June 3, 2025 Show with Jonathan Burris on “Revival Through Repentance”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today. Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better. It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now here's your host, Chris Arnzen.

Good afternoon, 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. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this third day of June 2025.

Jonathan Burris and Sophia Baptist Church

I'm thrilled to have a first-time guest today who's going to be speaking at a conference this fall alongside of my friend Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries and six other speakers. I am speaking of Jonathan Burris, who is pastor-teacher at Sophia Baptist Church in Sophia, North Carolina.

No, they do not have a temple worshiping the Greek goddess Sophia. It is entirely a Baptist church that happens to be located in the city of Sophia in North Carolina. And I have Jonathan on the program today to discuss the theme Revival Through Repentance, and that is at least one of the themes to be addressed at the upcoming Roadmap to Revival conference in Tullahoma, Tennessee this September featuring Pastor Burris and seven other speakers.

But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Jonathan Burris.

Thank you so much for the honor of being on your program today. It is a joy.

Well, it's a joy to have you, brother. And please tell our listeners something about Sophia Baptist Church.

I have been the pastor of Sophia Baptist Church for a little over a year now. My first Sunday was last year, Palm Sunday. Sophia Baptist Church is located in Randolph County, North Carolina. We have a population of around 140 ,000 people in our county.

There are over 400 churches. This church, when I took it, it was going through a difficult time. COVID hit it really hard. A lot of aged population in the church. The former pastor did over 400 funerals.

Wow. Within his total span, but a lot of those, I think 200 of them in the last six, seven years. A lot of deaths in the church. And so when I took the church, we were really struggling as far as number.

But at the same time, that can actually turn out to be a blessing because we are a reforming church. And it's easier to do something like that with a smaller number than it is with a larger number. And so we are, as I said, a reforming church.

Our focus is on expository preaching, exegetical teaching. Our services are thematic. Everything that we do revolves around the preaching of the word of God. And our motto is, of course, to God be the glory.

When you go to our website, you're going to see the notion of everything being done for Christ in scripture. You're going to see the five solos right there early on our website. Because we have this thing in our area known as stealth Calvinism, where people are afraid to use that term, afraid to use that language.

Because if you do, you're going to be shunned. And so we wanted to make it clear what kind of a church we are. Even though we are in the process of reforming, we are not confessional yet. When I took the church, one of the things that they wanted to do was to have a strong statement of faith, a strong constitution, strong bylaws.

And there is nothing better to accomplish that with than some of the historic confessions. And so we are looking, we've been teaching doctrine for the last, well, since I've been here. But really, since the first of the year, working through theology proper, Christology, Bibliology, and Soteriology, everything.

And this month, we are looking at covenant theology and preparing ourselves to adopt a confession of faith.

Praise God. And if anybody wants more details on Sophia Baptist Church in Sophia, North Carolina, go to SophiaBaptist .org. SophiaBaptist .org, and Sophia is spelled with a P-H. Sophia happens to also be the name of one of my nieces, my brother Bob's daughter, Sophia Grace.

So that has a special connection in my heart. Tell us about the upcoming Roadmap to Revival conference, during which you are going to be one of the featured speakers.

The Roadmap to Revival Conference

Oh, wow. What an honor. Brother Jeffrey Rice reached out to me a few weeks ago. Since, unfortunately, G3 was canceled, that was something I was really looking forward to. The last conference in 2023 changed my life and my family greatly.

But he wanted to put something together. Of course, James White reached out to him. And so September 12th and 13th at Covenant Reformed Baptist Church in Tullahoma, Tennessee, is hosting the Roadmap to Revival conference.

It is a two-day conference, the 12th and the 13th of September, that is going to feature some amazing speakers, some brilliant men. Dr. James White, there is no one in the world like him. Just an amazing apologist, a brilliant man, and a gentleman with, as smart as he is, a huge heart.

And his desire is not only to have something for people to attend in replacement to what we were going to have at G3, but then also to be a blessing to Brother Jeffrey Rice and to his church, knowing the things that he's gone through with his health and his injury and the surgery and things.

And so he's going to be there. He's going to be the keynote speaker leading off on the first day and then closing out on the second day. But then also Andrew Rappaport, who is absolutely brilliant. And then there's Keith Foskey, who is everybody's favorite Methodist, Big Eva guy.

You know, if you watch his skits, his videos, but he is also a great, great brother. I've not met him personally, but he has been a huge help to me as we've talked some, and he's helped me tremendously as far as when studying confessions.

Then there's Claude Ramsey, and I would say anybody that didn't hear Brother Ramsey the other day on your program, go back and listen to that. Just a great pastor with a huge heart and a great burden for the ministry and the things of God.

Then, of course, there's Michael Schultz, who is just unbelievably brilliant. I don't have the words in my vocabulary to describe how smart this guy is, and he's been a huge help to me as well as I exited dispensationalism.

And Brother Schultz had a huge impact on that. Then there's Jeremiah Nordier, who is the apologetic dog, just an amazing, amazing guy. And then, of course, Brother Jeffrey Rice. I am so excited to be here and to be a part of this.

I have no idea why I'm here, but I am so looking forward to it.

Well, I'm sure that there is a reason that Jeffrey Rice selected you. I think he has demonstrated a lot of discernment when it comes to picking speakers for his conferences. So I am more than happy to promote this event, and I'm looking forward to having Dr. James R. White following that event out here in Pennsylvania for both my next biannual Iron Trip and Zion Radio Free Pastors Luncheon, and also—that's on September 18th, by the way, Thursday, September 18th at 11 a .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania.

And then the following Sunday, on September 21st, he'll be preaching at the church where I am a member, Trinity Reform Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. And for more details, go to irontripandzionradio .com irontripandzionradio .com for both of these free events featuring Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

Jonathan Burris’ Salvation Testimony

Well, we have a tradition here on Iron Trip and Zion Radio. Whenever we have a first-time guest, which would include you, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation story, which would include any kind of religious atmosphere in which they were raised, if any, and the kinds of providential circumstances our sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved you.

So please tell us a summary of your story.

Okay, you may have to step in and stop me or tell me to hurry along. My parents divorced when I was three. I lived with my mom and grew up. My dad was a truck driver. He would come and get me every couple of weeks, and I would spend the weekend with him.

When I got to the fifth grade, I was rebellious even in the fifth grade and didn't like the rules that were at home, and so I went to live with my dad. My first day at school there, I got into a huge fight, and that was just the start of the next eight years of my life.

My dad took me to martial arts. I fought him. My dad taught me to curse. I cursed him. It was a very rough relationship at the time, and I ended up living next door on my aunt's couch for the next several years.

I was told every day, and I don't mean that figuratively, just about every day of my life literally that you are trash, you're a nobody, you'll never amount to anything, you're trash like your dad. And when you're told that over and over again, you're going to start to believe it and start to live it, and that's what I did.

There were days as I got into high school that I was told, did you really have to get off the bus today? Wasn't there somewhere else you could do? And I know that sounds awful, and it is, but that's what I was told, and I was so hateful, just a wicked liar, thief, brawler, just indescribable, and I don't want to get into all those details, but in May of 1994, I found myself at the bottom of my barrel.

In fact, under the barrel looking up, I was afraid to harm myself, but I was miserable living. I didn't want to live, but I was afraid to die. I remember I had just gotten my license, and I think that week or the week after, I was standing outside my aunt's house and just screaming at God that I hated him.

I was no atheist. I knew he existed, and I hated him for it. I was miserable, and I blamed him for everything. As a matter of fact, I had two Bibles that both of my grandmothers had given me, and those were sitting in a trunk that I had, which was all I had to my name.

I got tired of looking at them, just the cover of them. I never opened them, never read them, nothing of the sort. I went and took them one day and put them in a trunk that I had. I went down to my uncle's outbuilding, pulled everything from the back right corner and threw that trunk over into the back right corner, piled everything I could on top of it, walked across the road to the neighbor's pond, threw the key in the pond so that I wouldn't even be tempted to open that trunk and even look at those Bibles again that I had never opened.

That weekend, I went to my mom's. It was something I was required to do, so I went to my mom's. When I got there, she said, We're going to church on Sunday. I said, Okay, y 'all have a good time. I'll go home early.

She said, No, you can go home after. We got to church. I fought that all weekend. Finally, I said, Okay, if I'm going, I'm driving. That Sunday morning, we were on the way. I was driving separate. I knew where the church was.

When I got to the road where the church was, I rolled down and I reached across. There were no manuals. Everything was manual in my 87 Plymouth Duster. I rolled the windows down, turned the radio up as loud as I could in protest, listening to some profanity-laced music.

I wanted them to know that I was coming in in protest. I backed into the parking lot so that I could get out, walked in, looking mad, feeling mad, being mad. My family tried to cram me in the pew. I said, No, I'll sit on the outside.

I had a plan. I'd been in church enough to know that at some point in a typical Baptist church like I was in, independent at the time, that the pastor was going to, towards the end of the service, stand up, give an invitation, and ask everybody to stand.

When he did, I was going to sneak out. Throughout the course of that service, God did a work in my heart. The God that I had screamed at just a couple days before and told that I hated, throughout the course of that service, I began to love.

The Satan that I so loved, I began to hate. In the words of C .S. Lewis, who is not a theologian, normally, the God that I so desired not to know, I came face to face with. That day, a great sinner met a greater savior.

He took my heart of stone, and he gave me a heart of flesh. I remember going home that evening. When I got home, I cried all the way home. I really didn't understand much of what had happened. I just knew that Christ had done a work in me.

I went to him, didn't even pull in the main driveway at my aunt and uncle's house. I pulled in down to where the building was. I walked in there and started to undo everything that I had done to cover up that trunk.

I pulled it out and got it out and sat there in the doorway of his building and busted the trunk open with a rock because I'd thrown the key in the pond. I sat there and opened up one of those Bibles for the first time that I could ever remember.

In one of them was notes, sticky notes, handwritten notes from one of my grandmothers. They were just love notes that she'd written years and years ago, even when I was just a little kid that I had never seen.

I just sat there and cried and cried and cried, understanding finally that if I would open the Word of God, I would have realized that I was loved a lot sooner than that day. After I read through every note that was in that Bible, I started looking at the love letter on the pages itself and beginning to realize that our sovereign God had a plan and loved me before the foundation of the world.

Ever since that day, I don't think I've cussed since that day. I don't think I have—I've not stolen anything, not had a desire to since that day. I'm not perfect. Don't get me wrong. I know that. I die daily.

But I am thankful for the work that God has done in my heart.

Praise God. And what were the circumstances involving you coming to discover and embrace the doctrines of sovereign grace?

Discovering the Doctrines of Sovereign Grace

Oh, wow. So this was 1994. 1995 or 1996, I had preached a message for—I had preached on Sunday night, and my pastor had come to me afterwards. So during the message, I had been studying Oliver B. Green.

And for those in the Independent Fundamental Baptist background will know that he is a— he was very popular, and I had been reading after him. And I made the statement in my message that God sends nobody to hell, that if you go to hell, you send yourself to hell.

My pastor was so loving, so loving, so gentle. In that situation, he came to me. He said—he didn't tell me anything about it. He said, I want you to go and study what you just said. I want you to go and study that.

He didn't say anything about the doctrines of grace, nothing about Calvinism, because at the time, he was a stealth Calvinist. And it's just not a word or not language that he used. And so I went and I started digging.

I called him up. It was a Thursday after that Sunday, and I said, Pastor, have you ever heard of Calvinism? Because I think that I'm a Calvinist now. And I preached something that was entirely unbiblical the other night.

And I said, do you know anything about that? He said, yeah, OK, that's what I wanted you to figure out. And so from that time, from 95 or 96, I can't remember exactly how long it's been, but almost 30 years.

Wow. Praise God. Well, we thank God that you are providentially under the tutelage of a sovereign grace-believing man. And by the way, folks, I believe I omitted mentioning, accidentally, the website for Covenant Reform Baptist Church of Tullahoma, Tennessee, where the conference is being held.

This is not my guest, Jonathan Burris' congregation, but it's the church hosting the Roadmap to Revival conference on September 12th and 13th in Tullahoma, Tennessee, that we were describing moments ago.

That website is crbctullahoma .org. If you click on Events, you will see at the top of the page, the Roadmap to Revival conference, where Jonathan Burris is among the seven other speakers. And we will, God willing, mention that website later on in the program.

Well, when we come back from our very first commercial break, we are going to be talking about revival through repentance. And if you do have a question about this subject or on any biblical issue, really, you can submit it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com, C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com.

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

Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

James White here of Alpha Omega Ministries, announcing that this September I'm heading out to Pennsylvania to speak at two events that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen has lined up for me. On Thursday, September 18th at 11 a .m., I'm speaking to men in ministry leadership at Chris's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville.

Then on Sunday, September 21st at 1 .30 p .m., I'm speaking at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle on the theme, Can We Trust the Bible is the Authentic and Inerrant Word of God? I hope you can join Chris and me for both events.

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That's trbccarlisle .org. God willing, I'll see you in September in Pennsylvania for these exciting events.

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I'm Simon O'Mahony, pastor of Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Originally from Cork, Ireland, the Lord in his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.

At TRBC, we joyfully uphold the Second London Baptist Confession, we embrace congregational church government, and we are committed to preaching the full counsel of God's Word for the edification of believers, the salvation of the lost, and the glory of our triune God.

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Royaldiadem .com, mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio today. We're now back on the air with Jonathan Burris, pastor of Sophia Baptist Church in Sophia, North Carolina. We have somebody using an anonymous name, a pen name, as it were, or as he calls it, his undercover name.

Thank you, Pastor Burris. And by the way, he goes by the name Manhattan North. Thank you, Pastor Burris, for your ministry and testimony. I am a stealth undercover Calvinist currently serving in an independent fundamentalist Baptist church in New York City.

Please continue sharing about how God has sovereignly led you all these years. I subscribe to your YouTube channel. People like me in the independent fundamentalist Baptist closet need to hear this. Please pray for me that I would be bold and loving obedience as the Lord leads me.

Thanks again to you and Brother Chris for all you do. Lives like mine are being changed in Christ. Oh, his undercover name is RC. So I thought it was Manhattan North because that's what came up on the email.

But that should be encouraging to you, Pastor Burris, since he obviously listens to your or watches your YouTube channel.

Yes, sir. It's an honor and it's humbling. My motto is that of Moravian preacher from the 1700s, Nicholas Zinzendorf, preach the gospel, die and be forgotten. You know, I wouldn't mind if my wife, Jennifer, and my daughter, Reagan, and my son, Nathan, remember who I am.

But I'm very thankful for I'm very thankful for that listener.

What Revival Means

Well, praise God. Well, we are discussing the theme revival through repentance. Perhaps it would be a good idea for you to define what you believe, especially in a biblical sense, revival means.

Revival. And you have to remember, I grew up in an independent fundamentalist background. So that's usually defined as an emotional response. But it is a biblical term that it's a biblical model that causes us to return to the scriptures.

Through repentance, when we look at revival, we see a renewing of our faith, a renewal of our dedication to God. We see a turning away from our front. We have a change of mind about our sin that leads to a change of direction in our lives.

I cannot help but think about one of the greatest examples of repentance. But dealing with revival is a negative example. But in Jeremiah 8, 6, when the Bible says, no man regretted his evil saying, what have I done?

We need a return to Christ and scripture. But that's not going to happen until we come to ourselves as the prodigal did and say, what have I done?

Praise God. This is one of the distinctions that the Reformed faith has in the church, our understanding about revival. Not only what it actually is, but how it occurs, what the true evidences would be of a genuine revival.

It is something that very often in the non-Reformed world, Christians think they can somehow manufacture it, bring it about in their own strength and willpower. And because of their own faith, they will schedule dates as declared as a day of revival and that kind of thing.

They'll have revival meetings, and because people may be enthusiastic where they're being held. And in the case of Pentecostals and Charismatics, since they are filled with exuberant joy and excitement and many times dancing around, there could be very few and perhaps no actually regenerate people in the room.

And yet they're manifesting this scene that might give people the idea that this is truly a Holy Ghost filled event. In fact, just today, somebody posted a video on Facebook of a major event held by the United Pentecostal Church International.

For those of you who don't know anything about that group, they are a cult and they deny the Trinity. They also believe that speaking in tongues is essential for salvation, not like the other Pentecostal groups who do not believe that, but believe it is the sign of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Now, all cessationists disagree with that too, but that's not as severely a heretical understanding as believing it's necessary as a sign for salvation. But anyway, they were having a meeting that they identified as a revival meeting, and there were thousands of people jumping around and excited and repeating the word revival over and over and over again.

But that could have been a sea of lost humans in that place, especially since you're talking about people who deny the Trinity. Do you have any comments about that, brother?

Oh, absolutely. All we have to do is look back at the Asbury revival. Of course, I use that term very, very loosely, but it demonstrates that many people's understanding of revival is emotionalism and excitement, that it is a reinvigorating of the mind and, like I said, an emotional state of the heart.

But we have to come to the place where we fully understand that revival is a sovereign work of God. It is not something that we do. It is what God does to his people, and it is for his people.

It is for believers. It is for the elect.

It is for those that are his and where he regenerates our zeal, our holiness, our mission. That's not something that we do by having our favorite preacher come in or we have our favorite group come in and sing, or we join together with other churches and have, like you said, a scheduled meeting.

No, this is something that, just like salvation, only God can do that. Revival, only God can do that.

And would you say, historically, that revivals have ever really been a phenomenon that captured an entire nation, whereas they might have been more localized? There was a revival that took place in the 19th century in New York City.

Banner of Truth has a book about that revival called The Power of Prayer. But, obviously, there are very few biblically-minded, biblically-knowledgeable Christians who could dare say that America is having a revival because of the abominations that occur.

Even though we have a conservative president, a president who claims to be pro-life, we don't believe that he's regenerate. But he has been, apparently, we hope that it's a genuine state of mind that he has, where he has come to the defense of Christians being persecuted as much as a person could be persecuted in the United States.

And he has made his voice known that he despises that and wants to stomp that out completely, if that would be possible. But, nonetheless, we have babies being murdered. We have even conservative pro-life people tolerating it, wanting to take it slow before these things are eradicated from our planet, that kind of thing.

So, going back to my original questions, these things are more typically localized events, right?

Oh, definitely. Even if we go back to something like the Welsh Revival or the First Great Awakening, you look at people like Edwards, you look at Whitefield and the impacts that God used them to accomplish.

But then you compare that with something you mentioned, New York and the revivals. And, yes, there were pockets of revivals, true revivals, in the 1800s. But when you look at someone like Finney and the burned-over district and you see, well, that was a revival, all right.

It was a revival of cults. We have the birth of cults there. So many that come out of that emotionalism, out of that Pelagianism or semi-Pelagianism, depends on how kind you want to be to Finney. But the more we look at that, we see exactly what we don't want to see is a man-made emotional decision-based response to, again, an emotional call.

When God does a work and you see people genuinely turning to Christ and turning from their wickedness and you see God doing a genuine work, it is an amazing difference night and day. And, no, it is usually something that is very localized.

Revival in the Bible Belt

Okay. We have Earl in Jackson, Mississippi, who asks, since I am in the core of the Bible Belt where nearly every single human alive professes to be a Christian, what would revival look like here, in your opinion?

In a nutshell, it's a return to Christ in Scripture. It is an abandonment of our own sinful desires. It is abandonment of our own lusts, of our own it is an acknowledgment of that. It is, as we see in 2 Chronicles 7 .14, if we humble ourselves, there is a humbling, there is a praying, there is a seeking, there is a turning from evil ways, there is a hearing from heaven, there is a forgiveness of sin, there is a healing.

I know that 2 Chronicles 7 .14, that we see something similar in Isaiah 55. We see something, again, similar in Ezekiel 18. And then when we get to the New Testament, what do we see? We see Jesus going and preaching, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

And so we see the notion, we see two things, repentance and faith, repentance and faith, repentance and faith. You see it throughout the Gospels, you see it in Acts 3 with Peter and John, you see it in Acts 17 with Paul and the Athenians.

It is a consistent message. Repentance and faith are the things that you should expect when God sends true revival.

Now, I can recall many years ago, decades ago, having a conversation with an elderly conservative Presbyterian pastor in Mississippi. And when he said in his deep, grizzled voice, where are you from? I said, I'm from New York.

That's where I lived at the time. He said, huh, New York, you got it easy. All you got to do is get people saved. We got to get them lost, then get them saved. And I would think that in a place like Mississippi or any place in the Bible Belt, where nominal Christianity is rampant, that when a true revival occurs in a place like that, if a true revival occurs in a place like that, you're going to have hundreds of people, maybe thousands of people, confessing publicly.

I thought I was saved my whole life. I'm not. Not until now. I'm crying out to the Lord for salvation now. I mean, wouldn't that be like a powerful sign that God had truly visited that area in power when people already commonly call themselves Christians and were professedly Bible-believing churches and so on?

Oh, no doubt. No doubt. And when you see that, just as you described, you're going to see a zeal for the word of God. You're going to see people fall in love with not only Christ but his scriptures. You're going to see people devote themselves to prayer.

You're going to see people devote themselves to worship. There's going to be a faithfulness to the things of God. You're going to see them fall in love with church, with the church. You're going to see them have a desire to evangelize.