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

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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

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

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

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

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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

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

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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

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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.

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No, they do not have a temple worshiping the Greek goddess Sophia. It is entirely a

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Baptist church that happens to be located in the city of Sophia in North Carolina. And I have

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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

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Roadmap to Revival conference in Tullahoma, Tennessee this

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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.

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Thank you so much for the honor of being on your program today, and it is a joy. Well it's a joy to have you, brother, and please tell our listeners something about Sophia Baptist Church.

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I have been the pastor of Sophia Baptist Church for a little over a year now. My first Sunday was last year,

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Palm Sunday. Sophia Baptist Church is located in Randolph County, North Carolina.

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We have a population of around 140 ,000 people in our county. There are over 400 churches. This church, when

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I took it, it was going through a difficult time. COVID hit it really hard.

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A lot of aged population in the church. The former pastor did over 400 funerals within his total span, but a lot of those,

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I think 200 of them in the last six, seven years, a lot of deaths in the church.

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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.

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And so we are, as I said, a reforming church. Our focus is on expository preaching, exegetical teaching.

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Our services are thematic. Everything that we do revolves around the preaching of the word of God.

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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.

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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

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Calvinism, where people are afraid to use that term, afraid to use that language, because if you do, you're going to be shunned.

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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.

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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.

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And there is no nothing better to accomplish that with than some of the historic confessions.

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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

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

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Praise God. And if anybody wants more details on Sophia Baptist Church in Sophia, North Carolina, go to SophiaBaptist .org,

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SophiaBaptist .org, and Sophia is spelled with a

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P -H. Sophia happens to also be one, the name of one of my nieces, my brother

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Bob's daughter, Sophia Grace. But so that has a special connection in my heart.

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Tell us about the upcoming Roadmap to Revival conference during which you are going to be one of the featured speakers.

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Oh, wow. What an honor. Brother Jeffrey Rice reached out to me a few weeks ago since, unfortunately,

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G3 was canceled. That was something I was really looking forward to. The last conference in 2023 changed my life and my family greatly.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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But then also Andrew Rappaport, who is absolutely brilliant. And then there's Keith Foskey, who is everybody's favorite

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Methodist, Big Eva guy. You know, if you watch his skits, his videos, but he is also a great, great brother who

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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.

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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.

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Just a great pastor with a huge heart and a great burden for the ministry and the things of God.

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Then, of course, there's Michael Schultz, who is just unbelievably brilliant. There's I don't have the words in my vocabulary to describe how smart this guy is.

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And he's been a huge help to me as well as I exited dispensationalism and Brother Schultz had a huge impact on that.

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And then there's Jeremiah Nordier, who is the apologetic dog, just an amazing, amazing guy.

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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

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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.

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I think he has demonstrated a lot of discernment when it comes to picking speakers for his conferences.

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So I am more than happy to promote this event and I'm looking forward to having

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Dr. James R. White following that event out here in Pennsylvania for both my next biannual

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Iron Trepans Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon and also that's on September 18th, by the way,

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Thursday, September 18th at 11 a .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania.

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And then the following Sunday on September 21st, he'll be preaching at the church where I am a member,

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Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. And for more details, go to IronTrepansIronRadio .com

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for both of these free events featuring Dr. James R.

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White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. Well, we have a tradition here on Iron Trepans Iron Radio.

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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

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Sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved you. So please tell us a summary of your story.

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OK, you may have to step in and stop me or tell me to hurry along. My parents divorced when I was three.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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My dad took me to martial arts. I fought him. My dad taught me to curse.

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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.

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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.

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And when you're told that over and over again, you're going to start to believe it and start to live it.

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And that's what I did. And there were days as I got into high school that I was told, did you really have to get off the bus today?

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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.

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And I don't want to get into all those details, but in May of 1994, I find myself at the bottom of my barrel.

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In fact, under the barrel looking up, I was afraid to harm myself, but I was miserable living.

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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,

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I was standing outside in my aunt's house and just screaming at God that I hated him.

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I was no atheist. I knew he existed, and I hated him for it. I was miserable, and I blamed him for everything.

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And 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

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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.

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I went and took them one day and put them in a trunk that I had. I went down to my uncle's building, outbuilding, pulled everything from the back right corner and threw that trunk over into the back right corner, piled everything

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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

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Bibles again that I had never opened. That weekend,

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I went to my mom's. It was something I was required to do, so I went to my mom's.

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And 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.

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We got to church. I fought that all weekend, finally said, okay, if I'm going, I'm driving. And so that Sunday morning we were on the way,

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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 and there were no manual, everything was manual in my 87

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Plymouth Duster. I rolled the windows down, turned the radio up as loud as I could in protest, listening to some profanity -laced music.

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And 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.

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And my family tried to cram me in the pew. And I said, no, I'll sit on the outside because I had a plan. I'd been in church enough to know that at some point in a typical

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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.

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And when he did, I was going to sneak out. And throughout the course of that service, God did a work in my heart.

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And the God that I had screamed at just a couple days before and told that I hated, throughout the course of that service,

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I began to love. And the seed that I so loved, I began to hate. And in the words of C .S.

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Lewis, who is not a theologian, I would quote normally, the God that I so desired not to know,

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I came face to face with. And that day, a great sinner met a greater savior.

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And he took my heart of stone and he gave me a heart of flesh. And I remember going home that evening.

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And I didn't, when I pulled, when I got home, I cried all the way home. I really didn't understand much of what had happened.

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I just knew that Christ had done a work in me. And so I went to him, didn't even pull in the main driveway at my aunt and uncle's house.

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And I pulled in down to where the building was. And I walked in there and started to undo everything that I had done to cover up that trunk.

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And 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.

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And I sat there and opened up one of those Bibles for the first time that I could ever remember. And in it, in one of them was notes, sticky notes, handwritten notes from one of my grandmother's that were just love notes from that she'd written years and years ago, even when

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I was just a little kid that I had never seen. And 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.

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And after I read through every note that was in that Bible, I started looking at the love letter on the pages itself and realizing, beginning to realize that our sovereign

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God had a plan and loved me before the foundation of the world. And ever since that day,

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I don't think I've cussed since that day. I don't think

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I have, I'm not stolen anything, not had a desire to since that day. I'm not perfect. Don't get me wrong.

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I know that I die daily, but I am thankful for the work that God has done in my heart.

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

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Oh, wow. So this was 1994, 1995 or 1996.

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I had preached a message or I had preached on Sunday night and my pastor had come to me afterwards.

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So during the message, I had been studying Oliver B. Green. And for those in the

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Independent Fundamental Baptist background will know that he was very popular and I had been reading after him.

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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.

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My pastor was so loving, so loving, so gentle. In that situation, he came to me.

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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.

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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.

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And so I went and I started digging. I called him up. It was a Thursday after that Sunday.

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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.

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And I said, do you know anything about that? He said, yeah. Okay. That's what I wanted you to figure out. And so from that time, from 95 or 96,

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I can't remember exactly how long it's been, but almost 30 years. Wow.

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Praise God. Well, we thank God that you are providentially under the tutelage of a sovereign grace believing man.

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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.

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This is not my guest, Jonathan Burris' congregation, but it's the church hosting the

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Roadmap to Revival conference on September 12th and 13th in Tullahoma, Tennessee, that we were discussing.

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That website is crbctullahoma .org,

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C -R -B -C -T -U -L -L -A -H -O -M -A .org.

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And if you click on events, you will see at the top of the page, the

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Roadmap to Revival conference, where Jonathan Burris is among the seven other speakers.

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And we will, God willing, mention that website later on in the program.

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Well, when we come back from our very first commercial break, we are going to be talking about revival through repentance.

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And if you do have a question about this subject, or on any biblical issue, really, you can submit it to chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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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

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U .S .A., only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter, don't go away.

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We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors. First, at 1 .30

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p .m., I'm speaking at Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle on the theme, Can We Trust the

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Bible is the Authentic and Inerrant Word of God? I hope you can join Chris and me for both events.

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For more details on the free pastor's luncheon, visit ironsharpensironradio .com.

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That's ironsharpensironradio .com. For more details on Trinity Reformed Baptist Church of Carlisle, visit trbccarlisle .org.

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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.

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Originally from Cork, Ireland, the Lord in his sovereign providence has called me to shepherd this new and growing congregation here in Cumberland County.

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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

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God. We are also devoted to living out the one another commands of scripture, loving, encouraging, and serving each other as the body of Christ.

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In our worship, we sing psalms and the great hymns of the faith, and we gather around the Lord's table every

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Sunday. We would love for you to visit and worship with us. You can find our details at TRBCCarlisle .org.

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That's TRBCCarlisle .org. God willing, we'll see you soon.

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio today. We're now back on the air with Jonathan Burris, pastor of Sophia Baptist Church in Sophia, North Carolina.

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We have somebody using an anonymous name, a pen name, as it were, or as he calls it, his undercover name.

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Thank you, Pastor Burris. And by the way, he goes by the name Manhattan North.

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Thank you, Pastor Burris, for your ministry and testimony. I am a stealth undercover Calvinist currently serving in an independent fundamentalist

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Baptist church in New York City. Please continue sharing about how God has sovereignly led you all these years.

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I subscribe to your YouTube channel. People like me in the independent fundamentalist

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Baptist closet need to hear this. Please pray for me that I would be bold and loving obedience as the

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Lord leads me. Thanks again to you and Brother Chris for all you do.

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Lives like mine are being changed in Christ. Oh, his undercover name is

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RC. So I thought it was Manhattan North because that's what came up on the email.

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

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YouTube channel. Yes, sir. It's an honor and it's humbling.

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My motto is that of Moravian preacher from the 1700s,

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Nicholas Zinzendorf, preach the gospel, die and be forgotten. You know, I wouldn't mind if my wife,

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Jennifer, and my daughter, Reagan, and my son, Nathan, remember who I am. But I'm very thankful for that listener.

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Well, praise God. Well, we are discussing the theme revival through repentance.

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Perhaps it would be a good idea for you to define what you believe, especially in a biblical sense, revival means.

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Revival. And you have to remember, I grew up in an independent fundamentalist background.

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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.

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When we look at revival, we see a renewing of our faith, a renewal of our dedication to God.

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We see a turning away from our, we have a change of mind about our sin that leads to a change of direction in our lives.

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I cannot help but think about one of the greatest examples of repentance.

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But dealing with revival is a negative example. But in Jeremiah 8, 6, when the people, when the

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Bible says, no man regretted his evil saying, what have I done? We need a return to Christ and scripture.

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But that's not going to happen until we come to ourselves as the prodigal did and say, what have

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I done? Praise God.

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This is one of the distinctions that the

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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.

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It is something that very often in the non -Reformed world,

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Christians think they can somehow manufacture it, bring it about in their own strength and willpower.

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And because of their own faith, they will schedule dates as declared as a day of revival and that kind of thing.

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They'll have revival meetings, and because people may be enthusiastic where they're being held.

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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.

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And yet they're manifesting this scene that might give people the idea that this is truly a

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Holy Ghost filled event. In fact, just today, somebody posted a video on Facebook of a major event held by the

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United Pentecostal Church International. For those of you who don't know anything about that group, they are a cult and they deny the

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Trinity. They also believe that speaking in tongues is essential for salvation, not like the other

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Pentecostal groups who do not believe that, but believe it is the sign of the baptism of the

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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.

35:28

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.

35:42

But that could have been a sea of lost humans in that place, especially since you're talking about people who deny the

35:49

Trinity. Do you have any comments about that, brother? Oh, absolutely. All we have to do is look back at the

35:57

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.

36:18

But we have to come to the place where we fully understand that revival is a sovereign work of God.

36:25

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.

36:31

It is for the elect. It is for those that are his and where he regenerates our zeal, our holiness, our mission.

36:39

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.

36:52

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

36:57

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?

37:21

There was a revival that took place in the 19th century in New York City.

37:29

Banner of Truth has a book about that revival called The Power of Prayer.

37:35

But obviously, there are very few biblically -minded, biblically -knowledgeable

37:45

Christians who could dare say that America is having a revival because of the abominations that occur.

37:56

Even though we have a conservative president, a president who claims to be pro -life, we don't believe that he's regenerate.

38:04

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

38:25

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.

38:37

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.

38:57

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

39:04

Oh, definitely. Even if we go back to something like the Welsh Revival or the

39:10

First Great Awakening, you look at people like Edwards, you look at Whitefield and the impacts that God used them to accomplish.

39:21

But then you compare that with something you mentioned, New York and the revivals.

39:26

And yes, there were pockets of revivals, true revivals in the 1800s.

39:33

But when you look at someone like Finney and the burned -over district and you see, well, that was a revival, all right.

39:40

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.

39:56

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.

40:10

When God does a work and you see people genuinely turning to Christ and turning from their wickedness and you see

40:20

God doing a genuine work, it is an amazing difference night and day. And no, it is usually something that is very localized.

40:29

Okay. We have Earl in Jackson, Mississippi, who asks, since I am in the core of the

40:38

Bible Belt where nearly every single human alive professes to be a Christian, what would revival look like here, in your opinion?

40:47

In a nutshell, it's a return to Christ in Scripture.

40:58

It is an abandonment of our own sinful desires.

41:05

It is abandonment of our own lusts, of our own – it is an acknowledgment of that.

41:11

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.

41:21

Then there is a hearing from heaven, there is a forgiveness of sin, there is a healing. I know that 2

41:26

Chronicles 7 .14, that we see something similar in Isaiah 55. We see something, again, similar in Ezekiel 18.

41:34

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.

41:42

And so we see the notion, we see two things, repentance and faith, repentance and faith, repentance and faith.

41:48

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

41:58

Athenians. It is a consistent message. Repentance and faith are the things that you should expect when

42:05

God sends true revival. Now, I can recall many years ago, decades ago, having a conversation with an elderly conservative

42:16

Presbyterian pastor in Mississippi. And when he said in his deep, grizzled voice, where are you from?

42:27

I said, I'm from New York. That's where I lived at the time. He said, huh,

42:33

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.

42:43

And I would think that in a place like Mississippi or any place in the

42:50

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.

43:11

I thought I was saved my whole life. I'm not. Not until now. I'm crying out to the

43:17

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

43:32

Christians and were professedly Bible -believing churches and so on? Oh, no doubt.

43:38

No doubt. And when you see that, just as you described, you're going to see a zeal for the word of God.

43:46

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.

43:53

You're going to see people devote themselves to worship. There's going to be a faithfulness to the things of God.

43:59

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.

44:09

You mentioned when we think about social issues like abortion and righteousness in the civil discourse, you're going to see people get involved in those things.

44:22

Those are all fruits of revival and things we should expect. Okay. We have

44:30

Pierre in Utica, New York. You said that you were at one time in the independent fundamentalist

44:43

Baptist movement. Were you a part of that group, because I know that they're not all the same, that taught that proclaiming that repentance from sin is necessary for salvation is a heresy?

45:01

No. I have always, thankfully, was trained and taught biblically that repentance and taught the biblical understanding of repentance.

45:13

I was not taught and did not hold to easy believism. Of course, a lot of people that I came around absolutely did.

45:25

And repentance was a dirty word to a lot of people, just like the doctrines of grace are even to this day.

45:33

If you watch many videos on my YouTube channel, you're going to see, or especially if you start reading the comments,

45:42

I get accused all the time of holding to a work salvation when it comes to repentance.

45:48

I have videos on my channel dealing with biblical repentance, what biblical repentance is. But I absolutely think that the doctrines of regeneration and the doctrine of repentance are lost doctrines, especially in many independent fundamental

46:07

Baptist churches. But why don't you define repentance? We've talked about revival as far as giving a definition.

46:15

Define repentance, because this amazingly seems like a mystery to even biblically literate fundamentalists who are really accusing those that understand what the

46:36

Bible is teaching about the necessity to repent. It's as if we're being accused of Romanism.

46:44

They don't seem to understand what repentance means. Yeah, when

46:52

I was talking about my testimony earlier, I made the statement and I'll reiterate it because I think it's a great way to describe biblical repentance.

47:03

It is a spirit -rawt, heartfelt hate where the

47:11

Spirit of God causes us to begin to hate the sin that we love and begin to love the

47:18

God that we hated. So there is, in genuine biblical repentance, there's going to be a conviction and a sorrow for our sin.

47:26

And there's going to be a love for God and a turning to God. And we see both of those things.

47:33

So that we do, like Jeremiah 8 says, we say, what have I done? We come to the realization that our sin ought to be despicable to us and that our

47:41

God ought to be the most wonderful thing to us. Yeah, I remember seeing the before -mentioned

47:51

Keith Foskey, who's a friend of mine, conducting an interview with,

47:57

I believe he had three independent fundamentalist Baptists on. And they were all from that persuasion that we're teaching that repentance from sin as necessary for salvation is a heresy, a damning heresy.

48:14

Well, number one, the palpable irony of that is that they would obviously then insist that we repent of that belief to be saved.

48:29

That's number one. But it was actually hilarious when

48:36

Keith confronted them with one scenario that creeped them out.

48:43

And they seemed to have to abandon their understanding of repentance when he said, well, are you welcoming into membership in your churches unrepentant homosexuals?

48:59

Oh, no, not that stuff. Not the homos. Oh, no. No, they're cursed of God.

49:05

They're going to hell. There's nothing you can do for them. They're never going to come to Christ. And in reality, if they're homos, you know, that was their pet sin that seems to reverse or nullify their beliefs.

49:23

Yeah. And it really does, I think, by and large, come down to a misconception or a misunderstanding of what repentance is.

49:33

Their understanding of what we believe repentance is, they think that we think it means to stop sinning, that we have to stop, that we have to clean up our lives, that we have to do something, i .e.

49:46

a work as part of salvation. But what we need to understand and what they need to understand is that it is a spirit.

49:56

It is a work of the spirit of God. It is not something that that we do. And in fact, if you're this this exact thing that you're talking about and that you just brought up with Brother Foskey and the conversation that he had with those guys, there's been some controversy over Ray Comfort here in the last while.

50:16

And his witnessing over the doctrine of repentance and over the way he states it and the idea of, is it stop sinning or is it to begin to feel sorry for sin, to have a conviction of sin, to have a desire to turn from sin?

50:33

You know, is it something that God is doing or is it something that you have to do? So that controversy is pretty widespread.

50:42

Yes. They act as if teaching the necessity of repentance is somehow teaching the necessity of sinners meriting their salvation.

50:55

And that's not true at all. It's nothing more than sinners doing a 180.

51:06

Sinners turning to God from their sin.

51:12

I can remember one of my former pastors talking about, imagine a couple are getting married and the groom is waiting at the front of the church for the bride to be escorted down the aisle to join them in marriage.

51:36

And the bride is walking down the aisle arm in arm with her former lover.

51:45

Is the wedding going to continue? You know, that's the kind of thing that people are expecting

51:54

Christ to welcome us into his kingdom as we are still gripping tightly to every abominable sin to which we are clinging to and preferring over him and his word and the life he has called us to.

52:17

We are really saying this is more important to us than Jesus and what he commands. And it really plays into, it really snowballs because once you abandon the doctrine of repentance and really what you see is it turns into, well, not only do you have easy believism, but it leads into what is,

52:44

I think, a gross distortion of the doctrine of perseverance. And it is this notion of once saved, always saved.

52:52

Now, I believe in the eternal security of the believer. But the notion of once saved, always saved, I heard an

52:58

IFB pastor say just over the weekend that he was talking about Bart Ehrman.

53:04

Bart Ehrman is an admitted apostate, but he made the statement that he believes

53:10

Bart Ehrman is saved because at some point in the past, he used to be a believer and because once you become a believer, you never become an unbeliever.

53:19

But this man is an apostate. He went out from us. He was not of us. And this, in his mind, because he prayed a prayer, whatever, one time in the past, he's in no matter what.

53:31

But no, if God did not do a work in his heart, then what should we expect? We should expect him to apostatize.

53:37

We should expect him to be where he is today. And so this notion of easy believism or cheap grace really results in a whole series of bad doctrines and bad theology.

53:50

And we have to go to our midway break. Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages. Puritan Reformed is a

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Join us in the glorious cause of advancing Christ's crown and covenant over the kings of the earth.

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Dr. Joe Moorcraft. I'm Joe Riley, a faithful Iron Sharpens Iron radio listener here in Atai in County Kildare, Ireland, going back to 2005.

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Welcome back, folks. Before I return to Pastor Jonathan Burrus and our conversation on revival through repentance,

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I'm sorry, revival through repentance. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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As always, give us your first name, at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside of the

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USA. And what should churches and Christians in general do, not that we, as we said before, merit

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God's favor, we don't earn anything from God, but is there something that the church should be expected to do on how we are approaching

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God and how we are living and obeying Him that would be accommodating to the answer to prayer for revival?

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What are we supposed to be doing about this? In Revelation 3 .19

01:11:03

to the church of the Odyssey, Jesus said, those whom I love I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.

01:11:12

We need to have a consciousness, we need to be consciously aware of our sin, which means we need to be scriptural focused in all that we do.

01:11:23

And I think that is so important that, and this is one of the reasons why so many get it wrong, is they look for revival in a meeting, in music or a message, when really it's in the scripture, we need to be scripture minded, whether we're looking at something like Nehemiah 8, or we go back and look at Josiah, Josiah's revival that takes place in his day when the word is found and is read from, and he calls the people to repent.

01:12:04

We see that change that takes place in the nation because there is a focus on the scripture.

01:12:11

And we should be expecting, obviously, as a result of that, to see the fruit of obedience.

01:12:19

Once God does do a work, we need to expect God to bring obedience and fruit in our life.

01:12:30

Okay. We have Barry in Council Bluffs, Nebraska, who wants to know, should bringing about revival be a constant theme of our prayers, not only in the church corporately, but privately?

01:12:53

Yes. Yes, it should. No matter where we are, we've not arrived.

01:12:59

I do not believe in perfect sanctification in this life, and we need to constantly draw closer to God.

01:13:06

And the one thing that we will find is the closer that we get to the Lord, the closer we walk with him, the more conscious, the more aware we are going to be of our sin, and the more our own sin will break our heart and will crush us.

01:13:21

So, yes, we absolutely need to be in constant prayer for revival, to never think that we are not in need of spiritual growth, of spiritual renewal, to never think that we have reached a degree of personal holiness where we do not need revival in our own hearts.

01:13:43

And I'm assuming that one of the motivations for doing that is that you want

01:13:50

God to have mercy on your family, friends, loved ones, neighbors, and nation, and the only way that he's going to be having mercy on them is if they come to Christ.

01:14:06

And that would involve, when you're talking about masses of people, that would involve a revival.

01:14:15

Absolutely. 2 Corinthians 7, verse 10, for godly sorrow produces repentance without regret, leading to salvation.

01:14:25

The sorrow of the world produces death. We absolutely need to have an attitude of repentance and be praying for revival because it does lead to just exactly what we just saw in the

01:14:38

Scripture. Give us some of the other key elements that you intend to include in your message.

01:14:47

Is that the only message you have at the conference? Yes, that is the only message that I will be bringing at that conference.

01:14:56

And so if you could give us some of the other key elements that you'll be addressing. I think one of the things that some people may overlook is one of the most beautiful things, and that is that revival through repentance may not be pretty.

01:15:17

And I think an example of that is seen in 1 and 2 Corinthians. When you look at 1

01:15:23

Corinthians and you see the trouble that that church was having and enduring and going through, the infighting, the sin that they were not correcting, and the trouble and the grief that it brings, even the

01:15:39

Apostle Paul. And you see that stern rebuke. But then when you get to 2

01:15:44

Corinthians and you start looking in particular at chapter 2, and this is something my son and I were talking about, and it was a great conversation between the two of us, that when you look there, if you're not paying attention, you may miss it, but you see the fruits of revival.

01:16:00

You see people, you see the church disciplining the guy that they weren't disciplining in 1

01:16:05

Corinthians. And you see Paul even talking about forgiving and restoring that individual and talking about it, and that in itself is a revival within the church at Corinth.

01:16:18

You see it more, the church's repentance going forward in 2 Corinthians 7. You see then after Paul's harsh letter, he's now speaking of their renewed zeal, their renewed godliness.

01:16:33

And so again, revival may not be pretty, but we ought to thank the

01:16:38

Lord for whatever he does in our hearts and what we see. And if it's not exactly what we expect, we ought to not miss what

01:16:47

God is doing. Okay. Amen.

01:16:53

Let's see here. We have

01:17:02

Drummond, who is located in Toronto, Canada, and Drummond says,

01:17:13

How far off should a church be before you leave it for another congregation?

01:17:22

Should a church be essentially a believer in the doctrines of grace, or can you attend in good conscience a church that has not yet arrived at those beliefs, as long as they are not involved in serious heresy?

01:17:43

Yeah, that's a great question. Matter of fact, I think that one comes up quite often on your show.

01:17:48

I remember Brother Phil Johnson having a similar question, and my answer will be similar to his.

01:17:54

I don't think you necessarily need to leave a church just because they don't affirm the doctrines of grace. Now, there may be a myriad of reasons.

01:18:04

There are good, sound expositors that do not affirm the doctrines of grace.

01:18:12

But if you do, now, it's not something that you should—if you have to be secretive about it, if it's something that would divide the body, if it's something that you would be a problem to the church in the view of the leadership, if you were to be vocal about that position, then, yeah, you may need to find someone, a place of like faith.

01:18:36

But I'm not going to say that you need to abandon just any place that does not adhere to the doctrines of grace.

01:18:44

Although I wish they would, I wish they did. But I would tell you that if it's something that you speak to your elders about and they are open to it, if it's something that they are studying, that they're praying about, that they're working through in the scriptures and that they may be coming to that conclusion, hang in there, pray with them.

01:19:09

If it's something that you feel like you cannot sit under and without it being a divisive problem, then you may need to do something different.

01:19:23

Kieran in Whately, Massachusetts says, Can you list some prominent pastors and writers who had great influence on your transformation into Reformed theology, both past and present?

01:19:40

Yeah, a bunch of dead guys from Europe. I love

01:19:47

Ben Maastricht, Babbitt. What was the first name that you mentioned?

01:19:56

Ben Maastricht. I don't know who that is. Just an amazing theologian, just absolutely brilliant.

01:20:03

I think he is just under, he's not well known as far as when we compare him to others.

01:20:15

But even Edwards has been wonderful to read. In fact, going way, way back.

01:20:23

So when I first started, when

01:20:28

I first came to the Doctrines of Grace, believe it or not, I had a book that I had a library book from when

01:20:35

I was in high school that I never returned. I don't remember the circumstances around.

01:20:40

I don't think I stole it, but it was literally a book about great Reformers. It was a book about great

01:20:45

Reformers. And for whatever reason, it's still on my shelf today. And so even then, going back and reading about Whitefield and the conversations between he and the

01:20:57

Westleys and over the Doctrines of Grace, that was an amazing help to me, even those years back.

01:21:07

But also Pink, I can't tell you how tremendous an influence

01:21:12

Pink had on me, because as an independent fundamental Baptist, there were a lot of guys that had

01:21:19

Pink in their library. And I remember walking into the library, the office of a particular pastor one day many years ago, and I saw

01:21:25

Arthur Pink's book on Genesis there in his library. And I said, hey, there's Pink. Are you a

01:21:31

Calvinist? And he said, well, I mean, he about jumped out of his chair. Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't say that word. Don't say that word.

01:21:36

And that is not an exaggeration. He said, we don't use that word around here. But yeah, so that was great.

01:21:44

But now, guys, recently, I love Dr. Sproul. I love

01:21:49

John MacArthur. I love Phil Johnson. Just an amazing guy. He's one of my favorites.

01:21:57

But the guys at this conference, Dr. White, has been a tremendous benefit to me in so many ways.

01:22:04

So many of his books. Going back and looking at those debates, even from the great debates, where the gentleman that I'm on this broadcast now,

01:22:16

Brother Arndsen, and seeing you moderate those debates, the impact that you guys have had on me over the years has been tremendous.

01:22:24

And it's something that I could never truly describe. Talk about Jeffrey Rice. Jeffrey Rice has a great series on YouTube about covenant theology.

01:22:34

It's been a huge help. Brother Keith Foskey has been a huge help. Now, that's not necessarily in books that they have written.

01:22:40

Dr. White, yes. MacArthur, Sproul, yes. But these other guys, no, it's been through conversations or the

01:22:46

YouTube, the video media, they're preaching ministries. But there are lots of guys like that. And I'll be glad to name more if you want me to.

01:22:54

Well, you don't have to stop if you want to include a few more. Yeah, I think

01:22:59

I said Edwards and Owen. Those guys are great. But I'll give you a negative example. I mentioned him earlier, but Charles Finney.

01:23:07

Charles Finney, believe it or not, when I went back and started looking at Finney and decisional responses, altar calls, those types of things.

01:23:19

And the more I studied Finney, the more it drove me deeper into the biblical doctrines of grace.

01:23:29

And I cannot underemphasize that because it really provides a stark contrast between what

01:23:37

I believe is biblical doctrine and what I believe is false doctrine based on emotionalism and man -centered religion.

01:23:46

Yeah. In fact, I just posted today after reading a post by a very dear friend,

01:23:55

Cynthia, that was critical of Charles G.

01:24:03

Finney. I posted the link not only to my interview with Jerry Johnson, who's a documentarian, and he created a documentary a number of years ago that is available on YouTube called

01:24:20

Beware of False Prophets, The Case Against Charles G. Finney. I posted the link to that interview

01:24:29

I did with Jerry, but also the link to the YouTube documentary. It's just totally amazing how many fundamentalists who claim to despise the false system of Rome, and yet laud

01:24:45

Finney, who was far more Pelagian than Roman Catholics are.

01:24:53

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And I kind of follow

01:25:01

Sun Tzu's teaching as far as knowing yourself and then knowing your opponent as well.

01:25:07

And so I want to know. I want to know what the opposing views are.

01:25:13

So whether it's Arminian theology, looking at those systematics, I've looked at that, and I've struggled with,

01:25:20

OK, with regards to prevenient grace, when exactly? Trying to wrestle with that and understand their view of that.

01:25:27

When exactly is prevenient grace applied? Is there something we can look at and say, this is when it takes place?

01:25:34

So I've read the Arminian theologians. I've read the Arminian systematics. And again, what it did is drive me deeper into the biblical doctrines of grace.

01:25:47

And I would say the same thing with, like I said, with Finney. So Sun Tzu, the author of The Art of War.

01:25:54

Mm hmm. Yeah, so that. And I know that's not a biblical book, but as far as I like philosophy, too.

01:26:01

And so going back and looking at things like that and pulling that back from my past. Yeah, I like to I like to study.

01:26:08

And of course, you're not going to do very well in debate. You're not going to do very well at polemics if you if you don't understand those who disagree with you and why.

01:26:16

Right. You reminded me before about seeing that book by A .W.

01:26:25

Pink on the bookshelf of a fundamentalist who exploded angrily when you asked him if he was a

01:26:33

Calvinist. It reminded me of a conversation I had with an independent fundamentalist

01:26:39

Baptist. When I was trying to arrange a debate with Dr.

01:26:44

James R. White and a King James only advocate. And I called this person who was recommended to me as a great candidate for that.

01:26:58

And when he was when I called him. He assumed that I was on his side of the issue.

01:27:07

And so we're having a conversation that began in a pleasant way. He said, where are you from?

01:27:15

And I said, now I'm living in Pennsylvania. I'm from New York, but I'm living in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

01:27:20

Well, I've got a big place in my heart for Pennsylvania because my hero, my greatest hero of the faith,

01:27:31

George Whitefield, had some very important connections in Pennsylvania.

01:27:38

He held meetings there. And I actually have financed the erection of a statue in the honor of George Whitefield.

01:27:50

And so when you mentioned Pennsylvania, I know that he had a strong connection there. And I just made my heart sing.

01:27:57

And he's going on and on and on. So then he goes, well, tell me something about your church.

01:28:04

And I said, well, it's a Reformed Baptist church. And all of a sudden, the other end of the phone went silent.

01:28:14

And he said, well, I don't even want to talk to you no more. Hearing the sound of your voice is making me sick and not even exaggerating.

01:28:26

And I said, wow. I said, thank you for the brotherly kindness.

01:28:32

And I said, just out of curiosity, you're telling me that my

01:28:41

Calvinistic views make you so angry that even hearing my voice makes you sick.

01:28:48

How on earth could George Whitefield be one of your heroes? Don't you know he was a

01:28:54

Calvinist? He said, I know that. What do you think, I'm stupid or something?

01:29:00

And I said, well, that doesn't explain how you could hate me and love

01:29:06

Whitefield. He said, George Whitefield was a man of God that lived a long time ago and did many great things for the kingdom.

01:29:14

I said, yeah, but he was a Calvinist. He hung up. So that kind of reaction is quite bizarre, isn't it?

01:29:23

When you have these men who despise churches and pastors and preachers and teachers today who are

01:29:32

Calvinists, and yet they uphold as their heroes men like Charles Adams Spurgeon, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, John Bunyan.

01:29:43

And, you know, you could go on and on with great men of faith. In fact, if you get the book by Tom Nettles, By His Grace and For His Glory, which is basically a compilation of the greatest names from Baptist history, and they were all, the greatest names were all

01:30:02

Calvinists. And most of those men are upheld today even as heroes of even anti -Calvinist fundamentalists.

01:30:11

And it makes absolutely no sense. Do you have any explanation in your mind for that?

01:30:18

Yeah, definitely. I have an idea about it. I published a video this morning on my YouTube channel about the

01:30:25

IFB and King James Version only is consistency problem. And it was over this exact thing.

01:30:30

So I played a video of a particular popular IFB pastor who made the statement, he's not going to rub shoulders with somebody that rubs shoulders with somebody that rubs shoulders with somebody that baptizes babies.

01:30:44

Now, of course, we're Baptists. We don't, but I have learned so much from my Presbyterian friends.

01:30:50

But it was hilarious because the guys preaching from a Scofield Bible and I turned to the title page and there's a list of contributing editors, of which there are eight.

01:31:02

And three of those eight were Presbyterians. And so there's his

01:31:08

Bible of choice, his study Bible of choice. Contributing editors were

01:31:15

Presbyterians who baptized infants and also were Calvinists. And then we look not only at that, but the

01:31:22

King James translators and every one of those were, whether they were true

01:31:29

Calvinists or not, they affirmed the 39 articles of religion, which is Calvinistic. They were all.

01:31:35

They were all Paedo -Baptists. Yes, they were all Paedo -Baptists. And then,

01:31:41

OK, if you take it back before that and look at the TR that they used, they used primarily

01:31:46

Stephanus and Beza. Who were those guys? Stephanus, Calvin's parenter in Geneva, Beza, Calvin's successor in Geneva.

01:31:53

And so you have a huge consistency problem. If you want to hate Calvinists, you might want to let go of that 17th century

01:31:59

Anglican translation that is quite Calvinistic. Right. And especially since many, if not most, independent fundamentalists say that they have no part of the

01:32:11

Reformation and they despise Anglicanism, not just the apostates and leftist

01:32:22

Anglicanism, but they despise Protestantism in general, even when it was biblically

01:32:28

Orthodox. And so none of it, it's all schizophrenic.

01:32:33

It makes no sense. Oh, yeah, it's very inconsistent. Yeah, no affiliation whatsoever with the

01:32:42

Roman Catholic Church. So there's no need to reform. So not part of the Protestant Reformation. But at the same time, their

01:32:48

Bible of choice is an Anglican translation that came out of the Reformation.

01:32:54

That was the Greek that it was based on was from started by, you know, the

01:32:59

TRs of the compilation of that was started by a Roman Catholic priest, Desiderius Erasmus.

01:33:05

So, yeah, there is a huge consistency problem. But the thing is, is when you look at Calvinism in the history of it and you look at Roger Williams in the colonies, when you look at even in North Carolina, in my home state here, just right up the road,

01:33:24

Shubel Stearns and Shubel Stearns, the first Baptist church in North Carolina. And people will flock over there.

01:33:29

There are churches, independent fundamental Baptist churches that take their people over there and they'll have a picnic over there.

01:33:35

They'll celebrate over there and just have a great time. But what they don't focus on is that they don't want to deal.

01:33:42

They don't want to talk about esoteriology. Let's not talk about that at all. Most of them don't even know it. And the ones that do know it.

01:33:48

Well, let's just let's just ignore that. Yeah, there is a society made up of King James only activists called the

01:34:00

Dean Burgeon Society. Have you ever heard of this? Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

01:34:05

And I love they love to use him, but they don't understand that he was not he did not believe that the

01:34:12

TR was was perfect. And you also I don't know if this is still the case, but from what

01:34:18

I understand, at one point, you had to be a Baptist to be in the Dean Burgeon Society and Dean Burgeon was an

01:34:23

Anglican. Yeah, I don't know about that, but based on the consistency issues that they have,

01:34:30

I wouldn't be surprised. Well, we have to go to our final break right now.

01:34:36

And if you have a question that you'd like to ask Pastor Burroughs, please submit it now or forever.

01:34:42

Hold your peace because we are rapidly running out of time. Our email address again is chrisarnson at gmail dot com.

01:34:50

Chris Arnson at gmail dot com. Give us your first name at least city and state and country residence. Don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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01:36:11

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01:43:39

We are now back with Jonathan Burrus. And as I said earlier, if you would like to join us, this is our final segment of today's program.

01:43:51

And if you have a question, I would highly advise you submit it quickly. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

01:44:00

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01:44:09

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01:44:15

I have a question from Thad, which I'm assuming is short for Thaddeus. Thad in Nichols Hills, Oklahoma, wants to know,

01:44:26

What I have never understood about most conservative Bible -believing churches is that they seem to carp...

01:44:35

I'm sorry, I think there's a typo here. They seem to...

01:44:41

let me just put it in my own word. They seem to put aside, as an entirely different category, the issue of how one votes.

01:44:52

If a person was known to be reading pornography, they would likely be put under church discipline if they didn't repent for that kind of a thing.

01:45:01

And we could go on and on with all kinds of very wicked things, which people might be involved in, in their television watching, movie viewing, and entertainment in general.

01:45:17

But, for some reason, the issue of voting is held as some kind of sacred thing that can be private, personal, and no one would dare to consider putting somebody under discipline for voting for a pro -abortionist or somebody who is supporting same -sex marriage and that kind of a thing.

01:45:43

How do you reconcile this? One of the things that I mentioned earlier, as far as a fruit of revival and a fruit of repentance, was that it would impact every area of your life, including your view on social issues.

01:46:00

The vote is private, and many times you don't know how someone voted unless, of course, they speak up.

01:46:06

Now, if you have someone who is openly advocating for abortion, if you have someone who is openly advocating for –

01:46:18

I'll give you an example. This Saturday, in the county seat of the county that I live in, there is a bar that is having a drag show.

01:46:32

If I find that – if someone came to me and said, look, one of your church members is openly advocating for this, supporting this, is encouraging this, that's going to become a problem that has to be addressed.

01:46:48

And that is going to be something that we're going to have to look at that from a church discipline perspective.

01:46:55

It's unavoidable. When you see that type of a situation, I think that at some point, depending on what it is, if you've got somebody that just – all right,

01:47:04

I'm going to vote for higher taxes. If we're talking about sin, something that the

01:47:10

Bible clearly documents as sin, if we're talking about homosexuality, if we're talking about the abortion movement, these people are openly advocating for this, then, yeah, it's a disciplinary issue.

01:47:25

So, in other words, if somebody was to make it clear that they are voting for some left -wing

01:47:31

Democrat who is openly pro -homosexual marriage and abortion,

01:47:38

I'm assuming first you would have a sit -down with that person and go over why they're doing this and all that kind of a thing.

01:47:45

And if they refuse to change their mind, would that be a disciplinary issue? I think it can be, yes.

01:47:51

I'm glad to hear that. Full disclosure,

01:47:57

I do have a political consulting firm where I try to support and help conservative

01:48:04

Christian candidates get elected and only the candidates that we personally vet. And so this is something that is near and dear to my heart.

01:48:11

Wow, I didn't even know that. Got to talk about that later on. But the thing that makes it very hard in the 21st century, somebody advocating for homosexual marriage and the murder of unborn children just a few decades ago, even if they were a

01:48:31

Democrat, people would be horrified by it. Today, you have even people that are labeled as right -wing

01:48:40

Republicans who are very soft on this or even approving of it. I always wondered why people on the left were so vehemently opposed to Donald Trump, basically making him out to be some homophobe and trying to remove the rights of homosexuals and so on.

01:49:08

He has never said or done anything that would offend homosexuals. I mean, the one thing that he has been thankfully clear on is that he's openly opposed to the transgender movement, especially since they are sexually mutilating children because of some bizarre fantasy, a fantasy they've probably been fed that they are a member of the opposite gender, even as little kids.

01:49:40

But it's harder to vote for people that basically have a

01:49:47

Christian position on many of these issues.

01:49:54

Even Donald Trump, who many evangelicals voted for, especially since The Alternative was a horror show, he backtracked on his formerly more stern opposition to abortion and that kind of thing.

01:50:16

So it is a difficult position that we're in today. Yeah, and one of the things that we do as a church, just here in the last couple of months, back in April, we had what many people call a pregnancy crisis center.

01:50:35

It's actually a Christian organization that does everything they can do to to rescue babies from abortions through getting them ultrasounds and then walking with the families that choose life for the first two years of their life.

01:50:48

Our family, our church supported them as a mission, and we're very thankful to not only support them financially, but to help them and to go and to be a part of the lives of those individuals that choose life.

01:50:58

But then there are those in the one of the abortion facilities in Greensboro, just up north of where we are at.

01:51:09

There is on Saturdays one of the escorts, one of the handlers who will bring drive women to this abortion facility to have their abortions, is the pastor of a church that has

01:51:23

Baptist on the name. And he's one of the ones that is, like I said, is a handler bringing them here.

01:51:29

So, you know, we can we can complain about politicians not wanting to support life.

01:51:35

But until we get to the point where we as believers are willing to understand what

01:51:40

God said about life and what God said about marriage and about relationships between one man and one woman.

01:51:48

We have no excuse to be angry with our politicians if we're not willing to deal with it within the church.

01:51:56

How do you deal with the folks who would say, well, the church's place is not to govern how people outside of the church live.

01:52:11

So I have no problem voting for liberal candidates if I agree with their fiscal policies.

01:52:20

And they say that there are too many

01:52:26

Christians who are trying to seek power in areas that the church doesn't belong in.

01:52:37

How do you respond to that kind of way of thinking? I don't think there's an area of our world that we do not belong in.

01:52:47

There is no secular when it comes to the believer. Everything that we do is worship.

01:52:52

Everything that we do is holy. Everything we do is as unto the Lord, whether therefore you eat or drink, whatever you do, do unto the glory of God.

01:52:59

And that is the way that we should vote. That's the way that we should carry ourselves in the civil discourse. That's the way that we should conduct ourselves on social media.

01:53:06

And that's the way that we should conduct ourselves in our private life. We do not leave our faith outside of the voting booth.

01:53:11

We do not leave it outside. We do not leave it at home to take it to the workplace. I see people in the corporate world.

01:53:18

They're told once they get to an office, once they get to management, they have to leave their faith checked at the door.

01:53:23

I'm sorry. If you can disconnect from your faith, you don't have a real faith. Okay. Well, I'd like you in the six minutes or so that we have remaining to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

01:53:40

First of all, I want to thank you, Brother Chris, for allowing me to be on your program today. It is a great honor to be talking to the brother that I've watched over the years on hosting or moderating debates for Brother White.

01:53:54

And this is just a great honor. And I would say also, I would encourage any of your listeners who are in a position where they are able to financially support the program to do so.

01:54:05

One of the things that moved me listening to your program is you readily tell people if they are not financially able, if they're dealing with hardship, don't give.

01:54:14

But another thing that you said that is really important is you are not willing to compromise who you are and what you believe in order to take on sponsors that disagree with your theology and with your principles and with your character.

01:54:30

And that is admirable. And so, again, I would encourage people to do that and to honor you as you honor the

01:54:38

Lord. Lastly, I want to encourage everyone who is able to attend the meeting at Brother Jeffrey Rice's in Tullahoma at Covenant Reform Baptist Church on September 12th and 13th.

01:54:54

As we address the roadmap to revival, come. If you can't come, pray.

01:55:00

Please pray. Pray for these men who are incredible speakers. These people that you know, that you have listened to.

01:55:08

Pray for these men. Pray for these brothers. And pray for me as we address a difficult topic, a sensitive topic, but a needed topic.

01:55:17

It is something that so often people try to manipulate or try to create themselves.

01:55:22

But this is something that we must seek the face of the Lord for. And only he can give us revival.

01:55:28

But if there is one thing that is evident, we need revival. We are desperate for revival.

01:55:33

And so please pray for this meeting. I would strongly encourage you to consider going, especially anybody that was planning on going to G3, as me and my family were.

01:55:47

This is much cheaper. This is much cheaper. And so this is a very affordable meeting.

01:55:53

And this is some incredible, an incredible group of speakers that not only are brilliant in their knowledge and understanding of the word of God and their ability to exegete and exposit the text, but also they are passionate.

01:56:07

And their hearts are hearts that are for the Lord. And so I praise the Lord for these men. And I ask you to pray for them and support them and to continue to pray about going to this meeting.

01:56:16

But also, Brother Arndt, in your meeting as well that will follow shortly thereafter, for people to pray about and consider attending that meeting as well.

01:56:24

Well, thank you so much. You've humbled me with your encouraging words. The honor has been all mine to have you on the program today.

01:56:33

And I want to remind our listeners of the websites of the relative events that we have been promoting.

01:56:41

First of all, the Roadmap to Revival Conference, which is September 12th through the 13th, is being held at Covenant Reformed Baptist Church in Tullahoma, Tennessee.

01:56:54

The website for more details on that is crbctullahoma .org.

01:57:00

C -R -B -C -T -U -L -L -A -H -O -M -A dot org. And click on events and you'll see all the details that you need.

01:57:09

The website for Sophia Baptist Church in Sophia, North Carolina, where Pastor Burrus serves as one of the elders there, is sophiabaptist .org.

01:57:24

Sophiabaptist .org, and Sophia is spelt with a P -H, not like the

01:57:29

Latin spelling with an F. And if you are a man in ministry leadership, please come to the

01:57:39

Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio Free Pastors Luncheon, which is going to be held on Thursday, September 18th, featuring

01:57:45

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries. That's Thursday, September 18th at 11 a .m.

01:57:52

And Church of the Living Christ is in Perry County, Pennsylvania. It's absolutely free of charge.

01:57:59

Admission is free. Your lunch is free. And every man in attendance gets a heavy sack of free brand -new books personally selected by me and donated by Christian publishers all over the

01:58:12

United States and the United Kingdom. Everything is always free at the Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio Pastors Luncheon at the strict orders of my precious late wife, who is the one that came up with the whole concept of these

01:58:25

Pastors Luncheons when I was still living on Long Island, New York. And we were conducting those luncheons since the 1990s.

01:58:35

And when my wife went home to be with the Lord, I have continued to conduct these luncheons in loving memory of her and in honor and tribute to her.

01:58:48

And I keep them structured exactly the way she wanted me to, with nothing ever for sale.

01:58:55

People have asked me, hey, can I sell this there or sell that there? And I say, nope, sorry, you can give stuff away.

01:59:01

But we're not having anybody do anything that causes them to reach for their wallet while they are there.

01:59:07

My wife wanted this to be nothing but a pure 100 % gift to men in ministry.

01:59:14

And that's the way I'm keeping it. And then, of course, on Sunday, the 21st, Dr. White will be preaching at the church where I'm a member,

01:59:20

Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. For information on both events, go to www .IronTroopensIronRadio

01:59:28

.com, www .IronTroopensIronRadio .com. And there are banner ads for both events at the top of the page.

01:59:35

I want to thank you, Pastor Burrus. I want to thank everybody who listened. And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater