January 18, 2023 Show with Claude Ramsey on “The Mighty Works of God in the Psalms & Prophets”

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.

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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 Armisen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 18th day of January, 2023.

I'm absolutely thrilled and honored with the privilege of having on the program once again a man by the name of Claude Ramsey, pastor of Reformata Baptist Church of Knoxville, Tennessee. He's also host of the Here I Stand Theology Podcast, and he's a speaker, one of the speakers, at the upcoming open-air theology conference titled From Shadows to Substance in Tullahoma, Tennessee, and we'll be telling you more about that later.

But today, my guest, Claude Ramsey, is going to be discussing the theme, The Mighty Works of God and the Psalms and Prophets. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Claude Ramsey.

Thank you for having me, Chris. I certainly appreciate this opportunity, sir.

Well, I certainly appreciate the opportunity to have you on the program. The only time that Claude has been on the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio program so far, other than today, before today, I was manning an exhibitor's booth at the Fight, Laugh, Feast conference, a conference of cross-politic in Knoxville, Tennessee.

How long ago was that, Claude?

That was back in October.

That was in October. Wow, time flies. And I was walking past a booth before the Here I Stand Theology Podcast, and the host of that podcast, who I am speaking with now, Claude Ramsey, called out to me.

He recognized me, I'm assuming from Facebook photos or something. And he told me that he loved Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. He asked me if he could interview me. And then I also interviewed him on-site at that conference.

And I was struck by this dear brother's genuine humility and passionate love for Jesus Christ and his gospel. And I knew right then and there that this brother is going to become a lifelong friend. And I trust that that will continue to occur, that our friendship will continue to grow as the years progress, as long as the Lord gives us life.

And as I said, I am truly honored with your brotherhood, your friendship, and your presence on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio today. Let's hear about the Reformata Baptist Church of Knoxville, Tennessee.

The Church Plant and God’s Providence

All right, so Reformata Baptist Church was planted. It'll be 15 years ago in May this year. We planted the church there. We, of course, you know, we're still a very small church. We're still, as I say, in humble beginnings.

But we've moved from the living room to a garage, to a storefront, to another storefront. And then the Lord opened up the opportunity for us to get a building right down on Chapman Highway in Knoxville.

So really, it's just a providential act of God that we even are where we are now. And it's by the goodness of God that we had the opportunity to gather as a church body. Amen.

And I had the honor and privilege, after the Fight, Laugh, Feast conference, I stayed in Knoxville an additional day and had the honor and privilege to hear live, in person, Pastor Claude Ramsey preach at Reformata Baptist Church of Knoxville.

And it is a beautiful country church. It's a historic Methodist church, isn't it?

Yes, sir. In 1850, it was built.

Yeah, and I really had a blessed time. And I strongly urge any pastors listening, or anybody who has the authority to invite speakers to come to your church, or perhaps just to put a bug in the ear of your pastors, elders, deacons, to invite someone to speak.

It would be Claude Ramsey. I have a high recommendation of him. I was extremely, profoundly blessed by his powerful preaching. And now I know why my friend, Pastor Jeffrey Rice, whose name is likely familiar to the Iron Trump and Zion Radio listeners from the ads that air on this program every day, voiced by Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries for Post-Tenebrous Lux Bible Rebinding.

It's a bit of a tongue twister. And Jeffrey's having a conference, the very one that I mentioned, the Open Air Theology Conference from Shadows to Substance. And he invited Claude to be on the roster at that event.

And it's very easily understandable why Pastor Jeffrey Rice would do that, because Claude is a really, really powerful preacher. And also, you are, I found out not long ago, I didn't know this earlier, but you are a mutual friend of my dear brother, Pastor Keith Foskey of Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida.

How did you get to meet Pastor Keith?

Oh, goodness. We are affiliated together on the Truth and Love podcasting network, but it's one of those just kind of Internet friendships that began. But the more we talk to each other, the faster friends we become.

He's a he is a that's another good, godly man. And I know you've known him. How long have you known him, Chris?

I think at least six years, if I'm not mistaken, I met him. He thinks that we may have met earlier at a Bible conference, but the first time I was formally introduced to him was somewhere in the neighborhood of five or six years ago when I was accompanying my former pastor, Mike Gaydosh, of Solid Ground Christian Books on a conference tour.

We were both hopping from one conference to another where he was selling books for Solid Ground Christian Books. And James White, Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, was speaking at these conferences.

And he and Keith Foskey had invited Dr. White to speak at Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville. And that's when I had my first formal introduction to him. And as God's providence would have it, I knew that my late wives were one of my late wives of former pastors, Andy Montoro.

I knew that he lived in Florida, and I knew that he did not live far from Jacksonville. And I told him about this conference that I would be attending. I had not seen him in many years, and I was hoping to get the chance to rekindle a friendship with Andy and see him again.

Andy and Don Blind were the two pastors of First Baptist Church of Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, where my wife was a member, my late wife. And when Andy came to the conference, he also struck up a friendship with Keith, and now he's one of the pastors there.

It's a small world, isn't it? At least to the Lord.

Yes, it is. Now tell us about the Here I Stand Theology Podcast.

All right. So the podcast, we just began the podcast in January of 2020, is it now? I can't think. I've lost track of time, too. But in January, I think it was of 2020. Yeah, because this is 2023. This will be starting our third year.

Yeah. So a friend of mine, Matt Breeding, he's one of the contributors on the Truth and Love, on the Labor's podcast on the Truth and Love Network. And we had just, you know, it was just kind of a bug, just wanted to try to do something.

And our plan was to simply, you know, maybe do one episode a month at most. But the more and more content we see, the more and more friends we make, the more and more episodes tend to just kind of appear out of thin air.

So but I'm still not I'm still not to the point like a lot of the good podcasters where they've got it, they've got, you know, they do shows every day or at least every week. I'm not that hit. I'm still hit and miss on that because my time's, you know, spread between the church and my family.

Oh, of course, you're a pastor, which I am not. So I am more free to do these programs every day. And how do our listeners find both information about Reformation Baptist Church in Knoxville and also Here I Stand Theology podcast?

As far as the church content goes, it would be just Reformation Baptist Church page on Facebook. You know, we'd encourage folks, of course, go go to church on Sunday, find the church, get plugged in, get tuned in in your spare time if you want to listen to us or watch a sermon from Reformation Baptist Church, do that.

But and then for the podcast, it would be on YouTube at Here I Stand Theology podcast. And I think I can't remember really remember my handle on Twitter. I think it's Here I Stand Theo.

And while you're at it, Keith Foskey posted a video. He does comedic skits and he did the funniest one yet that I have ever seen him do. Absolutely hilarious, where he was posing as different kinds of Christians, fundamentalist, Presbyterian, Reformed Baptist, et cetera, who were representatives of different airlines.

Have you seen that one? Yeah, that is that's his best one. That was I was on the floor.

But if you have you go ahead, have you seen the one he did Jeopardy?

No, I didn't see that.

Yeah, he does the characters like they're on Jeopardy. It's pretty good. Oh, wow.

I've definitely got to see that. Well, yeah, look up Keith Foskey on YouTube, Sovereign Grace Family Church. I'm sure you'll somehow find his comedy, unless you know of another exact specific way to find it, Claude.

Conversations with a Calvinist.

OK, Conversations with a Calvinist.

I had the privilege of being we were on kind of with each other back to back last week or two. So I was on his show and he was on ours previously. We had some good conversations.

All right, now also tell us about this conference. I'm very excited to hear about the Open Air Theology Conference, From Shadows to Substance. It is being held at Covenant Reformed Baptist Church in Tullahoma, Tennessee.

And I know that at least now I've just found the dates. It's February 16th through the 18th. February 16th through the 18th at Covenant Reformed Baptist Church in Tullahoma, Tennessee. You are one of many speakers.

Let's see, they've got two, six, nine, ten speakers and you are one of them. And tell us about this conference.

All right. So, so, Jeff, originally the Open Air Theology Conference was going to be on a different topic. But Jeff and Braden and Haps, you know, decided he was originally going to go with a kind of like an expository look, walk through Ephesians.

Yeah, in fact, I interviewed Jeff on that and that was the theme. And I thought something had changed the last time I look at the.

Yes. So now it's shadows to substance, you know, looking at the Old Testament types and shadows that point to Christ and and I'll have the privilege of getting to speak on from David to Christ.

Oh, wow. That's a key one for sure. And if anybody wants more information on that, you can go to Covenant Reformed Baptist Church's website and it's on Even Bright as well. But that's URL is very complicated to read on a radio show.

So I'm getting Jeffrey's Jeffrey Rice's. His URL for Covenant Reformed Baptist Church of Tullahoma and that website is. Let's see here. Sorry, folks, I should have had this all queued up already.

Covenant. Oh, I just found it.

Covenant RBCTN dot com. Covenant RBCTN dot com. So I hope as many of you as possible will register for that and attend that conference in Tullahoma, Tennessee, February 16th through the 18th, and we'll be repeating that information later on.

Well, before we go into the theme of the mighty works of God and the Psalms and prophets, I usually only do this or ask this of my guests when they're first time guests. But technically, as far as my two hour live program, this is your first time since the only other time, as I mentioned before, that you have been on Iron Trumpets Iron Radio is when you conducted an on site interview, a much more brief interview at my exhibitor booth at the Fight Laugh Feast conference in Knoxville.

So since you're the first time a first time guest on the two hour version of Iron Trumpets Iron Radio, I would like you to once again provide for our listeners a summary of your salvation testimony, which would include the kind of religious atmosphere, if any, in which you were raised in the kind of providential circumstances or a sovereign Lord raised up in your life that drew you to himself and saved you.

I'd love to hear that story again.

Salvation Testimony and the Doctrines of Sovereign Grace

All right, thank you for the privilege to share this. So a point in time, March 1987 is when I got saved. Previous to that providential circumstance, looking back, of course, I don't realize this, you know, until we get there in time, but providential circumstances, looking back the way that the Lord worked things in our lives, we have, you know, we have hurt and pain.

We have loss and gain. We have all these things as a child. My father died exactly one month before I turned seven, which my mom was saved. But kind of in that loss in her life, you know, she kind of reached out.

And again, I do not want to cast my mother in a bad light. She was a good, godly woman, but she was just like the rest of us. She was a sinner and prone to sin. So she, you know, entered a series of relationships which carried us kind of, I won't say around the United States, but carried us from here in Tennessee where we grew up and to, I grew up in a little town called Merrillville, about 20 minutes from here in Knoxville, carried us to Knoxville and then carried us to South Carolina for a period of time, particularly my seventh and eighth grade school years.

But when we came back during my eighth grade school year, the Lord placed a good friend in my life at school and he invited me to go to church with him. And, you know, we hadn't, my mother hadn't instituted kind of a going back to church policy yet, but he invited me to go to church with him, to go to youth group with him.

And he invited me to go to, of all places, Nashville, Tennessee with, you know, where you've got five thousand teenage hooligans running around with shorts on their heads and acting a fool.

Shorts on their heads.

Well, that was probably the least of the things that went on. There's a lot of stuff that goes on at youth conventions that shouldn't. But nevertheless, the gospel was proclaimed. And that Friday night, sitting up high in the balcony at Vanderbilt, Nashville, Tennessee, the Holy Spirit convicted my heart and I got born again.

Like I told you at the conference, Mr. Aronson, I got born again that day and the Lord, I mean, the Lord saved me. He made me a new creature. I've been imperfect ever since, but I've been moving ever in growing ever in sanctification because of his Holy Spirit that lives in me.

So long in the short, that's my testimony of salvation. Hallelujah.

And how did you discover and come to embrace the doctrines of sovereign grace, also known as reformed theology and also known and nicknamed as Calvinism?

I love that question. I absolutely love it because here's the thing that I surrendered my call to preach when I was 17 years old and some people might ask, were you have you always been reformed since the Lord saved you and since the Lord called you to preach as well?

And my answer is yes, but at the time I didn't know it, I wasn't able to articulate. I wasn't able to, you know, explain those ideas and really, you know, for, for a lot of folks, I think reformed folks, particularly you, and you've probably heard folks use this terminology when you may, you may have heard somebody ask when were they converted to Calvinism, right?

When did you accept Calvinism into your heart or John Calvin into your heart? But it's, it's really, reformed theology is, is really something that you grow into. And I think it's best approached where you don't, you don't force the ideas on yourself by, by the theology books that back the scripture, but you go to the scripture and we let the scripture shape our thoughts and our perceptions of what is what, theologically speaking.

Yeah.

I have spoken with many folks, especially pastors who, when they, before they were in the ministry, they came purely through hearing the Bible accurately taught and reading the scriptures and studying the scriptures before they even ever knew anything that was labeled reformed theology, before they had even known who John Calvin was, even before they had known who Charles Spurgeon was or George Whitfield, they, they came to believe these teachings that we call reformed.

And then later they discovered, Oh, this actually has a name. This has a historic context too. And so it is a, it is a lie that is often hurled at us that that Christians would never believe in the doctrines of sovereign grace unless they also had a source of learning outside of the scriptures to teach them that.

And that is just not true. Now, do many people through a sovereign grace, believing reformed Calvinist teacher, preacher, writer, do many people come to these teachings by hearing these.

Men?

Yes, of course they do. But these men are expounding the scriptures. That's the, that's the thing that is like, for instance, I, when I first started hearing about unconditional election, I was very troubled about, by, I was visiting Calvary Baptist church of Amityville, which would later be the place where I was baptized by Mike Gaydosh, who now runs a solid ground Christian books.

He was the pastor of that church, which would later merge with first Baptist church in Merrick, Long Island to form the grace reformed Baptist church of Long Island in Merrick. But when I heard Mike, it was actually on a break at a Bible study on the book of Ephesians.

He was, it was on a break. We were having a coffee break for snacks and, and so forth. And I overheard him speaking with some other young men. I was in my twenties at the time. He was talking about a unconditional election with them.

And I walked over, I could still remember saying, you believe what? And he explained and a little bit more. And I said, man, that sounds weird to me. I, that sounds more like Hinduism or something. God chooses some people.

I don't even know what it sounds like. It doesn't sound anything like I ever thought Christianity was. I had been raised Roman Catholic and the only evangelical experiences I had when I left Catholicism were in the church of Christ, which is varying from ultra Arminian to Pelagian in their mindset, although they would never call it that themselves.

And also Pentecostal churches. I had never, before Calvary Baptist church of Amityville, I had never set my foot in a reformed church or picked up a book by a reformed author or heard a reformed preacher anywhere.

So this was all new to me. And when I was being interviewed for baptism, I said, brothers, I love you. I trust you with all my heart to be faithful guides and shepherds over my life. I want to be a member of this church where you pastor, but I gotta be honest with you.

I don't think I'm ever going to believe in this Calvinism stuff. And they said, well, we are not going to require that you understand and believe those things to baptize you. You just have to believe that you are a sinner deserving of hell and that you need to trust in the triune God and the death of Christ on Calvary's cross and his bodily resurrection to enter into eternal life.

That is your only hope for the payment of your sin. And if you believe that, we will baptize you and even welcome you into membership. And we would just insist if we welcomed you into membership in the church that you not undermine our teachings with other people.

You know, they didn't want me running up to people after a sermon telling them, you hear those lies, you know. So I agree to that. And but then within weeks, a British gentleman who became a very dear friend of mine, Nigel Stone, who's now in heaven, he approached me and he said in his very deep British accent, I heard that you're having problems understanding the doctrine of unconditional election.

Well, here's a booklet that would be of great help to you. George Whitfield's letter to John Wesley on election. And I read the book cover to cover. And my first reaction was, oh, no, this is true. But I still hate it.

This is really what the Bible teaches, but I hate it. But then, thankfully, within, I think, less than a month, I came to fall in love, madly in love with these teachings. And it made my connection to Christ finished work on the cross so much more personal.

In my mind, he was no longer a God who offered his son to die for a faceless, nameless sea of people that he was trying to save. That that came to an end. And I came to really understand and cherish the fact that Jesus Christ died for Chris Arnson and that he finished that work.

He completed it. He completed it was 100 percent success. He accomplished what he intended to do, and it just radically transformed my understanding of Christ's death. But that is all to say that it was not the words of George Whitfield that brought me to understand these things, because, number one, I didn't even know who George Whitfield was when I was handed that booklet.

I didn't know who John Wesley was. But it was the Bible. It was the scriptures that George Whitfield preached back to Wesley in writing. That's what convinced me. It was the scriptural evidence that overwhelmed Wesley's arguments and annihilated them.

And I had every one of, or should I say, every one of my arguments against Calvinism were regurgitated by Wesley. And he had even more that I hadn't even thought of that were annihilated by Whitfield.

So the Bible is completely sufficient to teach us these things. And through the power of the Holy Spirit, draw us to believe them. It does not require an extra-biblical, non-canonical source, as our opponents in theology would claim.

Amen. And on top of that, not only do we get to be Reformed, but we get to be Reformed Baptists.

That's right. Go ahead.

Oh, go ahead.

No, no, you go ahead.

I think about something Spurgeon said in a, what was it called? Let me look here. It was in Spurgeon's tribute to his godly mother at the end. He said this. My mother said to me one day, Ah, Charles, I often prayed to the Lord to make you a Christian, but I never asked that you might become a Baptist.

And Spurgeon, in his wit, said I could not resist the temptation to reply. Ah, mother, the Lord has answered your prayer with his usual bounty, giving you exceeding, abundantly above all that you ask for from God.

Yes, and I have met men who, through reading the scriptures only, came to an understanding of the Reformed faith, having not yet heard about what the Reformed faith was all about, and denominational affiliations and so forth.

And the first group that they discovered afterward were Presbyterians who were teaching this. So they became Presbyterian, and then later on they were like, Wait a minute, I just found out they were Reformed Baptists because that's really what I believe.

I just didn't think they exist. I didn't think they existed. And they later became Reformed Baptists because of that. I mean no insult to my Presbyterian friends by that, by the way. I probably interview more Presbyterians on this show than Reformed Baptists, so please don't be insulted.

But it's just, I think it is interesting that that has happened many times in the lives of people whom God has led me to meet. But we have to go to our first commercial break, and when we come back we're going to be entering into the theme The Mighty Works of God and the Psalms and Prophets.

And if you'd like to join us on the air for the question for Claude Ramsey, send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com. C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, 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 with Claude Ramsey in The Mighty Works of God and the Psalms and Prophets right after these messages from our sponsors.

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Why is it, first of all, that you wanted to discuss this great theme today?

Why the Psalms and Prophets Point Us to Christ

Well, honestly, Mr. Aronson, this is something that's constantly kind of on my mind and in my heart to communicate the importance of both the Old and the New Testament. I think what happens a lot of times is that there's a tendency for us as believers to get unbalanced, right, where we tend to lean more maybe toward New Testament reading only and we leave out and neglect the Old Testament.

But the Old Testament are the types and shadows that point us forward to our Lord Jesus Christ. So this is actually, I chose this topic when I was so thankful that you allowed me to choose the topic on this, that this was something that actually was my conference topic.

I spoke in a conference about early last year and this was my topic. So I just wanted to communicate, number one, the beauty and the glory of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and secondly, to communicate the beauty and the glory and the sufficiency of the Scripture itself and how it points us to the Lord.

Praise God. Well, begin with some of the first examples that you would like to share with us about the mighty works of God and the Psalms and Prophets.

So I'd like to begin actually by quoting one of the Puritans, William Grinnell. He said this, whenever you read any promise, remember whose bond it is. It's the Word of God and no other. And when you think on God, be sure you do not confine him within the little compass of your finite apprehensions, but conceive of him always as an infinite being whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.