevin and the risks that he takes to proclaim the gospel to a lost people group, and you compare the two systems of supposed—where one claims to be a

01:18:30

Christian representation of Jesus Christ and the gospel of Jesus Christ, and where it makes no sense to go in.

01:18:40

If those people are already going to participate in heaven, why would you go and risk your life to bring the gospel?

01:18:50

And in fact, I posed the question further to Mitch, because he said that the only time a person who is

01:18:59

Muslim will be certainly going to hell is if he with knowledge rejects the truths of the

01:19:07

Roman Catholic Church. So I said, then why would you put that person at further risk of going to hell by educating them?

01:19:15

And he kept saying, but they need to know Jesus. Why, Mitch?

01:19:22

Why do they need to know Jesus if they're safer by not knowing about him? Because you're setting them up to reject him.

01:19:30

But anyway, it's a very bizarre conversation. And so tell us about—in fact,

01:19:37

I want to announce to our listeners that on Monday, the 29th of July, I'm having for the very first time

01:19:43

Samuel Green on the program. Samuel Green is one of the founding authors of a ministry to Muslims, which is

01:19:59

Answering Islam, and he has written a book, Where to Start with Islam, a

01:20:07

New Approach to Engaging with Muslim Friends. Tell us about some of the varied ways—I'm assuming even though there's one truth of the gospel, there are different ways by which that truth will be brought up in conversation depending upon the circumstances.

01:20:28

There's going to be perhaps a different way of bringing the subject up when you know you are very likely not going to see the person again.

01:20:39

You know, if you're in a waiting room at a doctor's office or on a bus or a plane, it's going to be one scenario.

01:20:45

But then if you know that you have a possible friendship that you can cultivate with a neighbor or a colleague or something, it might be a different approach.

01:20:53

But tell us about that, Kevin. You know, for me,

01:20:58

I'm kind of a learner. The way that, you know,

01:21:04

Indonesia kind of works is you have so many different people. When you are talking to somebody you've never met, the normal questions that come up are, you know, where are you from?

01:21:15

Which part of Indonesia are you from? What people group are you from? What languages do you speak?

01:21:20

What religion do you speak? Do you have a family? You know, and then I want to know, you know, if they're

01:21:26

Muslim and, you know, I'm going to tell them I'm a Christian and I'm going to be curious and I'm going to ask them, you know, let me ask you a question.

01:21:35

I know a little bit about Islam. I know some of the, you know, things from textbooks and stuff. How do you find forgiveness?

01:21:41

Right. We're all sinners. We all you know, we all face this problem of sin. We all need forgiveness of sin.

01:21:47

How do you find forgiveness of sin? And then I listen to what they have to say.

01:21:53

And, you know, most of the time, you know, they'll list the things that they need to do.

01:21:58

And I will then have my turn to share. Well, this is how I know that we have forgiveness of sin is

01:22:05

God requires the shedding of blood. And I'll point them back to a story in the Old Testament.

01:22:11

And I'll, you know, say, have you heard the story of Adam and Eve or have you heard the story of, you know, of Noah?

01:22:17

Have you heard this story? And I'll recount the story for them. And I'll explain to them that this is because God requires the shedding of blood without the shedding of blood.

01:22:25

There is no remission of sin. And you believe and and ask them if they believe if they believe the gospel.

01:22:34

Do you believe that there can be a just sort of forgiveness, blanketed forgiveness of sin without any justice, with with no judgment, with no wrath, with with no righteous judgment upon that sin?

01:22:49

Does God just sort of look at and turn it to the other side? Can he just be bribed, you know, to look the other way from our sin?

01:22:57

And, you know, you get different responses. And we do have

01:23:02

Solomon in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, who wants to know, has your family changed any dietary habits as to not offend

01:23:12

Muslims with theirs that are strictly guided by the Hadith? Yeah, we, you know, we would just do that with any with any people that we're with.

01:23:25

If, you know, they have an aversion to, you know, eating a certain kind of meat or pork or whatever it is, you know, you know, we would just do without, you know, for their sake.

01:23:34

And but, you know, even in the village that we live in, they have a superstition where they won't kill an animal in order to eat it unless there is somebody who is dying and they can sort of offer it as a sacrifice or if there's a wedding.

01:23:52

And so generally they they they don't eat meat, their protein. Wow. Well, we our family doesn't fear those spirits.

01:24:00

So so their fear is that if they were to kill one of their pigs or one of their chickens or one of their animals to eat it, that if they don't share that meat with every single one of their relatives, a bad spirit is going to come and curse somebody in their house and they're going to die.

01:24:15

Wow. And and that obviously that is obviously not a dietary restriction demanded in the

01:24:26

Hadith, because I've been in Pakistani restaurants owned by Muslims where even

01:24:35

I've been I was invited by an imam to a particular restaurant in Hicksville, Long Island, and I was the only white

01:24:46

Christian in the restaurant and everybody was staring at me while I was eating. But they had different meats, not beef, but they had lamb and chicken and so forth.

01:24:58

So obviously that's not a universally held restriction among Muslims.

01:25:05

Correct. That that's just that's that underlying pagan animistic belief system that undergirds, you know, their life.

01:25:14

But you know, we we kill, we eat and, you know, we don't apologize for it. In fact, we will invite people over and they can come and share the meal with us.

01:25:25

And, you know, we can explain to them that we don't fear these spirits and we can give their exact reason why, because the

01:25:32

Lord is the one who protects us and he is the one who is greater in us than who is in the world. So we don't fear the spirits and they don't harm us because they don't touch us.

01:25:42

Now, have you had the opportunity to sit down and converse with religious leaders or are these primarily the common folk, the village folk?

01:25:55

I I have a boy I usually will avoid those kind of interactions. So I've been asked to do kind of, you know, to come to the mosque or to do debates at times.

01:26:04

And obviously I'll turn that down. You've been asked by who to do that. I've been approached in one of the cities that we pass through to get supplies.

01:26:14

Some of the the imams or some of the leaders in the mosque will sort of see me and pull me aside and they'll ask if I wanted to come or have a discussion with, you know, in front of their congregation or something.

01:26:25

Now, why would you turn that down? Why would you turn that down? They're not they're not asking because they want to hear what

01:26:34

I have to say. They're asking because they have you know, they want to bring me up and just sort of rifle through the latest, you know, apologetic kind of arguments that they've heard from one of the major gurus.

01:26:49

And they just want to have an opportunity to to share those publicly and sort of, you know, use me as just kind of a straw man that's there.

01:26:57

So these would be the more sophisticated Muslims in a religious sense that would be more reflective of orthodox

01:27:07

Islam. Yes. Yeah. So one of the cities that we pass through to get to our island would be considered one of the the second most radicalized kind of problems of Indonesia.

01:27:20

And you're breaking up again. Can you still hear me, Kevin? We've lost

01:27:26

Kevin again, Brian. Anything else that you care to share coming from your interaction with Brian?

01:27:32

I mean, with Kevin. Yeah, I mean, Kevin's incredibly faithful.

01:27:40

And the ministry that that they bring to this island is one where they are proving themselves to this people group that they care.

01:27:55

They're there for the long haul, long haul, and that they're just not coming into this area, doing some things, planning some things there and just moving on.

01:28:11

And it's incredible. Even the people that Kevin has ministered to, even done

01:28:17

Bible studies with. For years, something will take place.

01:28:26

And where they will like revert back to where they're in such fear of these superstitions that I guess have been around, you know,

01:28:39

I guess these families for generation after generation. And and even and Kevin will go back to them and say to them, you know, we've been studying the

01:28:51

Scriptures. You've come to trust Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. You know, there is one true

01:28:58

God. You know, why are you like falling back to, you know, this bondage that is, you know, and you see the the death, you see what is what it's produced.

01:29:15

And, you know, it's evil. But he says it's incredibly hard for them to leave that behind.

01:29:21

Plus, there's also a tremendous amount of pressure from family and other people in the village.

01:29:29

So it's it's it's difficult. And he you know, he has seen fruit.

01:29:37

There are people that have come to faith in Christ. But you just really need to continue to to sow into them because I mean,

01:29:48

I'm talking about superstition where where children die because of a superstition, superstitious belief that they won't, you know, take a medicine or do something because, you know, they're they're afraid of it.

01:30:03

So the things that Kevin and Sarah do, even providing medical, you know, attention to people and everything is is incredible what what they do there really is.

01:30:18

Now, are you back with us, Kevin? So what happens after somebody makes a profession of faith in Christ?

01:30:28

Do you have some kind of organized regular worship services or Bible studies?

01:30:35

What happens to this person to be discipled? Kevin, are you there?

01:30:43

Looks like we cut out again on me. Yeah. Yeah. So what happens next after the person makes a profession of faith?

01:30:53

We've seen a number of people make a profession of faith. We would kind of move into sort of a understanding of baptism.

01:31:03

So I know there are some people that, you know, they would sort of try to move immediately into baptism. We and we lost

01:31:12

Kevin again. Are you there? Kevin, are you there? Well, what

01:31:19

I'm going to do is I'm going to go to our final break early, and then when we come back, hopefully Kevin's connection will be restored and we won't have to constantly have him cutting in and out,

01:31:32

God willing. And why don't you join us in prayer for that, folks? Because this has been proving to be a fascinating conversation.

01:31:40

If you have a question, submit it before we run out of time. ChrisArnson at gmail .com.

01:31:46

Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages.

01:31:57

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know

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01:34:48

Chris Arnzen here, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. I strongly recommend a church

01:34:54

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01:35:03

Grace Covenant Baptist Church believes it's God's prerogative to determine how he shall be worshiped and how he shall be represented in the world.

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Discover more about Grace Covenant Baptist Church in Flemington, New Jersey at gcbc -nj .org.

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That's gcbc -nj .org or call them at 908 -996 -7654.

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That's 908 -996 -7654.

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Tell Pastor Dunn you heard about Grace Covenant Baptist Church on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:36:18

Hi, this is John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona.

01:36:24

Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnson and the Iron Sharpens Iron podcast.

01:36:29

I consider Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity. He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions while always defending the key doctrines of the

01:36:39

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I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide. This is a day of great spiritual compromise and yet God has raised

01:36:55

Chris up for just such a time and knowing this, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer and in finances.

01:37:04

I'm pleased to do so and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

01:37:10

Iron Sharpens Iron financially. Would you consider sending either a one -time gift or even becoming a regular monthly partner with this ministry?

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I know it would be a huge encouragement to Chris if you would. All the details can be found at ironsharpensironradio .com

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01:39:40

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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.

01:40:31

In the film Chariots of Fire, the Olympic gold medalist runner Eric Liddell remarked that he felt

01:40:37

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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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that's nhpbc .com. You can also call us at 516 -352 -9672, that's 516 -352 -9672.

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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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Now shipping worldwide. Welcome back, and folks,

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I want to remind you that this program is paid for in part by the law firm of Buttafuoco and Associates.

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Daniel P. Buttafuoco, attorney at law, that you heard about his firm from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:43:44

Also, I want to give a big shout out to Grace Church at Franklin in Franklin, Tennessee.

01:43:52

After hearing about our dilemma financially, this really frightening financial crisis that we're in right now, they're going to add an extra financial gift to their regular monthly support this time around, just to help us meet our goal before the month of July is over.

01:44:16

So, thank you so much. And the website for Grace Church at Franklin is GraceChurchAtFranklin .org,

01:44:24

GraceChurchAtFranklin .org. So, Kevin, are you now with us? I am.

01:44:29

Thanks for your patience. Okay. One of the things I wanted to clarify, after Brian gave a description of, you know, your ministry there, there are some people that might jump to the conclusion that you are predominantly involved in what has become known as friendship evangelism.

01:44:54

And although being befriending people is obviously a wonderful aspect of bringing the gospel to people, there are people that follow the motto of, well, it's been attributed, there's some debate whether St.

01:45:11

Francis of Assisi ever really said this, but it's a common motto for not only

01:45:17

Roman Catholics, but evangelicals, preach the gospel and, when necessary, use words.

01:45:25

And as I've said many times on this program, if the disciples of Jesus Christ in the first century were to follow that model, none of them would have been martyred.

01:45:39

And, in fact, Jesus Christ himself, were it not for the ordination of his crucifixion for the sins of his people, he would never would have been killed either, if he was just doing wonderful things and keeping his mouth shut about the controversial issues that demand repentance and so on.

01:45:58

So, I'm assuming that is not the description of what you are doing there in Indonesia.

01:46:06

No, I think generally I have followed the idea that who we are should be plain to all men.

01:46:17

So, within the first few minutes of meeting myself or my wife, you're going to know exactly who we are and what we're about and why we're in Indonesia.

01:46:27

I mean, look, we stand out. I'm a pretty big guy. I'm a pretty white guy.

01:46:34

People want to know who I am and why I'm in Indonesia. And, you know, that's the gospel from the very beginning.

01:46:41

So, the gospel is what determines whether conversations we have tend to go beyond, you know, just the niceties of like, you know, how's the weather, how's your family, what's your life like.

01:46:54

The gospel is what is going to, you know, divide or draw people to deeper fellowship with us and conversation with us.

01:47:02

So, you know, if you don't know we're a Christian within the first couple minutes of meeting us, then I would say we've done something wrong if we've concealed that, because that's what we're about.

01:47:12

Kevin, can you go into a little bit of what you've established on the island?

01:47:18

I mean, which obviously clearly, you know, determines who you are and what the ministry is about regarding the school.

01:47:30

Sure. Yeah. So, you know, in part of, you know, that expression, if we're looking at, you know, preach the gospel and use words if necessary,

01:47:39

I don't know if that's the best way of saying it, but we want to preach the gospel and we want to demonstrate to people that we mean the gospel and that we have a real willingness to give of ourselves as a demonstration of what the gospel is.

01:47:54

So, you know, when we treat with medicine, we explain exactly where the medicine came from, that it's

01:48:00

God's people who have, you know, put money together for these things. And, you know, this medicine was a gift from God that he enlightened the minds of men that they should, you know, produce this medicine.

01:48:11

And we brought a Christian school into the village where we live.

01:48:17

And so just by a miracle of God's providence, we got all of the government's permissions and the requirements that were necessary to have a

01:48:28

Christian school in our village. So I can't tell you how exactly that happened and how the

01:48:37

Lord put all that together. I can tell you there was a lot of opposition. There was tremendous opposition.

01:48:43

And yet in our village, there is a Christian school. We've got eight teachers now, well -discipled young Christian people from other parts of Indonesia that have, you know, volunteered their life to come live in a very remote and very difficult place in order to bring literacy and a

01:49:04

Christian worldview into a tribe that for the history of their people has never had one.

01:49:11

Yeah, it's absolutely incredible. They actually built, let me say, when Kevin says they bring in a school, they literally built from the ground up, cleared land, cut down trees, made lumber,

01:49:26

I mean, to see what took place in order to build the school.

01:49:32

But the very important question, though, is did they use SecureComm Group for the security system?

01:49:41

We have cameras everywhere. You know, we need to get Brian out there, you know, and get it set up.

01:49:49

Yes, Kevin has been trying to get me to visit for some time now, and so now

01:49:58

I will go there with security equipment. Make sure you tell all those vegetarians that Brian is an avid hunter.

01:50:06

So we have

01:50:13

Drummond in Glenhead, New York, and Drummond said,

01:50:20

Could you give us some of the don'ts, D -O -N apostrophe T -S, some of the don'ts when it comes to evangelizing and sharing your faith with Muslims?

01:50:33

Okay, good question. Drummond, I would say some of the don'ts would be, do not be ashamed of the

01:50:44

Scriptures, and do not be ashamed that you may come off stupid or that you might offend.

01:50:51

As long as you're offending with the gospel, you should express the gospel in clear terms.

01:50:58

You know, I think contextualization as a concept is often an excuse to sidestep some of the hard truths of Scripture.

01:51:10

And so, you know, exactly what the Scriptures say regarding Christ, the exclusivity of Christ, the worthiness of Christ, those are the things that we should lead with.

01:51:22

I don't think it's helpful to get bogged down into debates or arguments.

01:51:29

You know, if they want to have a debate with you about the

01:51:34

Trinity, I think we should go to the texts of Scripture. I think you have enough there just in Genesis 1.

01:51:40

Hey, this is what we believe. This is, you know, this is a common misunderstanding. It's a mystery of the

01:51:46

Lord, but here's what is revealed to us regarding that, and we should be extremely clear on what is revealed in Scripture regarding the unity of our

01:51:56

Lord as Father, Son, and Spirit. And I think we lost

01:52:02

Kevin again. Once again. Debate over whether Abraham was sacrificing.

01:52:11

Kevin, can you repeat the last maybe 15 seconds of what you said? I guess we lost him.

01:52:20

Oh, yeah, I'm back. I'll repeat the last 15 seconds of what you said because you cut out.

01:52:28

Oh, sure. Yeah, I just said, you know, we should speak authoritatively and clearly when the

01:52:33

Scripture speaks. So if we're sharing about the Trinity, we should speak what the

01:52:40

Scriptures say. I think there's enough there in Genesis 1. And, you know, our job is to proclaim the truth and to give a good explanation of why the

01:52:52

Scriptures are trustworthy. I would say a good don't is, you know, it's usually not helpful to get, you know, hunkered down into a debate.

01:53:00

You know, if they want to argue over which son Abraham brought up the mountain, you know, all we can lean on is say, well, our

01:53:07

Scriptures tell us this. And, you know, that's what we believe because that's what the Scriptures say. And God is able to preserve his word.

01:53:13

And, you know, this is what the Scriptures say regarding the triunity of God as Father, Son, and Spirit.

01:53:19

And so this is where I rest, you know, my case. And we should we should just allow the

01:53:25

Scriptures to do the talking. Amen. We have Tristan in Wayne, Scott, Long Island, New York, who wants to know, is

01:53:35

English a commonly understood and spoken language in Indonesia? And I was wondering if while you are a missionary there, you have to be there under the guise of some other business or endeavor.

01:53:49

For instance, I know at least one missionary in Vietnam who is there because he is teaching

01:53:57

English. And, of course, he preaches the gospel to people when they are learning.

01:54:06

So to the first question regarding English, English is very rare.

01:54:11

You may find people in the major cities that can speak English. But generally speaking, there are not many

01:54:17

English speakers at all. So you have learned the language of the local people, then?

01:54:24

Yes. So we had spent the first three years becoming proficient and being able to teach and preach in the

01:54:31

Indonesian language. And then we've spent the last seven years learning the tribal language of the people that we're in.

01:54:39

Well, I'd like to make sure that you have at least four minutes to summarize what you most want to be etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today, and also how listeners who may be interested in supporting your endeavors may do so, because I know you're remaining anonymous.

01:54:58

I don't know if New Hyde Park Baptist Church is a conduit. I'm not sure how this is going to work.

01:55:04

But tell us about all that. Well, I think one of the most important things that I would convey at all times would just be the centrality of the gospel in everything we do.

01:55:18

I hope that if people listening had heard some of the testimony that I shared, that they would be intrigued and desirous to learn what it means to be a participant in God's global purpose.

01:55:33

We talk about why all things exist. They exist for the glory of Jesus Christ. And so all of these people in all the world exist for the glory of Jesus Christ.

01:55:43

And he has his people among every tribe and tongue and nation. And he has called each of us to be engaged in bringing the gospel to these people.

01:55:53

To some, we are the aroma of death, and to some, we are the aroma of life. So I would just encourage people to see the gifts and the talents and whatever

01:56:06

God has given them and to participate in that global endeavor.

01:56:11

We can give, we can go, or we can disobey. I think that's a wonderful mantra when it comes to the mission of God in all the world.

01:56:25

Chris, if anyone is interested in supporting the ministry, they can contact us at New Hyde Park Baptist Church and get more information, and that can also be a conduit, whether it's giving through New Hyde Park Baptist Church or them connecting with Kevin directly.

01:56:52

But definitely reach out to New Hyde Park Baptist Church. And that website is nhpbc, which stands for New Hyde Park Baptist Church, nhpbc .com,

01:57:06

n -h -p -b -c dot com. And if you, in fact, do you have a phone number that you care to share?

01:57:17

Yeah, 516 -352 -9672, 516 -352 -9672.

01:57:26

And I'm pretty sure we're .org, right, nhpbc? No, I'm looking at, unless it's both, I'm looking at it right now.

01:57:32

No, and if you have .com there, okay, that's fine. Good, okay, great. And let's see, well,

01:57:41

I think that we have another, we have time for one more question. We have

01:57:48

Freddie in Rochester, New York, who wants to know, are there any competing cults that you have to deal with in the area of Indonesia where you are?

01:58:02

So, obviously, this listener is speaking about, other than the folk religion of the people, that is kind of an imitation of Islam, any cults like you always witness,

01:58:14

Mormons, et cetera? Yeah, within Indonesia, Catholicism is one of the major cults, and actually the government of Indonesia recognizes

01:58:26

Catholicism as a distinct religion from Protestantism, which I think is wonderful. But there are

01:58:33

Jehovah Witnesses as well that have kind of a growing presence in Indonesia. Not many

01:58:39

Mormons, I've never come across a Mormon. Okay, well, folks, remember, once again, that website for New Hyde Park Baptist Church is nhpbc .com,

01:58:52

nhpbc .com, the phone number is 516 -352 -9672, 516 -352 -9672, if you want to help support the missionary endeavors of Kevin Christian, which is an alias.

01:59:07

Well, I want to thank both you, Kevin, and I want to thank you, Brian McLaughlin, for being on the program today.

01:59:14

I enjoyed every second of it. I look forward to fellowshipping with the both of you at some point in the near future, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

01:59:27

Savior than you are a sinner. Brian McLaughlin Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, brothers.