February 26, 2019 Show with Andrew Rappaport and Coleen Coren Sharp on “Sanctification Through Suffering”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 26th day of February 2019.

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This program today is very important to me because I am no stranger to suffering.

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Many of you know that my precious late wife, Julie, went home to be with the

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Lord in 2011 after nearly 20 years of marriage, and today we are going to be discussing sanctification through suffering, and I have two guests to do this, one per hour, who will both be speaking at the same conference coming up on the theme sanctification through suffering.

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The first is a returning guest. His name is Andrew Rappaport. He's also an old friend. He is founder and president of Striving for Eternity Ministries.

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He is the establisher of Spread the Fire evangelism training and outreach events, most notably

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Jersey Fire and NorCal Fire in California. He's an instructor at Striving for Eternity Academy, an online school teaching hermeneutics and systematic theology, and he is the author of What Do We Believe?

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A Systematic Theology for New Believers and a Quick Reference Resource for Mature Christians and What Do They Believe?

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A Systematic Theology for Major Western Religions. And coming up in the second hour, we're going to be joined by a friend of Andrew's, Colleen Sharp, producer and co -host with Ashley Glassic of the podcast

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Theology Gals, who is going to be on the speaking roster at the sanctification through suffering conference.

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But first of all, for the first hour, it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Honor Trip and Zion Radio, Andrew Rappaport.

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Well, thank you very much for having me. I realize now that I've got to update my bio. I realize that I didn't put anything about my podcast up there.

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Yeah, you're right, you didn't. Things have changed. Well, why don't you tell us about your podcast? And I have a number of booklets that I contribute to.

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I have a couple of podcasts. One is called Andrew Rappaport's Rap Report. That's a weekly hour -long show.

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One of the more recent ones, I think we just dropped on with Todd Freel on discernment, which was good.

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We've got one coming up with Amy Spearman dealing with the issue of New Happenstock Reformation. Then I do one daily,

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Monday through Friday, two minutes. That's called Andrew Rappaport's Rap Report Daily. Two minutes a day,

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Monday through Friday. Right now I'm going through every book of the Bible in two minutes, just giving a quick overview. So I'm currently going through with that.

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And then I have a podcast called Apollo Jack's Live, where a friend of mine, Matt Flick, and I open up the phone lines kind of on the

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Internet, and we do a two -hour live show and just never know what we're going to get.

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We've been getting a lot of Eastern Orthodox, Catholics, Atheists coming in. So that becomes a podcast as well.

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And then I started a new one called So You Want to Be a Podcaster for anyone that wants a podcast, because I'm the executive director of the

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Christian podcast community. And so we've been encouraging Christians to do good podcasting.

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So we're helping them out through that, and that's why we created that podcast. So, yeah. You used a key word.

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You're encouraging Christians to do good podcasting. Well, yeah, okay.

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So here's a little thing that people may not realize when it comes to podcasting. If you look at Apple, iTunes, you have the top category is religion and spirituality, of which

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Christianity makes up most of that. And a lot of that's because of things like sermon audio, a lot of sermons out there.

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And so that makes that category twice as large as any other. But if you go and you look in religion and spirituality, number one, who do you think comes up?

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I'll give you a guess. Who do you think would be number one? As far as podcasts?

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Yep. You? No. Joel Osteen is number one.

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No, that's horrible news. Horrible, horrible, horrible news. Exactly. And often followed by a whole bunch of other people that you'd think horrible, horrible.

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You have to get down quite a ways before you get to someone like MacArthur or Sproul that you could say, well, they're solid. So we want to try to encourage

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Christians to produce some good content and encourage good Christian, you know, not only the content but the quality so that people would be anxious to listen to different podcasts.

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Yes. Well, I have no idea where I am on that list, but I do know that my audience is growing every day, and I'm so thankful to the

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Lord that people are discovering Iron Troupe and Iron Radio globally and contacting me nearly every day.

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And it gives me more joy than I can describe in the English language. And also

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I think an interesting note about you is you are a

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Calvinistic Jew, which makes you as rare as a Bigfoot sighting. Probably, probably, yes.

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I am Jewish, you know, and it's good, you know, last time you and I were on the radio, although I don't think it's aired yet, but I was interviewing you.

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And we're still, I'm excited. I was talking to someone about that. That, for your listeners, would be great because I don't think

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I've ever heard you open up as much as you did and for people to get to know you. That was enlightening for me as well.

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Yes, those were the interviews at the G3 conference that just took place in January in Atlanta, Georgia, and my webmaster,

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Eric, who is my volunteer webmaster. He does it absolutely free of charge just because he loves the program.

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He is hopefully going to get around to getting all of those interviews conducted at the

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G3 conference so that they can be aired during the live segment of the show, even though they'll be pre -recorded, of course.

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But hopefully that will happen soon because I had conducted a lot of interviews, and that was a fun one being interviewed by you because that doesn't happen a lot.

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Yeah, well, you said he does it because he loves the show. I thought he was a glutton for punishment messages.

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Oh, gee, maybe I have it all wrong. That's one of the reasons why the show on suffering today is important because so many people suffer when they listen to this show.

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So tell us more about striving for eternity ministries for those of our listeners, especially that don't know about you or the ministry and haven't heard your interviews on this show or your podcast, etc.

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Yeah, sure. I appreciate that. Striving for Eternity is a discipleship ministry, so we try to do discipleship in a lot of different ways.

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The conference that we'll talk about is one of them, and we do it through our academy.

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We have an online academy. We make money by offering it for free. Wait, no, that doesn't work out right.

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We actually offer the courses for free on YouTube, and it works out well for that because we get to train people literally around the world, and especially in places like China where they can't get seminary training, and this is some of the training that they get.

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We have basically the podcasts that we're now using to disciple, and we're trying to disciple podcasters to really...

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Like on our Facebook group, we have a Christian Podcast Community Facebook group, and we don't let everybody in, but if they answer the questions and say they're

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Christian, we let them in pretty much, and the interesting thing is we have some folks that might not really agree with their theology completely.

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We have some folks in there. They may not be completely Reformed, but as Colleen is the

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Executive, there's the Administrator for the community, and she works with folks, and I work with folks.

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We've been seeing some people kind of cleaning up some of their theology as we talk about their podcasts, so it's neat to see that, you know, you think you were just talking podcast and technical stuff, and yet in there we get to help some folks with their theology.

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So it's another way that we seek to disciple people. Great, and you have an upcoming event that I mentioned which is also under the same theme as our discussion today,

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Sanctification Through Suffering. What was the catalyst, because you have a lot of different kinds of events, what was the catalyst of you choosing that specific theme this time around?

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Yeah, I mean, most people think of us because of the evangelical events, you know, the Jersey Fire, Ohio Fire, North Cal Fire, which we renamed to be

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Equip Jersey because ever since the Strange Fire Conference, everyone thinks those conferences are just charismatic, so we renamed them the

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Equip Conferences, but the real catalyst is that I came to realize that not too many people really talk about the issue of suffering within Christianity.

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There's a lot of people that I end up counseling, others end up counseling, that struggle with depression, anxiety, living with an unsafe spouse, living with a difficult spouse, living with children that are rebellious, and for the most part within Christianity, people want to keep that under wraps, and they feel ashamed, and they don't want to talk about the struggle.

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And we have one of our speakers at Striving Fraternity, Pastor Frank Mullis, who is a professional counselor, and he ends up his specific area of expertise, which no one would want, is counseling sexual abusers.

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So he gets to deal with the worst of the worst, and it really was a conference where we wanted to bring him in, bring

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Justin Peters in. As you know very well, Justin struggles with cerebral palsy, and I don't think, and you can tell me if you've ever heard him complain, but I have never heard

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Justin Peters ever complain about anything. And yet he struggles so much.

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Unless you mean, someone might think that he never rebukes, or chastises, or warns other media people who are heretical.

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I mean, that's one thing he definitely complains about. Well, that he does. I mean,

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I complain about his situation. So many people have cerebral palsy. He has to walk, and repeal me now, he literally travels the world, goes into third world countries, where he can't bring his scooter, so he's walking in his crutches on dirt roads.

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He's sleeping on floors, and I've seen him in places where he sleeps on someone's floor, and he's okay with it.

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I've been with him where he gets to go somewhere, and they put him up at a hotel, but they forget that he's handicapped, and he can't climb into a tub.

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And he's like, trying to shower, and it's like, this is one of the most humblest guys, if not the most humblest guy

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I've ever met. And we're going to talk about suffering. I was like, this is the guy to do it, because he struggles every day.

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I mean, things we take for granted. Some brothers got together and blessed him with a shirt that has magnet buttons, because just dressing himself is a difficult thing.

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And people don't think about that. Think about what happens if you can't use your hands with the dexterity just to button your shirts.

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And he used to have a device to help him do that, and now he's got these shirts that have magnets. That's great, but most of us take for granted that we can button our shirts and tie our shoelaces and things like that.

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And so, so Justin's going to come in, and we're going to, he's going to talk about the truth about trials from James chapter 1.

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If you haven't ever heard him preach scripture, most of you will know of him for New Upstock Reformation, Charismatics, and all that.

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He's outstanding at executing scripture. Yes, and I'm looking forward to getting him back on the show.

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It's been a while, and I would love to have him promote your conference soon because it's coming up very soon.

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But, so you have Justin Peters, you have Frank Mullis, and you have Colleen Sharp, who is our second guest today.

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Tell us more about Colleen, even though we'll have her say a little bit about herself when she comes on, but tell us about Colleen.

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Yeah, so Colleen is, one of the things that she does is she's going to do a breakout session just for the ladies.

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That was something that some folks had concern. Are you going to have a woman? She's on the roster there.

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So she and Pastor Joe Suazo are going to do breakout sessions. Now, she's someone who has struggled with physical ailments, and she'll get into more of that when you have her on.

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But she's someone who, as a mother, people often don't think about what it's like when you're a mother and you can't do everything that you might like to do, and you're having to still raise the kids, and your cousin goes to work, and you still have to do what you have to do.

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And she has a ministry that she ends up in her

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Facebook group. She counsels a lot of women, dealing with a whole range of areas. And so she's going to really be trying to give comfort from God's Word in suffering.

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It's her topic. Well, I'm looking forward to having her on for the first time, and I'm glad that you pronounced her name, because I would have mispronounced it.

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You said Colleen? That's the way you pronounce it? Yeah. Don't worry. If you pronounce it Colleen, and you tell her,

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I told you that was the proper way, you'll be fine with her. Because it took me a long time to pronounce it right, and it was a running joke for a very long time.

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On her show, any time anyone got it wrong, she'd kind of blame me. Well, I'm glad I know ahead of time, because I would have called her

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Colleen, and assumed that's what it was. Tell us about Joe Suozo. Joe Suozo is a pastor here in New Jersey.

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It's the church where I attend. And Joe was a missionary to India for over 10 years.

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And that was really where he really wanted to be, but his health in India wouldn't allow him to stay.

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He got to a point where he got very, very sick, because of the environment there, and he had to return home.

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And when he returned home, he became a pastor, but it wasn't really where his desire was, and he actually went into a depression for a while.

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People may not think that a pastor could actually suffer with depression, and he did, and he talks about that often.

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And so he basically didn't look at Genesis 3 and Romans to provide a biblical basis for suffering, and he has a lot of personal experience with it.

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The only person that we have that's speaking that isn't dealing with ongoing or an elongated period of suffering would be

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Pastor Mullis. Wow, and in the job that he has, he doesn't experience depression?

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Counseling sexual offenders? Well, you know, maybe you should ask him when you have him on.

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I think maybe because of his jiu -jitsu, he gets the aggression out with his students.

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That could be. That could be. Hopefully not the people he's counseling in the parking lot.

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You know, you think about it, someone like in Frank's line of work, I cannot imagine sitting and talking to 600 or 700 guys a week and having to counsel them with the stories that they end up doing.

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Wow, that many. Yeah. He is one of Georgia's leading experts on this area.

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And one of the things we're thinking of doing, we haven't put this in the schedule, we're going to see how time goes. We have this schedule, we're going to end with a question and answer time.

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But what we may do is take the four speakers and break them up into different rooms and do, you know, basically do like a small group counseling where people can get into more in -depth questions or maybe allow for some more one -on -one.

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We haven't figured out how we can work that out, but I'm sure that when you deal with a topic like suffering, you're going to get people who are struggling with a lot of different areas and some of it they don't want to make public, but they don't know where else to go.

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And that's really what we're trying to gear this conference for, is people who just don't know where else to go, they've been struggling, and they want help.

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And this is not a topic people speak about in church often or definitely not in conferences.

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And by the way, folks, this Friday, God willing, March 1st, Frank Mullis will return to Iron Trip and Zion Radio as a guest to promote this very same conference,

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Sanctification Through Suffering. And so mark your calendars, 4 to 6 p .m. Frank will be back on the show.

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Looking forward to that. Always enjoy interviewing Frank. Well, before I forget to mention it later, if anybody wants more information on this conference regarding Sanctification Through Suffering, go to strivingforeternity .org

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strivingforeternity .org and then forward slash conference -on -suffering forward slash.

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That's strivingforeternity .org forward slash conference -on -suffering forward slash.

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And what do you think, Andrew, is the primary thing that Christians, Bible -believing

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Christians, get wrong about suffering? What do you think, from your experiences, in talking to people and evangelizing, the wrong inappropriate reactions that Christians have to suffering?

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Because obviously unbelievers have all kinds of wrong reactions, although sometimes we all sit in amazement that we as Christians, when non -believers endure unspeakable torturous suffering, and they have a positive attitude and all this, and I just don't understand how these things occur without the

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Lord. Tragically, that will not benefit them in any way when they perish if they don't have the

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Lord. But tell us, in your opinion, what are some wrong ways people react to suffering?

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You know, I did a podcast with Amy Motivati on the issue of dealing with depression and anxiety, and one of the things that we both came to a conclusion,

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I think this would be the biggest thing that Christians especially do, is they suffer alone. They don't go to the

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Church, which is there to do all the one -anothering that we see in Scripture.

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And people end up struggling alone, mostly because they're ashamed to let anyone know that they struggle, or they just think that they shouldn't let anyone know or they should deal with it by themselves, or they somehow, and I think some of this is bad teaching, but this comes in from some of the

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Word of Faith and whatnot teaching where people think that if you're a Christian, you shouldn't struggle. So if you go to your

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Church and say you're struggling, what are they going to think of me? Are they not going to let me serve in ministry?

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Are they going to think less of me? Are they going to think I'm not saved? And so for a lot of different reasons, people do not access the community that God has given us to serve one another.

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Yeah, I can fully understand why people involved in the Word of Faith movement or even some of the more extreme

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Pentecostal and Charismatic movements that Justin Peters has dedicated his life to expose for their falsehoods, but I can understand, in fact,

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I know someone, I haven't seen him in years, but I know someone who developed a liver problem, and it was a very terminal problem if he didn't have it rectified.

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In fact, I think he was either the first or one of the first liver transplants in the United States. And he was a member of a

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Pentecostal church. I don't know how far into the Word of Faith movement they delved into, but when it was discovered that he had this ailment, he was basically vilified in the congregation as someone who was lacking in faith.

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And that is a really, not only heretical problem, but that is a dangerous problem.

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It's a slander of God himself. Don't you think that this is actually a monstrous way of looking at things?

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I think it's a real problematic, because what it is, is it cuts off the very help that we need.

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That's really what God has given us is His Word, His Holy Spirit, and one another.

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Right. And most people end up, when they get to this point, because they're trying to do it alone, they ask the question that Frank's going to answer in the conference, why does

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God allow him to suffer? And it turns into, often for many, a depression, which is the other topic

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Frank will deal with in the conference. And it turns into a depression because we don't feel like we can't turn to anyone.

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And then we feel all alone. And we don't get out of it by staying by ourselves.

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And often what people do is once they get to that point, they stop reading God's Word, they stop going to church, and they're cut off the very things that God has given them to help heal in whatever the suffering is, or to come alongside.

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You know, there's some people that suffer with physical things, and it's, I mean, just coming alongside them and doing something for them can make all the difference.

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Making a meal for someone that struggles with dealing with young kids, that we know of a family who has two children that are autistic.

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We just used to, a whole bunch of us used to just get together and make a meal or bring a meal over every once in a while, just so that that mother had a break, one less thing she had to do that day, and would have a chance to kind of catch up.

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You know, there's so many things. I remember when I was in seminary, I used to go over, we had a woman who had a, her daughter had cerebral palsy, and it was never much worse than what

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Justin has. She would never have a mind more than a six -year -old. Wow. And I used to just go over and read scripture to the daughter so that the mother could get a break, so the mother can just, because she was a full -time caregiver while working.

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She used to have to work and come home, and she only got a few hours, you know, where she wasn't working, and then she'd be right with taking care of her daughter.

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And so just having those few hours that I would give her to go out, go food shopping by herself, just go to the park and relax, that meant so much to her.

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And people can do that, and, you know, just go and read a Bible with someone. That doesn't take a lot of work.

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But I'll tell you something about that girl. I tell this story often. Her name's Felicia. She taught me more about living by faith.

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I thought I was teaching her. I thought I was coming over, help the mother out. I would read the Scriptures and try to disciple this girl.

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She was teaching me what it meant to live by faith. Here's a girl who just, everything, she trusted

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God in everything. And I remember seeing her cousin.

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Her cousin is Dion Sanders. And her cousin came there, and she had no problem going,

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Cousin Dion, when are you going to repent of your sin? Wow. And I think no one ever spoke to him that way.

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I mean, I didn't know who he was when I met him. That's impossible. Wasn't Dion a professing

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Christian? And I emphasize professing. Yeah, I have heard that. And I believe that if he is a professing believer, it is because of a curse.

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A girl who would never have the mind of more than a six -year -old. Wow. You know?

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She prayed for him regularly. I mean, this is not really the same thing.

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It's not as moving a story as you just described.

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But it just made me remember when I was a brand -new Christian. And I don't want everybody who is a man with long hair out there to be upset with me, because I'm speaking about myself personally.

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But I was a new believer, and I bumped into a member of the church that I was attending in a 7 -Eleven.

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And she was with a tiny girl, probably no more than five or six. And the woman said to this little girl who was her niece,

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Oh, this is my friend Chris. He comes to church, the same church that I go to. And the little girl looks up at me with my long hair, my motorcycle jacket, and my

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T -shirt that probably had a graphic from my favorite rock band.

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And I just didn't really look like your typical church -going person. And this little kid says,

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He doesn't go to church. And the woman said, Don't say that. That's very rude of you.

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He goes to church. The little kid says, No, he doesn't. And she goes, Why do you say that?

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And this little kid said, He doesn't look like he goes to church. And because of that,

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I got my hair cut. This was before my baptism. I've never had long hair again, because I don't want anybody, especially a little child, second -guessing my faith just because of the way

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I look. And I think that people who don't care about that, and they say in defiance,

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I'm going to keep my hair long, or whatever it is. If you're a man, and of course if you're a woman, it might be,

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I'm going to keep shaving my head completely bald or whatever. But if you don't care about what people are thinking about you in regard to your faith, that may immediately disregard anything that you have to say about Christ and his gospel because of the way you look.

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That's a very trivial thing that you are holding on to as an idol, isn't it? Yeah. But I would love to see the picture of you in the long hair, the biker jacket.

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What do we have to do to get that picture? You probably have to go to my sister's house and go through her photo albums in the basement.

28:53

Okay. So I think we need to get all of the listeners to donate money to Iron Sherpa's Iron so that we can get this photo released.

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Everybody, don't go out to Iron Sherpa's Iron right now. Go and donate so we can go, okay, okay, you guilted me into it.

29:15

I will release the picture. By the way, I do need our listeners to send in donations anyway, whether you get the picture or not.

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And as I said, I don't want people to think I'm giving a hang -up to men out there who have long hair, who are

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Christians. This was a personal conviction of mine because of this young child and it stuck with me and I still remember it regularly.

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But we're going to our first break right now. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Andrew Rappaport about sanctification through suffering or anything else in regard to specific details about his ministry or his personal testimony, our email address is chrisarensen at gmail .com

29:59

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

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USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. That's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com

30:16

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Andrew Rappaport. Chris Arensen, host of Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio, announcing a new website with an exciting offer from World Magazine, my trusted source for news from a

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Well, there's good news. Wedding River Baptist Church exists to provide believers with a meaningful and reverent worship experience featuring the systematic exposition of God's Word.

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And this loving congregation looks forward to meeting you. Call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times.

33:11

631 -929 -3512 Or check out their website at wrbc .us

33:19

That's wrbc .us I'm Pastor Billy Limhart of Sovereign Grace Particular Baptist Church of San Angelo, Texas.

33:37

And I'm thrilled to have joined the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio family of sponsors. We fully subscribe to the

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Second London Baptist Confession of Faith as a faithful summary of the most vital biblical truths.

33:48

Desire to worship the Triune God of the Holy Scriptures in spirit and truth and seek to make

33:54

His glory known in the Concho Valley, West Texas, and beyond. Sovereign Grace PBC of San Angelo purposes to center our worship on the

34:02

Holy Scriptures and the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the hope that He will grow us in love and the unity of truth.

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After Sunday services, join us for a fellowship meal followed by our Ladies Fellowship in our Children's Sunday School class.

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If you're looking for a church in West Texas that's serious about the Word of God and worship that pleases Him, come visit us.

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For details about Sovereign Grace Particular Baptist Church of San Angelo, Texas, email sgbcsa at gmail .com

34:30

or visit us at sgbcsa .com that's s -g -b -c -s -a dot com

34:40

Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in today, our guest today for the first hour is my old friend

34:46

Andrew Rapoport, founder of Striving for Eternity Ministries. Coming up in the second hour, his friend and fellow speaker at an upcoming conference.

34:56

Actually, you're not one of the speakers, are you, at this conference? Correct, I will just emcee the event. We chose, at Striving for Eternity, we chose to highlight

35:04

Frank Mullis, who's one of our other speakers. But Colleen, as I was corrected before, she is going to be on the roster along with Frank Mullis, Justin Peters, and others.

35:18

And if you want more information, in fact, I don't even think I remember to give the date of this upcoming conference, but the conference is going to be held in just a couple of weeks,

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March 15th through the 16th in New Jersey at the Chinese American Bible Church in Freehold, New Jersey.

35:38

And again, as I said earlier, go to strivingforeternity .org for more details. strivingforeternity .org

35:44

forward slash conference dash on dash suffering forward slash. If you'd like to join us on the air today, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com

35:55

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

36:09

USA. We have an anonymous listener from Pennsylvania who asks,

36:16

I have had at least two friends who were suffering and in fact dying with terminal cancer.

36:25

And yet, even though these were Christians, they never told anybody about it until it was too late.

36:32

In fact, their closest friends who knew about it were sworn to secrecy. I find this quite strange, but I know that people are unique individuals and have their reasons for certain things they do.

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Do you think that this is ever a wise or recommendable thing for a brother or sister in Christ to do?

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No, it's not. It really isn't. And I'm going to say this, so I don't seem like I'm just saying this.

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I had a period of time where I struggled. I was actually homeless. And at the time,

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I actually was a deacon in the church in charge of the deacon's fund where we had about $5 ,000.

37:14

Wow. And my pride, and I know what it was,

37:20

I was not going to let anybody in the church know that I didn't have any more money.

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A company I worked for went bankrupt, and it was back during the early 90s when we had bad economic times.

37:35

And I ended up being homeless rather than let anyone in the church know that I had a need.

37:45

Now, is it always for pride? Well, I don't know that it's always pride. In my case, it was.

37:51

I think for a lot of people, what it is is they're struggling with this shame issue.

37:57

For some people, there may be a pride issue. There's also one other thing that I see a lot with people, especially if it does sound like a terminal cancer or a terminal issue, and I've seen people that feel so uncomfortable with people helping them out that they just don't want anybody to know.

38:18

Now, you could say that is a form of pride, but for some, there may be a pride issue.

38:23

For others, it's an issue where they just know the reaction people are going to have, and if they conclude that there's nothing anyone can do, they don't want to cause anyone to worry.

38:35

And so there could be a couple different reasons for it, but I would say that the best thing anyone can do for themselves is to share with others, to not be a burden.

38:48

We think that we're going to be a burden, but the reality is, when the Church comes together and works together as the

38:54

Church, we end up seeing that we can all be more in the image of Christ, and maybe me suffering and someone coming alongside me will actually help them in their spiritual walk.

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Now, there's a reason so many of us fear that, and it's because we all know people that are chronic complainers, right?

39:18

They always have something wrong. I know a couple of individuals in my life that it would be, it almost, you have to start to wonder if all the stories of what happened to them are true.

39:29

I know one person that told me, in the course of one month, he has five cars.

39:35

All five of them were broken into in one month. You know, you start going, but we all know that person who, once they have your ear, is never going to let go.

39:46

And this is the difficulty in counseling and the difficulty in bearing one another's burdens, is none of us want to have that person who's just, they don't want to actually get better, they actually don't want to change, they just want to talk and they want you to feel bad for them.

40:02

And it's a hard balance between those two, because that's, I think, a reason that a lot of people feel that no one wants to hear what they have to say, because there are so many people who just want someone's ear.

40:13

They don't want to change, they just want you to feel bad for them, and they want all the attention on them.

40:20

And that ends up having an effect on the rest of folks who actually would want to go out and talk to folks and get someone to just share their burden with or just be with them, but they don't want to be a burden, because they know that person, that they've probably experienced in their life, that has been someone that has just been a draw on them.

40:40

So one of the reasons I have a little note here, before I counsel with folks, that I pull out of my desk and read, and it's just so I can remind myself.

40:50

And it says, do not allow someone who cannot manage their own time manage yours.

40:57

That's great. Before I counsel someone, I have to remind myself, because that happens a lot.

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You have people who, they have no management of their own life, but they want to take over yours.

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I thought you were not going to say that. I was going to speak about my personal business on this radio interview.

41:18

Well, that was the last episode that we did that didn't drop yet, which I'm actually kind of glad,

41:24

I'm glad, listen, it was God's providence, because you corrected me, and we'll see if this makes it to the editing now.

41:32

Eric would leave this in, because you got to reprimand me because I mispronounced iron sharpens iron.

41:38

I said iron sharpening iron. You corrected me. So the fact that I could correct you, the pronunciation of Colleen's name, it's

41:46

God's providence. Let's see if I remember that when she comes on the show shortly.

41:53

I'll let you know. One of the things that people who do that, and I know at least one person who is now with the

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Lord for eternity, a wonderful brother in Christ, and I'm not going to mention his name, who never mentioned to anyone that he had cancer, which he had for over a decade until he went home to be with the

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Lord. Nobody other than a very small, intimate circle of friends knew that he had this cancer, and most of the people that knew him, even close friends, didn't know until he was in the hospital dying with brain cancer.

42:36

What a person, and I'm sure this brother, since he's in eternity with Christ, is going to agree with me now, but what that person does, they're robbing brothers and sisters in Christ of performing ministries of mercy on them, because that is a blessing for a person to minister to those that are sick and suffer.

43:06

It's also robbing people of the opportunity to witness that person's life, knowing that they are terminally ill.

43:17

This brother in particular that I'm speaking about, I obviously didn't follow him into his own home and behind closed doors, but his public persona was that of a man of great integrity, of great joy in the

43:36

Lord, of humility, of a man who did not complain, and there you have how he could have blessed others knowing that he was suffering with this terminal illness and yet did not become someone in a fetal position, lying on the floor, crying all the time.

43:56

So don't you think that I'm right on that, that you are robbing your friends and your brothers and sisters in Christ of opportunities and blessings when you do that?

44:04

Yeah, because this is what the Church should be doing. The Church should be bearing one another's burdens.

44:10

How do we do that if we don't know the burdens? And this is a way that God uses to sanctify us.

44:19

God uses our suffering, not just to sanctify ourselves, but also others. Most of us want to avoid suffering as much as we can.

44:28

We want a comfortable, peaceful life. We don't want trials. We don't want tribulations.

44:34

And yet you can look through the Scriptures and see how often God uses those things to sanctify people.

44:41

Think about Paul. He has this thorn in the side. We don't know what it is specifically, but it's something that he says

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God gave him to humble him, to keep him continuing in his sanctification.

44:56

But it's not just us who benefit from that. But if we have a right view on God and what

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He's doing through our sanctification, we could be sanctified through someone else's struggles and suffering.

45:09

And it also is robbing people who may be sinfully holding grudges against that person.

45:17

It's preventing them from making amends, making peace with them, as the

45:23

Scriptures teach us to do in the Gospel of Matthew and other places. If they knew that brother was going to be possibly departing this earth at any given time, they might have made more of an effort to rectify the rift that existed between them.

45:43

Even if there's not as serious a rift as someone might think, I had to counsel one person who had difficulty with a family member who they ended up passing away.

45:52

And the hardest thing they had to deal with is that the family member would not talk to them. And there was an issue where they really struggled with that this family member had done.

46:02

We don't know if the family member even was aware of this person's suffering and struggle that they had, because they never were able to talk about it.

46:11

And the person passed away. And now what do you do with it? And the person I was counseling, their conclusion was the person purposely wouldn't allow them to talk about it so it would be that last thing that they could get them with to hurt them, because they can never get forgiveness.

46:30

And what I ended up doing, sometimes I come up with weird things in counseling to suggest to people, but I suggested that she go to the grave site and just say, you know, this is what you did and I forgive you.

46:47

And she wrote a letter and did that. And once she was there and she actually said,

46:53

I forgive you, she said she felt a burden lifted. Now, did it have to be the grave site? Probably not.

46:59

She just really needed to forgive. There is some of that where sometimes

47:05

I think there's some people who think that they're going to not allow anyone because they want to hurt somebody.

47:11

Now, of course, knowing you, I know that you did not mean that in some kind of a superstitious way or something involving necromancy where you're communicating.

47:22

Well, you know, the grave sucking thing, maybe. You know,

47:31

I actually, look, I don't live all that far from Princeton University and there's a cemetery out there.

47:37

Frank Mullis was out visiting me and he wanted to go see where Jonathan Edwards was buried there.

47:44

And I said, you know, hey, look, if there's any chance, I mean, you should just lie in the grave. If the grave sucking thing works, you can do all that.

47:55

It was one of those times where you realize you said something that you might get beaten up for by a black belt and you just do it.

48:19

Well, I think the biggest thing is that we don't have to do it alone. I mean, I've really tried to stress that. And we don't have to be ashamed of any kind of struggle because we all have struggle, whether it's anxiety, depression, physical issues, family issues.

48:33

And, you know, we really want to have this conference to be something as a resource to people.

48:40

And we do not want money to be an issue for people, but it does cost money to fly the speakers out and be able to give them something small.

48:52

All of the speakers have said they don't want anything. Whatever comes in is what they're going to get. So we're charging $40.

49:02

That seems like a lot, but we also have a link on the page that says if you have trouble paying, just do whatever you can at the door or nothing.

49:09

The reason we're doing $40 is because we're hoping that some people who can give will give enough to cover for those who can't give.

49:17

And we don't want those who are struggling to feel like they don't have a way to come to this and be able to participate and get the teaching.

49:26

We're going to try to put it online. We don't know if the church is actually the church where I used to pastor, but I'm going to be meeting with them tonight to see how good the

49:36

Internet is whether we can live stream it. We don't know yet. And so, you know, we're going to try to make this available if we can, but the real goal is to even maybe do this across the country in different places so that others can show up in their area because there are way too many

49:52

Christians who sit by themselves suffering and they're too ashamed to let anybody know.

49:59

And when you look at a guy like Justin Peters, you're going to realize that, you know, here's a guy who has plenty he could complain about and he never does.

50:12

And, you know, I just always want to be like him. I really do. I want to be able to just, no matter what happens, be like, you know,

50:21

I'm going to... He had a recent incident that happened at an airport and someone stole a phone of his, and he ended up getting it back.

50:32

And you know what the amazing thing? You know what he was upset over? Justin Peters was upset that they didn't get the guy.

50:38

You know why? He wanted to share the gospel with them. Yeah, I can imagine that. That's what he was upset over.

50:44

That's the character of this man. I mean, someone steals something from him, he ends up returning it, and the only thing

50:49

Justin's upset is, did he get a chance to share the gospel? Yeah. In fact, that reminded me of something that my mother said while she was dying of pancreatic cancer.

51:03

My mother came to faith and trusted solely upon the finished work of Christ about six weeks before she entered into eternity.

51:14

She was a Roman Catholic her whole life, and she had renounced praying to Mary and the saints and idols and did not trust at all in her very godly life as a reason why she was entering into eternity.

51:31

She made it clear multiple times on her deathbed without being coached with words or language.

51:39

She made it very clear she was trusting in Christ alone. And she began weeping one day when

51:47

I took her to an evening worship service before she was totally unable to leave her bed.

51:55

And I asked her, Why are you crying, Mom? And she says, I feel so horrible that I complained about one of my doctors who did not diagnose me in time.

52:09

And I just feel so horrible because he helped me up off the floor when

52:14

I fell once in the hospital. It brought her to uncontrollable weeping, not anything to do with herself, but what she had said because she was being asked about why she was crying.

52:30

No, but what she said about the doctor prior to that because she was being asked about how she was treated in the hospital and so forth.

52:40

And that was one complaint she had and she felt miserable about complaining about anything. But we have, let's see, we have

52:50

RJ in White Plains, New York, and RJ says,

52:57

When you began the discussion earlier, you were talking about how horrible it is that Word of Faith, Pentecostals and Charismatics tell people that if they are ill that is because they are lacking faith or have no faith.

53:12

But isn't it true that sometimes it is the root cause of someone's suffering that they are rejecting the faith or living a double life or other things?

53:22

I agree with the listener and I did in fact, while I was saying that earlier,

53:28

I was intending to follow up by saying that we can't rule that out, but it's sinful to automatically assume that somebody's lack of faith or false faith is the reason why they are suffering.

53:44

I'm assuming you would agree with the listener as well. I do. I agree with him because there are some things that we see that people sin and that brings about the issues that they're struggling with.

53:59

But the thing that everyone always needs to remember, especially if it's an issue of sin, there is repentance and there is forgiveness in Christ.

54:10

Let's see here. We have Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, and Ronald says,

54:22

That I have come to understand that Christ's death on Calvary not only atoned for the sins of those for whom he died, but also it did have some redeeming value in regard to physical illness.

54:41

What does your guest think about this? Say that again?

54:49

Basically he's saying, didn't Christ's death not only redeem people from their sins, but also from...

54:56

Okay. And that's common within charismatics to think that he died for both.

55:02

Obviously when the person who is redeemed is in heaven, they will have a new body, when they're glorified, that is.

55:10

Correct. There's no promise that God is going to give us healing on earth. In fact, we have a case where Jesus healed ten lepers and only one comes back to him.

55:20

Only one seems to have faith. So I don't think... It's not that God's going to heal us all the time.

55:28

Even Benny Hinn goes to the hospital. People don't know that. He canceled an event to be in the hospital, but the reality is that God is focused on our spiritual being, and he came to die on the cross for sin.

55:44

Now, some of that may end up having an effect on our health, but there's no guarantee.

55:50

It's not that he died for our healing. Right. And that's something that's common in charismatics.

55:57

And not on this earth, but obviously everyone is going to be healed in the afterlife when we have our bodies resurrected and they are glorified.

56:07

There's not going to be any sickness or weakness or any ailment that exists.

56:14

But that's in the afterlife. That's in the afterlife. I can't wait to get there. Amen. 2

56:21

Corinthians 5, where it talks about our bodies being a temporal tent and fading away, and we're going to be...

56:26

That is a glorious thing I look forward to. And when we're in heaven, there won't be any need for a conference on suffering and sanctification through suffering conference because we won't be suffering.

56:41

Well, we are out of time. And by the way, to our listeners who wrote in questions, I have a surprise for you.

56:47

I got an email during our discussion that Andrew is sending me three copies of his book to give away.

56:55

So those of you who sent in questions will be receiving that eventually. CVBBS .com,

57:02

our sponsors, will ship those books out to you after we get them from Andrew. But we want to thank

57:07

Andrew for that generous gift. So all of you who have wrote in questions have to send me your full mailing addresses.

57:15

And to repeat, if you want more information about the upcoming conference,

57:21

Sanctification Through Suffering, that is being conducted by our friends at Striving for Eternity Ministries, go to strivingforeternity .org,

57:32

strivingforeternity .org, forward slash conference -on -suffering, forward slash.

57:38

Thank you so much, Andrew Rappaport, for being our guest for the first hour. And we look forward to your friend,

57:43

Colleen Sharp, joining us for the second hour, coming up very shortly. Thank you.

57:48

And people can just go to strivingforeternity .org. It's on the home page of the link to the conference. Great.

57:54

Well, thank you, brother. And looking forward to sharing fellowship with you again sometime in the near future,

58:00

God willing. I look forward to it. All right. Thank you, brother. And we're going to our elongated break right now.

58:08

It's a longer -than -normal station break because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

58:15

FM in Lake City, Florida, they air this program, and they have to air

58:20

Lake City, Florida commercials to localize Iron Sharp and Zion Radio to that area. They air

58:26

Lake City, Florida public service announcements and commercials. So please take this time during this elongated break to not only write down questions for our second guest,

58:37

Colleen Sharp, who is going to continue the discussion on sanctification through suffering, but also write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can more successfully and more frequently patronize our advertisers, because the more you do that, the more likely they are going to remain our advertisers, which means the more likely we are going to remain on the air as a radio program, because we need the financial support of our advertisers to exist.

59:03

So please write down the information they provide and, whenever possible, patronize them as much as you can.

59:11

But if you have a question for Colleen Sharp on sanctification through suffering, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

59:19

chrisarnson at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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My name is Steve Lawson, founder and president of LendPassion Ministries, as well as teaching fellow for Ligonier Ministries.

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I serve as professor of preaching and oversee the Doctor of Ministry program at the Master's Seminary in Los Angeles.

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I would like to recommend the church where one of my preaching students, Andy Woodard, serves as the pastor.

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It's called New Covenant Church, NYC. They are a Reformed Baptist church that meets in midtown

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If you're looking for a church that believes in expository preaching, which is simply biblical preaching, in New York City, I'd like to recommend that you visit

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.nyc. Have a great day. Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.

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So that way you help two of our advertisers at the same time. Before I introduce our guest for the second hour,

01:14:45

Colleen Sharp of the Theology Gals podcast, we have some important announcements to make.

01:14:51

First of all, coming up very soon as well, we have a

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Banner of Truth conference that I am going to be attending, God willing. That is the

01:15:03

East Coast Ministers Conference from May 28th through the 30th in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.

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The theme is, I believe, in the Holy Spirit. And they have some excellent speakers on the lineup, including

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Jeff Kingswood, Terry Johnson, David Vaughn, who happens to be a Reformed Baptist missionary in France, Steve Nichols, who is the president of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by R .C.

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Sproul and Ligonier Ministries, Michael Morales, and Chad Vegas. That is from May 28th through the 30th in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, the

01:15:40

East Coast Ministers Conference of Banner of Truth. If you would like to attend that along with me, go to BannerofTruth .org,

01:15:47

BannerofTruth .org, and then click on Events, and then click on East Coast Ministers Conference.

01:15:53

There are other conferences that they list as well that are closer to some of you, because we do have listeners all over the world.

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So if you live on the West Coast, or if you live in the United Kingdom, you click on those if you would prefer going to one of those conferences.

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But I am going to the East Coast Ministers Conference, and I hope to see you there. Then, coming up after that, there is another conference that I am looking forward to attending.

01:16:17

That's going to be in New York City again, and that's the Foundations Conference. I am really excited about this.

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I always love this conference, and if you want to attend, I would strongly recommend that you make your reservation as quickly as possible, because it's a small venue.

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They seat only about 200 people at this conference, but it's a phenomenal conference for pastors and church leaders.

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The speakers include Dr. Stephen J. Lawson, who you just heard a little while ago advertising for New Covenant Church NYC, one of our sponsors here.

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Stephen J. Lawson, and also Jeff Thomas, who is a phenomenal preacher from Wales, one of the best preachers

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I've ever heard. Richard Caldwell Jr., Rev. Armin Tomasian, who

01:17:07

I met at the Foundations Conference a couple of years ago for the first time. What a powerful preacher he is. And also

01:17:13

Andrew Quigley. And if you want to attend this event, which is this

01:17:20

December, I strongly urge you to do so as quickly as possible. It's being held in Manhattan, and if you want to attend

01:17:29

December 19th and 20th, go to thefoundationsconference .com.

01:17:36

Thefoundationsconference .com. Make sure you tell them that you heard about the conference from Chris Arns and on Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

01:17:41

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01:19:04

click support, then click, click to donate now. If you are not a member of a local church and you're not prayerfully seeking for one, you need to rectify that situation because you're living in rebellion against God if you're not prayerfully looking for a church.

01:19:17

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I've already helped people from all over the world find biblically faithful churches near them.

01:19:28

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And I can possibly help you, in fact, probably help you find a church too. Please send me an email to chrisarensen at gmail .com

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and put advertising in the subject line because we do need our financial support from advertisers in order to exist.

01:20:02

But now we are back on the show with our discussion on sanctification through suffering.

01:20:08

And our second guest to discuss this is Colleen Sharp, producer and co -host of the podcast

01:20:15

Theology Gals. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Colleen Sharp.

01:20:21

Hi Chris, thank you for inviting me. It's my pleasure, Colleen. Tell our listeners about Theology Gals.

01:20:31

So, Theology Gals is a podcast by women on Reformed theology, and we really exist to encourage women in the study of God's Word, sound doctrine, and discernment.

01:20:44

So, we hit all sorts of different topics. Sometimes we'll get just a straight theological topic, like we did an episode on the

01:20:53

Second Commandment, or we might talk about a popular book that Christian women are reading and see if it lines up with Scripture or something having to do with Christian living.

01:21:05

So, we hit a lot of different topics. Great. And what we normally do when we interview first -time guests on Iron Trip and Zion Radio is we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony, which would include what kind of religious atmosphere, if any, you were raised in, what were the providential circumstances that the

01:21:29

Lord raised up in your life to draw you to himself and save you. And then after that, we want to find out how you discovered

01:21:35

Reformed theology. So, if you could, just in summary form, let us know something about that. So, I actually go back to my parents in their meeting.

01:21:45

My parents actually met working for Billy Graham. And then they got married, had to quit because they weren't allowed to date, and got married.

01:21:56

My mom had grown up as a missionary kid in Venezuela. And my dad converted from Orthodox Judaism.

01:22:04

And so, I grew up in a great, great church. I grew up in the

01:22:09

Evangelical Free Church. My family has been in the Evangelical Free Church all the way back to Sweden.

01:22:17

And so, at a young... I have memories of trusting

01:22:22

Christ at a young age. I don't have a certain day or time, like some people might have. I don't remember a time that I did not trust

01:22:29

Christ. And I have memories of being very young, of repentance and seeking obedience.

01:22:37

And so, I have memories like that quite young. And just so grateful for my parents.

01:22:43

My mom just really taught me about the importance of studying the Word of God. And in many ways, by example.

01:22:51

I have so many memories of her sitting with her Bible and praying and studying.

01:22:57

And my grandparents, too, were just a huge influence in my life regarding my faith.

01:23:06

How did you discover the Reformed faith? So, I ended up at a

01:23:12

Wesleyan Armenian Bible College. And I definitely wasn't

01:23:18

Wesleyan in my theology, but it was just the school that I ended up at. And through reading the whole

01:23:27

Bible through in a short time for both Old Testament Survey and then New Testament Survey, I began to see the sovereignty of God through all of Scripture.

01:23:36

And I thought, there's got to be a name for this. I came to believe in depravity and election, and I thought, it's so clear to me.

01:23:42

I can't be the only one who believes this. So, I eventually discovered that I basically believed in Calvinism.

01:23:53

And then I met my husband in 1994, and he was kind of a little bit further into Reformed theology than I was.

01:24:03

And he said, I want you to check out a radio show called The White Horse Sin. Love that show.

01:24:11

And so, that's how I learned, really, kind of more about Reformed theology was listening to The White Horse Sin.

01:24:19

Well, praise God. I'm sure Mike Horton and Kim Riddlebarger and Ken Jones will love to hear that.

01:24:25

Of course, I purposely left out Rod Rosenblatt since he's a Lutheran. Oh, well, actually,

01:24:31

Rod Rosenblatt is the grandpa to my niece and nephew. Wow.

01:24:37

That's been there. So, how does he feel about you being a Calvinist? You know, I'll tell you what, because I've spent so much time at Rod's house, and we have some of the best discussions.

01:24:47

We have great, very respectful and fruitful discussions.

01:24:54

Yes, well, I'm sure he would be treating you respectfully on that issue since he hosted a program with two or three other

01:25:02

Calvinists on a regular basis. And, by the way, what's an update on The White Horse Sin?

01:25:08

Not that that's our topic for today, because I haven't heard it in a while. I know that it's not live anymore, but is it still a regularly airing program?

01:25:16

Yeah, so they're still putting out an episode every week, and Michael Horton has another show now, too, with another guy.

01:25:24

And then Rod is not on The White Horse Sin any longer, though. He is doing a different podcast called

01:25:30

The Thinking Fellows, which focuses more on Lutheran theology. Yeah, I've heard of that. And, by the way, our

01:25:38

Missouri Synod Lutheran listeners might want to know that on, let's see, coming up very soon, on March 5th,

01:25:48

Tuesday, March 5th, Brian Katchelmeyer, a Lutheran pastor and author, is going to be on the show to discuss reading

01:25:57

Isaiah with Luther. That's a book that he wrote published by Concordia Publishing House.

01:26:04

So if you want to hear that interview, mark that down in your calendar. So why is it that Andrew Rappaport wanted you to be on the roster at an event that is about suffering?

01:26:18

What uniquely have you experienced in your life that would give you the experience, perhaps, to be a wise decision, a wise inclusion on this lineup of speakers?

01:26:30

So I've talked about this a little bit on our podcast, and then been a guest on another podcast about suffering, and written some things about it.

01:26:40

For about the last 10 years, it's been a difficult time for our family, and I started having some pretty severe health problems, which at one point almost took my life, and changed my life a lot, because I can't physically do everything

01:27:02

I'd like to. I have four sons. They're now 16, 18, 20, and 22. And in the midst of going through this season of just some really serious health problems, we've lost so many people close to us, and a family member committed suicide.

01:27:21

I lost two close friends of mine. My son's best friend died in a car accident.

01:27:27

My mother -in -law. We had just so much that hit us at once, and I really,

01:27:33

I took the Bible, and I tried to find every instance that it talks about suffering in the

01:27:39

Word of God, and when I put it all together, there was far more than I had guessed that there would be, and have really tried to study suffering and why do we suffer as believers, and where's our comfort when we are suffering.

01:27:59

And the specific theme is sanctification through suffering.

01:28:06

Tell us exactly what that means. There are people who may be new believers, or perhaps not even

01:28:13

Christians at all, who are listening, because I know that we have occasionally received emails from Muslims and from representatives of other religions, even the

01:28:28

Unification Church, the Moonies as they are known, and agnostics and atheists, but for their sake or for the new believer, tell us exactly what you mean by sanctification through suffering.

01:28:42

Let me start by talking about what sanctification is. I'm a Presbyterian, so I hold to the

01:28:49

Westminster Standards, and so the Westminster Catechism calls sanctification a work of God's free grace, and what happens is that we learn to live more for the

01:28:58

Lord and die to ourselves, so we're growing in obedience. That's what sanctification is, and I think with suffering, that the

01:29:06

Lord can use our suffering to help us grow in obedience, and so I think that's what we're really talking about.

01:29:15

Now, sanctification, and you can agree or disagree with me, but I'm very strongly confident you'll agree with me, unlike justification, unlike election, and unlike regeneration, which men, sinners like you and I, have no part in, sanctification is different.

01:29:39

We actually cooperate with God in some way in the sanctification process. Am I right? Well, I'm going to go back to being wholeheartedly to that, where we might disagree a little bit, because I think that our good works are the fruit of sanctification, that sanctification is a work of God's free grace, and so the

01:29:59

Lord is working in us, and our good works are the fruit of that, so we might have some differences, but having said that, we have a responsibility as believers to obey, to live in obedience.

01:30:11

We talk about this on the podcast as the third use of the law, that we are called to obey the

01:30:17

Lord, and we won't do it perfectly in this life, but I do believe that we grow in that obedience because of our union with Christ.

01:30:23

And of course, sanctification, going along with what you said, is not the cause of our salvation or entrance into heaven after we depart this earth.

01:30:35

Justification is, but it is the evidence that we are among those that are heading there.

01:30:43

Absolutely. Sometimes we'll use the phrase, it's a necessary consequence.

01:30:49

You're not going to be justified and not sanctified. If you're justified, you will be sanctified. Amen. So what we're going to do right now is we're going to take our final break.

01:30:59

It's going to be a lot more brief than the last one, but use this time to write questions for Colleen Sharp about the suffering through,

01:31:10

I'm sorry, sanctification through suffering. And our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com

01:31:17

And please, as always, give us your first name, your city and state, and country of residence. If you live outside the USA, only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

01:31:27

Don't go away. We'll be right back with Colleen Sharp and sanctification through suffering right after these messages from our sponsors.

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Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read. He who never quotes will never be quoted.

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

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01:39:18

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01:40:12

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01:41:07

Spread the word about firstloveradio .org Welcome back.

01:41:20

This is Chris Arnzen. This is our final segment of our interview today on sanctification through suffering.

01:41:26

Our guest for the second hour has been and will continue to be Colleen Sharp. She is producer and co -host of the podcast

01:41:33

Theology Gals. If you would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, I would advise you to do it quickly because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:41:41

That's ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. And please give us your first name, city, and state, and country of residence if you live outside the

01:41:50

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Before I return to Colleen, I just have a wonderful announcement that the publishers of the

01:41:59

New American Standard Bible have renewed their advertising contract with Iron Sharp and Zion Radio.

01:42:07

We are so grateful to them. The publishers of the NASB have been supporting a lot of things that I have done throughout my

01:42:16

Christian life. Even going back before Iron Sharp and Zion Radio, they began sponsoring special events that I orchestrated going back to the 1990s when

01:42:28

I arranged my first public moderated theological debate between Dr.

01:42:34

James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries and a Roman Catholic apologist by the name of Jerry Matetix.

01:42:41

They continued sponsoring those debates for over a decade. Then, when I launched

01:42:46

Iron Sharp and Zion Radio, they began very enthusiastically to sponsor this program.

01:42:51

I urge you to please purchase Bibles from the publishers of the

01:42:58

NASB. This is really what I want you to do more than anything in regard to this wonderful ministry, this business, the publishers of the

01:43:09

NASB. I want you to speak to those in authority in your church, whether they be your pastors, deacons there, about perhaps replacing the pew

01:43:23

Bibles in your churches that may be falling apart. They may have children's graffiti all over them, pages falling out.

01:43:32

It's time to replace them. Please go to nasbible .com, nasbible .com, and consider replacing all of your pew

01:43:39

Bibles through the publishers of the New American Standard Bible. They have all different kinds of editions and versions of the

01:43:46

NASB that you can choose from and different kinds and colors of pew Bibles, but please patronize this wonderful group of folks because they have been so faithful to Iron Sharp and Zion Radio.

01:43:58

That's nasbible .com, nasbible .com. Now we are back with Colleen Sharp, and,

01:44:04

Colleen, we have a listener from Kingman, Arizona, named Ted, and looking at the question,

01:44:11

I get the feeling that Ted may know you. I don't know if you know him, but Ted says, Ted says,

01:44:18

I'm especially pleased to be writing to Colleen from a city that ends in the letter N.

01:44:23

I have no idea what that means. I considered making a joke about not attending her upcoming conference out of concern that I might learn something from a woman speaker, but I was afraid that some regular listeners of the program might not realize that this was a joke.

01:44:40

But seriously, folks, I am wondering if Colleen can talk about the flack she has received from certain hyper patriarchal types who earnestly argue that she should not have an internet and podcast outreach simply because she is a woman.

01:44:59

Do you receive flack because of that? You know, it's from a really tiny, tiny group.

01:45:07

We're a podcast by women, and we, while I know that there's men that tune in, we're really mainly geared towards women, and we're a podcast, and of course we believe that it is only qualified men that are called to be pastors and elders in the church, and we believe that wives submit to their own husbands, and you know, all of those things regarding biblical men and women that are in Scripture.

01:45:34

But some people, I think, probably hyper -patriarchal, I don't know if I've heard quite that term before, think that women shouldn't be teaching or something like that.

01:45:48

Well obviously they would have to ignore the Scripture that teaches that the older women should be teaching the younger.

01:45:56

Right, and you know, I should mention, too, for those, if there's any women listening and you're not familiar with us, we also have a

01:46:05

Facebook group that's just for women, and you know, anyone's welcome to join that.

01:46:11

There's almost 5 ,000 women in it, but we just have some great discussions. Sometimes it's practical stuff.

01:46:17

There was a conversation about knitting once, and sometimes it's recipes, and sometimes it's deep theological conversations.

01:46:25

And that's TheologyGals .com, TheologyGals .com, and hopefully you'll remember to repeat that before we go off the air.

01:46:33

Thank you, Ted, in Kingman, Arizona, and keep listening to Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio and spreading the word about the program.

01:46:43

In regard to suffering, I asked this question of your friend and my friend,

01:46:51

Andrew Rappaport, in the beginning of the program in the first hour, but I think it would be good to ask you the same question to see what insights you have on this.

01:47:00

What do you think are the most commonly wrong responses and reactions to suffering that Christians are guilty of, whether it be the suffering of someone else or even the suffering of one's own life and body?

01:47:19

Well, I think the first thing, and I even went through this, it can be easy to think that all suffering is punishment.

01:47:28

So, if you're sick, for instance, and God's not healing you, even though intellectually I knew that wasn't biblical, still struggled kind of personally over whether I did something that caused my suffering.

01:47:44

And I actually had a situation that somebody left me an anonymous letter, basically saying that God wasn't healing me because I didn't have enough faith.

01:47:55

And I think that's another mistake. And we see that a lot in the Word of Faith movement and New Apostolic Reformation and some of those different groups.

01:48:06

But that's not biblical. The Lord has given us in Scripture so many different reasons for why we suffer.

01:48:16

One thing that I have witnessed that grieves me in our own circles,

01:48:21

I happen to be also Reformed. I'm a Reformed Baptist. But obviously as you are likely aware, the 1689

01:48:29

London Baptist Confession of Faith is nearly identical to the Westminster because the framers of that Baptist Confession purposely nearly identically copied the

01:48:40

Westminster. Not that they were plagiarizing, but they wanted to show their Presbyterian brethren that they were on the same page, if you were, theologically, on most matters other than on the ordinances or especially the ordinances of baptism and church polity.

01:48:55

But being Reformed, I have witnessed fellow Calvinists say things during someone's period of suffering that might be true, might be absolutely true, just like sometimes

01:49:09

Job's so -called comforters said things that were completely wrong and off -base to Job.

01:49:17

They were better when they were keeping their mouths shut initially, but would you agree that it is wrong, especially perhaps in the way that it is said to someone, not necessarily the truth that is being said, that, well, this is all part of God's will.

01:49:37

God's in sovereign control over this, so just buck up. I know that you're in agony with this disease that's going to most likely end your life, but it's

01:49:48

God's will, so we should not ever be in opposition to whatever

01:49:53

God wills, but we should not ever be in opposition should not

01:50:24

We should not ever be in opposition to whatever

01:50:50

God wills, but we should not God wills, should not God wills, who says, I have become very leery and apprehensive and at times even outright opposed to many involved in hospice care.

01:51:07

Because of the fact that I have witnessed with my own eyes during the terminal illness of a loved one, hospice care individuals telling this person who was not a believer that they have nothing to fear about death, just accept it, it's a natural part of life, they are so consumed with making people comfortable while they're dying, if they're not

01:51:29

Christians, they're going to be giving people false hope. Don't you think that we have to be very careful when selecting hospice care for loved ones, that we are not putting them in the care of those that are going to give them false hope?

01:51:45

Yeah, that's a wonderful point. I don't have a lot of experience with hospice care except for when my mother -in -law was dying and was in hospice care and sometimes when you're in that situation looking for hospice care you don't even have a lot of options so that might be difficult but I will say that when my mother -in -law was dying in her last few weeks of life her pastor was at her bedside almost daily and so if someone's in a situation where maybe the hospice care is saying things like that that are not true that you want to get the pastor in there that's going to be preaching the gospel to them and the truth.

01:52:25

Amen. Well before we run out of time with you I want to make sure that you have about five minutes of uninterrupted time just to unburden your heart and tell our listeners what you want most etched on their hearts and minds before they leave the program today in regard to suffering.

01:52:44

You know one thing I've learned is that all of us as Christians suffer.

01:52:51

It might be something small. It might be a bad day. It might be a broken arm.

01:52:57

It could be something that lasts a short time or it could be something that lasts a long time. My best friend she just had her baby die shortly after birth and she will suffer for a very long time.

01:53:09

She said to me I don't know if I will ever get over this and some of that might hurt but if we've ever lost someone that's now with the

01:53:19

Lord we'll miss them until we're with the Lord. So we all suffer as believers but I think that there's a lot in Scripture that is comforting and so I'm sure someone in your audience is suffering right now and so I just offer what has brought me a lot of encouragement and that's the

01:53:40

Psalms and Psalm 13 is one that goes through my head so often and it starts out how long oh

01:53:48

Lord will you forget me forever will you keep hiding your face from me. Well obviously the Lord hasn't forgotten us on this or hidden his face but it really points to the fact that our emotions can be very strong and not accurate but in the end it talks about the knaps that I've trusted in your loving kindness my heart shall rejoice in your salvation and so when we're suffering our emotions can do crazy things but we always need to go back to what we know to be true and what we know to be true is on the pages of scripture and be reminded of God's love for us and his faithfulness for us.

01:54:22

Amen. We do have some time for some more listener questions. We have Arnie in Perry County Pennsylvania who says don't you think that well meaning

01:54:31

Christians often say wrong things that do not really help the person who is suffering.

01:54:38

I know one thing that is very commonly said to people when they are suffering is I know what you're going through.

01:54:44

Don't you think that we have to be very hesitant to say things like that? Even if we have suffered in similar ways to the person we could perhaps phrase it differently to let them know that we have empathy because we've experienced something similar but to say

01:54:58

I know what you're going through as individuals who have different reactions to specific events and occurrences in their lives don't we react and go through things differently and shouldn't we not be very careful to make that claim?

01:55:14

Yeah well Corinthians talks about one of the reasons that we suffer is that we may comfort others who suffer but I have said to people before you could have two people with the exact same cancer but their life is still very different.

01:55:27

One of them may be single and one of them may be married with kids or whatever the situation may be but saying

01:55:33

I understand what you're going through is not I don't think a wise thing to say to somebody and it goes back to what

01:55:39

I was talking about earlier so I agree with the guy that sent the question in that that's not a wise thing and that we need to have wisdom in what we do say to the suffering person.

01:55:52

Thank you Arnie and Perry County keep spreading the word about Iron Trip and Zion Radio in Perry County Pennsylvania and beyond we have

01:56:00

CJ and Lyndon Hearst Long Island New York and CJ asks

01:56:06

I heard a recent guest of yours who wrote a book on grieving answer a question you asked and I wanted to ask it again because I think it's an excellent question.

01:56:19

How do we know how forcefully and how gently to speak to someone who is dying about hell and about their need to embrace

01:56:28

Christ for salvation? It is a something that we many of us are very intimidated to do because the last thing you want to do is add to the discomfort of somebody who may be lying in a hospital bed in pain as they die and are already going through terrifying emotions so how do we balance this by being both loving and compassionate and tender with being truthful because the more important thing is where that person is going to spend eternity?

01:57:00

That's a great question. I don't know if I can adequately answer it. I think through a lot of prayer and seeking to speak the truth and love regardless of the situation.

01:57:12

Yeah, and don't you think that very often as I just mentioned earlier about speaking theological truths to people that the way we say things very often is key.

01:57:27

We could be saying something true but in a wrong way, in a wrong manner at a wrong time etc.

01:57:35

Don't you think that we have to be very clear to someone when we are speaking the truth about the gospel that we ourselves were rescued by this gospel that we ourselves were deserving of hell and received this grace freely because of the mercy and love of Christ and at the same time not be appearing to be in some way judgmental or in a self -righteous way.

01:58:06

Right. Sometimes perhaps we who are brothers in Christ can learn from our sisters

01:58:15

I think in that way about the gentle way of approaching someone in this kind of a circumstance.

01:58:23

Yeah, and that really just goes back to having wisdom but also having love in our approach and I like what you said about not being self -righteous that, you know, we're no different.

01:58:37

We are all sinners in need of a Savior. Well, Colleen, I look forward to you returning to Iron Trip and Zion Radio in the future and often actually.

01:58:46

I really enjoyed our time together which was too short. I know that you were unable to be on for the first hour which is why our mutual friend

01:58:53

Andrew Rappaport filled in for you. So, if you could hold on after we go off the air because I'd like to perhaps go over the calendar with you to invite you back but I want our listeners to be reminded that your podcast can be found at TheologyGals .com

01:59:13

TheologyGals .com correct? Yes. Well, I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write in.

01:59:19

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater

01:59:25

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