June 18, 2015 ISI Radio Show with Pastor Keith Foskey on “How Sovereign Grace Led a Church OUT from a Liberal Denomination (Disciples of Christ)”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Now here's our host Chris Arnton. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth.

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This is Chris Arnton your host of Iron Sharpens Iron wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 18th day of June 2015.

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Before I introduce to you my guest and topic for today, back in the 1980s

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I entered an advertising contest for Hebrew National New Miracle Salami, 88 % fat -free salami and I was one of 30 finalists after they went through, after they sifted through thousands and thousands of entries and I didn't win but I was one of the finalists and one of the lines in a jingle

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I wrote for Hebrew National's New Miracle Salami which I sang in a recording in a

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Yiddish accent was, go tell your brother, sister, daddy and your mommy about Hebrew National New Miracle Salami.

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Well I want you to go tell your brother, sister, daddy and your mommy about Wading River Baptist Church in Wading River, Long Island, New York because they just once again blew me away and they notified me today that they are donating more high -end state -of -the -art equipment to the studios of Iron Sharpens Iron and so we're going to be even hopefully being better in our audio fidelity, our ability to have guests and studio and all kinds of things like that.

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Wading River Baptist Church has already been enormously generous to us. Pastor Ron Glass of Wading River Baptist Church is a dear, dear friend and I highly recommend if you live in Eastern Suffolk County, visit their website wrbc .us,

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that's wrbc standing for Wading River Baptist Church .us or if you're vacationing out in Eastern Suffolk County, a lot of people go to the

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Hamptons and other places in Eastern Suffolk, well I strongly recommend

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Wading River Baptist Church and thank you again Pastor Ron Glass and the folks at Wading River Baptist Church for the gracious gift that we should be receiving next week sometime.

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Today we have, I think, a very important program and a very special guest that I had the privilege to meet during a trip to Florida where I was the emcee for a theological debate and accompanied

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Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries on a speaking tour. I met this dear brother,

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Pastor Keith Foskey, who's the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida and I knew right away after speaking with him for five minutes

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I have to get this man on my radio program after it launches and that is

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Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida. Their website is sgfcjax .com,

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sgfc for Sovereign Grace Family Church, jax, j -a -x .com.

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It's my honor and privilege to have for the very first time on Iron Sherpa's Iron, Pastor Keith Foskey.

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Welcome to the program. Yes, hello Chris. Thank you so much and it was a pleasure to meet you and it's been a real blessing to have you and now call you brother and friend and be able to get to know you better over these last few months.

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It's been wonderful. Yes, and today we are going to be discussing the theme how Sovereign Grace led a church out of a liberal denomination and the

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Sovereign Grace Family Church was originally a congregation within the Disciples of Christ denomination which according to the

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World Council of Churches is the fifth largest denomination in the United States and according to Newsmax in July of 2013 the

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Gay Star News reported that the denomination, the Disciples of Christ, passed a resolution openly welcoming lesbians, homosexuals, bisexuals and transgender people into church membership and enabling their ordination as ministers and the

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Des Moines Register in Iowa reported one year later that a

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Disciples of Christ church in Davenport, Iowa wed a lesbian couple in a same -sex wedding.

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So obviously there were radical changes in the denomination that I'm sure gradually built up over the years to the point where they reached the open ordination and marriage of homosexuals and tell us something about your personal history as being a part of this denomination and then becoming a pastor and so on.

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Well it's interesting because I am the pastor of this church. I actually grew up in this church.

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I was introduced to this church by my stepmother when I was eight years old and I went to church with her and was there, you know, every

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Sunday because she was a very devoted church member and the

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Christian Church Disciples of Christ and growing up in the church

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I didn't understand what liberalism was. I didn't understand what conservatism was. I didn't understand a lot of those things and I certainly didn't understand a lot about theology.

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I was a lost young man even though I probably would have said that I was a believer.

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Looking back on my life I don't believe that I truly came to an understanding of grace until I was 19 years old when

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Christ saved me. So I grew up there, going to church there as a lost young man.

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I didn't really understand what was going on. I knew we went to church. I knew there was a very structured service.

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There was a lot of liturgy that was involved, responsive readings, and very much a high church feel.

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The felt like high church. I would go sometimes with my mother to the

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Holiness Church, which is where she was, and it would be much different. There were no robes. There was no liturgy.

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It was much more charismatic. I sort of had a wild separation of two different types of churches.

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One was expressively high church and the other was sort of more charismatic and open.

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As I grew up, as I said, I tended to lean more towards the

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Forest Church, and perhaps it's because I went there more. Perhaps it was because I was uncomfortable in the

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Charismatic Church. I'm not sure. But I just always felt more at home there. But as I grew up, especially when

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I turned 19 and was saved, I was actually saved by the ministry of a Presbyterian friend who led me to Christ.

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After I was saved, I began to recognize that there were things that were going on in the church, things that were being taught, and more so things that weren't being taught that were really an issue.

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That was in 1999 is when I was saved. I was 19 years old, and it was a couple of years later that God called me to ministry.

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Actually, right after September 11th, I preached my first Sunday, the

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Sunday after September 11th. It was as a result of our pastor at the time was out, and I preached my first sermon there.

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Wow, what an opening to the pulpit. Well, you know, it was amazing because at the time, the elders of the church obviously needed someone to preach, and they knew that that's where my heart was leaning because I felt

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God was calling me to preach, but I had not done it. I had only taught in Sunday school and other things like that.

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And again, I was still a relatively new believer. I'd only been a believer for a couple of years at that point from 1999 to 2001.

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But they asked me to preach, and so I did, and I preached. I'm sure it was a very bad message, thinking back.

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I know that I preached Romans 13, and the fact that the government does not bear the sword in vain, and that basically we're about to go to war, and we should pray for our government, pray for our military.

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That's all I knew. Let me just repeat our email address if anybody listening has questions to be read on the air.

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You can remain anonymous if you prefer, but if it's not involving a personal, private, or intimate matter, we urge you to please at least give your first name, and the city and state where you reside, and if you're outside of the

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U .S., the country where you reside. Email your questions to Pastor Keith Foskey at ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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That's C -H -R -I -S A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com,

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and we look forward to reading your questions on the air. Please keep them as brief as possible, and we look forward to hearing from you, even if you radically disagree with what our guest is saying.

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The Disciples of Christ, I know, came out of the 19th century restoration movement.

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I believe that was even the original title of the denomination that Alexander Campbell and his father,

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Thomas, had developed the name Disciples of Christ. They wanted a biblical name, and the movement's theme seemed to be to break away from denominationalism.

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I happen to know many close friends of mine in the Church of Christ, which is today the much more conservative wing of that, and also the

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Christian churches, which are the ones that actually use musical instruments in their worship services, unlike the former

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Church of Christ, although they do sometimes go by the name Church of Christ as well. And then

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I believe it was in the early 20th century when there was the split with the Disciples of Christ, correct? Yes, and that was something that, again,

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I learned a lot about because of entering into ministry, coming out of that church. I began to investigate the history of our own church and where the doctrines had come from, and I began to recognize that people within our denomination taught things such as what they call baptismal remission, and that's something that I often like to clarify, because baptismal regeneration is the belief that a person is born again when they are baptized.

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And while that is true that the restoration movement teaches that, they don't typically call it baptismal regeneration.

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What they call it is baptismal remission. They believe that your sins are remitted in baptism, and they base that on, of course,

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Acts 238, repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins, and they use that for there as an expression of, in order to receive the forgiveness of sins.

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And so they make the argument that for a person to truly be forgiven, they must be baptized by immersion, and they must be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

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And there's an argument about the Trinitarian formula, whether or not, you know, the

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Trinitarian formula should be used in the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit. Some believe that you only baptize in the name of Jesus Christ.

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And so there's a lot about baptism that is debated and argued, but you're right, it was the

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Alexander Campbell, Barton Stone, Walter Scott, those three men came together and began this movement, and out of that has grown several groups,

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Nurses of Christ, Disciples of Christ, North American Christian Convention, I think was this one, and all these are different groups that really find their root there in those men.

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And I went to a Baptist seminary, and interestingly enough, the church paid for my seminary.

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The church was so gracious recognizing my call to ministry, they offered to give me a scholarship to go to seminary.

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So I went to a local seminary, Jacksonville Baptist Theological Seminary here in Jacksonville, and again, going into a

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Southern Baptist seminary, having come out of a Disciples of Christ church, you know, it was kind of a culture shock, but in a good way.

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But it wasn't a Reformed seminary. At the time I wasn't Reformed, but I began to study, and I began to see names start popping up like Spurgeon and Edwards and Calvin and Luther and others, and so it wasn't long before the

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Reformers began to influence me in their writings, and of course modern teachers like Sproul and Dr.

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White and of course John MacArthur and others. And so as I was teaching and preaching at the church,

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I began to simply, you know, begin to teach these things, and the church began to recognize that what

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I was teaching and what was being preached was different than what was formerly taught.

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And not just on a basic level, but on a very, very structural level, it was different.

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They were hearing things like total depravity, and they were hearing things like original sin, and the pastor who preceded me did not believe in original sin.

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He did not believe that man is born with a sin nature, dead in sin, and I remember having that conversation with him before he left.

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He retired, and I was called as the pastor when he retired. And I just remember thinking, this is a very foundational doctrine, this isn't just a

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Reformed doctrine, this is a historic Christian doctrine, that man is born in sin, that he is dead in sin as a result of his relationship to Adam, and Adam all die.

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Yes, and the individual from history that really championed the rejection of that was

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Pelagius. Yes. And there are even some Christians that will identify themselves as Pelagian or Semi -Pelagian, but go ahead,

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I'm sorry, continue. No, that's fine, and that's what's interesting, is that's what I began to see, is that really in the movement, there is a

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Pelagian undercurrent. It really is. That's the biggest danger,

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I think, is while I see the baptismal issue as a danger, the biggest, I would say, more foundational danger is the recognition of the nature of man.

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If we think that man is not, by nature, depraved, if we don't believe in total depravity, then, you know, grace becomes less than necessary.

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Grace becomes something that, you know, a help, not a necessity, and not sufficient, as Dr.

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White always said, grace is not just necessary, but it's sufficient. You know, it's not necessary nor sufficient, it's just there.

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So I, and perhaps somebody might attack me and say that maybe I'm being too, maybe

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I should take a step back and say, I wouldn't say they wouldn't say grace is necessary, but when we look at the

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Gospel from a Pelagian perspective, we see them, we see a belief system that says man is capable outside of grace to please

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God. The Bible clearly teaches that's not true. And of course, having very close friendships with people from the restoration movement.

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I know that there is, especially today in the 21st century, there is a very wide spectrum of belief, since they, many of them do not claim to be in a denomination, with the exception of the disciples of Christ, I understand.

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The more conservative groups are, in some ways, as far as polity is concerned, very reflective of the

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Baptists, as in that they are independent, locally governed, elder -ruled congregations that don't have a headquarters or anything.

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So you do have a wide variety today of theological perspectives. And I have even, believe it or not,

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Keith, met a couple of Church of Christ ministers that are Calvinists.

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But some of the, but the spectrum runs in the restoration movement in general, as far between as Jim Jones, the notorious cult leader from the 1970s, all the way over to today's

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Max Lucado, and I'm sorry, Max, for including you in that company. But they're obviously, they're two different, the reason

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I brought that up is that they're two completely different people. They're two completely different people.

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Absolutely. And when we look at the disciples as a denomination, you're right, the vast majority of the restoration movement would say they are not part of a denomination, they're part of a, maybe say a movement of some sort, but they would repudiate, and that's the whole idea you mentioned earlier about why they call themselves the disciples, or why they call themselves the

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Churches of Christ, or specifically why they call themselves Christians. If you'll notice, it's typically

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Christian Church, you know, like we were forced Christian Church, or Main Street Christian Church, or whatever.

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It's typically that title, Christian, and they base it on, you know, the Church of Antioch first being called

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Christians, and they really focus on that word Christian, and have really adopted that, because they didn't want to be called

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Baptists, they didn't want to be called Methodists, they didn't want to be called Presbyterian, they wanted to be called

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Christian. And so they really adopted that, and that was part of the... when we changed our name from Forest Christian Church to Sovereign Grace Family Church, there was a concern about leaving behind the title

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Christian, because there was a concern, are we saying we're no longer

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Christian? Of course we weren't, but the question came up, why are we taking out the word

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Christian? And I remember very clearly the conversation, as I explained, that this movement has adopted that title, and a lot of churches that we see that are titled

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Christian Church are associated with the Restoration Movement. And we would have people come to our church back when we were

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Forest Christian Church, we would have people come thinking that we were a Restoration Church, thinking that's what they were expecting, and they would hear me preach, you know,

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Sola Fide, or some other Reformed doctrine, which I think is obviously a Biblical doctrine, but they would hear me preach it, and they would leave upset.

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I had one guy very specifically stop me at the back door, and he said, you forgot James 224.

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And I said, I didn't forget it, you know, I don't know, at the moment, it kind of just took me by surprise that he was from a

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Restoration background and come to our church, and I was preaching justification by faith. And I didn't, in that message, reference

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James 224, which says we're not justified by faith but by works also, or you see that you're not justified by faith alone.

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And so I just remember thinking, this guy came here thinking we were one thing and we're something else, and we need to identify ourselves with that.

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And that really began the conversation about changing our name. But really, you know,

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I do want to take a step back on the timeline. We left the disciples of Christ a decade before we changed our name.

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We left the disciples of Christ under the former pastor. My predecessor in 1999, it's kind of interesting, that same year that I was saved, my predecessor, the former pastor, he brought it to what was then the general board, which now we're elder governed, but at that point it was we had a general board.

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He brought to the general board the desire to leave the denomination, and his reasoning, and I give him all the credit for this, well not all,

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I give the men and women involved credit for this. They were concerned, the disciples in 1999, they were concerned that the disciples were moving toward a very liberal and very socially liberal agenda.

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They had gone to a national conference, and at the national conference there was there was nothing about the gospel.

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It was all about social issues. I wasn't there, so I didn't see this, but one of the men came back and told me, who had attended, he said they were talking about sex education and everything else.

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They had someone handing out condoms. It was very, very odd Bible conference or national conference.

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And so our, like I said, the pastor before me sort of championed the idea that this denomination has gone awry, and he chose to lead the church out of that.

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And so when I came in as the pastor, and I became the pastor in January of 2006.

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When I became the pastor, I became the pastor in a church that was already identifying itself as non -denominational.

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It was no longer a part of the Disciples of Christ, and so that had happened prior. But yet, even though we were identifying ourselves as non -denominational, we still maintained the name

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Forest Christian Church, so people would identify us with the denomination even if we didn't.

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And so that was a problem which ultimately led to our name change. Let me quickly just interrupt for a second here, just because I identified

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Max Lucado by name. I know Max personally, although I haven't been in much contact with him for years.

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I was the very first person to ever get him on the radio for a radio special in the early 90s.

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It was a Christmas special for where he narrated excerpts of his book

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God Came Near, and Max would not identify with either the ultra -conservative wing of Church of Christ nor the liberal wing of Disciples of Christ.

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He, in fact, doesn't even have as strict a view of baptism as I do as a

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Baptist, because his church where he ministers does not require believers baptized by immersion for membership, which is interesting as some in that group require it for salvation.

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But I just wanted to make that known. And also, my main disagreement with Max today would be his modern ecumenism.

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He was one of the signers of the ECT document, Evangelicals and Catholics Together, which is obviously a far cry from what people typically associate with the

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Church of Christ. And some of those congregations, we have to always be careful not to broad brush, but some of those congregations on the far right of the restoration movement don't even believe anyone else will enter heaven after death.

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But as I said, there's a multifaceted spectrum of beliefs today.

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And was the congregation that you were part of in the Disciples of Christ, the left wing of the spectrum, if you will, of the restoration movement, was that congregation more known as an evangelical congregation within that more liberal denomination?

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Because I happen to know conservative evangelical pastors in the United Methodist Church, in the

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American Baptist Association, in the Presbyterian Church USA, which are all known for liberalism, but I know men who are the exception to the rule, and I'm sure that that exists in the

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Disciples of Christ as well. I would say that the church that I grew up in, and of course the church that I was in when

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I was in seminary, it's so different now. Looking back to what it was,

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I would say that the church was very culturally and socially conservative, but theologically liberal.

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The motto which was adopted, and I know this is used by various denominations, but the motto which was adopted by the disciples is, in essentials, unity, and non -essentials, liberty, and in all things, charity.

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In fact, I have bulletins from the church. The church was started in 1958. I have bulletins from all the way back into the 60s that we've kept in a safe at the church, just, you know, for history's sake, and I see that statement on the front of the bulletins, essentials, unity, non -essentials, liberty, all things, charity, and what

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I learned and saw is that what had happened theologically is that all things had become non -essentials.

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So there was liberty in anything. It seemed it really didn't matter what was believed, but there was an expectation of social conservatism when it came to behavior.

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So I would say that on the spectrum of disciples, it was a conservative church, but not theologically.

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There were things like, one of the things that I had to deal with when I first came as the pastor was we had an elder who was female, and obviously,

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I would say that that's unbiblical, and I told them that. I believed that it was unbiblical, but that was one of the things that was sort of a holdover from the old disciples' model, was that was something that was allowed.

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And so I hope that answers what you're asking about where you think the church was.

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Oh yeah, definitely, and in fact, now that we're going to be getting more into the departure that occurred from this overtly liberal denomination,

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I just want people to understand that the motivation behind this is not bigotry or hate, as many people accuse conservative

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Bible -believing evangelicals. They accuse us of this when we speak in the terms that we're using today, but keep in mind, if they would label you,

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Keith, as hateful or bigoted because you left the disciples of Christ denomination over their radical change in doctrine, they have to keep in mind that they left what they originally taught as a denomination.

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What's interesting about that is we have two people, well, we have more than two, but two families in the church that go back to the very beginning that are still with us today.

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One of the ladies has friends in a lot of other disciple churches in our area, and was really considered by them to be a traitor when in 1999 our church left the disciples.

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She and I have had conversations, and she said there was a feeling of abandonment, like we had turned our backs to them, and I think you're right.

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I think the reality is they had left Scripture. They had left us no choice but to leave.

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What you mentioned earlier about the ordination of homosexuals and things like that, that's just growing.

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Year by year, it's just getting worse and worse. We're going to be going to a break right now.

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If you'd like to join us on the air with a question to be read on the air, email any question that you have at chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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Please include your first name, city, and state or country if outside the U .S.,

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and if you care to remain anonymous, you may do so. We look forward to receiving your questions, and we look forward to more with our interview with Keith Foskey right after this message.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Sarnsen of Iron Sharpens Iron. If you've just tuned us in, our guest today is Pastor Keith Foskey of Sovereign Grace Family Fellowship.

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I'm sorry, Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida, and that's the website is sgfcjax .com

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and that's s g f c standing for Sovereign Grace Family Church Jax .com.

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We're discussing how Sovereign Grace led a church out from a liberal denomination and not only because of theological doctrine but Sovereign Grace itself and God's providence and so on.

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And our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com c h r i s a r n z e n at gmail .com.

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We do have an anonymous listener that wants to know, should someone who is a member of a liberal denomination but is personally a born -again

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Christian and a bible -believing evangelical, should they always leave the liberal denomination or congregation even if they believe they can serve as a light there?

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And if you could answer that question, Keith. Well, the question is framed with the word always.

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Should they always leave? And I don't think that I can answer that with an affirmative and say always we must leave because the circumstances are unique to every situation.

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How much influence does a person have in their local body to bring light? The person mentioned being able to bring light.

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I had the opportunity to leave the church that I'm in. I was actually offered a job at a

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Southern Baptist church when I was in seminary, and I sat down with my wife and we discussed it, and by that time

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I was thoroughly convinced that the church, which was Forest Christian, was, you know, that the theology was just really not biblical.

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And we had to decide, my wife and I had to decide, whether or not

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God was calling us away to go and be part of a Southern Baptist church, which again, that was a seminary

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I was in, or should we stay and fight? And when I say fight,

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I don't mean in an ugly way, but to stay and stand for truth, maybe it's the better term. And because of the platform that God had given me within the church to affect change in a positive way, we felt

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God had called us to stay. And so, obviously, that's a unique situation because at that time

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I was in line to be called as the pastor, so I saw an avenue to bring about change.

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However, having said all that, I think that in the vast majority of cases, when a person is a

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Bible -believing, evangelical Christian, and they are in a church that is not preaching the gospel, then it's at least wise to keep the door open to a church that is.

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Again, the word always is the word that I think I can't give a blanket yes, but I would say this, there certainly are reasons to leave a church, and if the church is not preaching the gospel, if the pastor on Sunday morning is not preaching the

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Word of God, if he's not preaching the gospel, then that's a problem. Now, if the pastor of the church that you're in is preaching the gospel, and he's trying, and he needs people like you there, because he needs people who care about the

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Word of God, and he needs people that he can feed, because he's trying to feed

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God's sheep, even though he's in a situation where it's, you know, there's a lot of goats, then

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I would say, you know, stay and support that man, because he's trying to do what God has called him to do. But if you're in a situation where the gospel is not being preached, you're in a situation where you are the lone wolf of believers among a pack of goats, and maybe that's a bad analogy, the lone sheep in a pack of goats, it may be time to look away and to look for a

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Bible -believing, you know, we would point you towards a Reformed Baptist church, obviously, but, you know, at least a church that's preaching the gospel.

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You know, I heard R .C. Sproul say something, somebody asked him one time, what would you do if you were in a city with a church that didn't preach the gospel?

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He said, I'd move. And I thought, you know what, we'd move for a job, we will move to give our kids a good education, we would move to better our lives, to get a new house, we would move for all kinds of reasons, why wouldn't we move to a church that's preaching the gospel?

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So, you know, so like I said, the only thing I would say is, if you have a pastor who's passionate about the gospel, is preaching the gospel, he needs people to feed.

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I wouldn't abandon him, I wouldn't abandon the church in that situation, but if you're in a church where the pastor's not preaching the gospel, where the people aren't concerned with the gospel, then you may want to look a different direction.

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That's also a matter of where is your money going? Is your money funding

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Planned Parenthood, which is involved in the murdering of unborn children by the thousands every day?

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Absolutely. And is it funding and fueling all sorts of homosexual activist organizations and so on?

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And I have to keep reminding people when we speak in this way, this is not hate speech.

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If you believe that the scriptures teach something is harmful and dangerous both physically and spiritually to someone, even if you think that we're wrong, you can't accuse us of hate when the motivation is clearly to see people rescued from physical and spiritual damnation and death.

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Am I right? Absolutely. Absolutely. And the whole idea of hate speech and all that's become the new buzzword and it's the thing that everyone's afraid of is so, you know,

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I think it was Dr. White who said the one who frames the debate wins the debate, and I don't remember if he said it just in those words, but I just remember thinking when

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I heard that, that's what's happening is they're framing the debate as everything that is said against homosexuality, everything that's said against abortion, everything that's said against any of these things is hate speech.

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And because of that, the world is agreeing with them and, you know, we are automatically the hateful ones when our goal is not to hate them, but our goal is to see them come to Christ and to hate their sin.

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Well, you know, I've got an idea for a strategy for conservative

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Bible -believing Christians. I think that we should start responding when people accuse us of being bigoted and hate -mongers and homophobes and that type of thing.

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I think that we should start responding, well, you're anti -Semitic. And if they say, what on earth are you talking about?

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You're not even Jewish. We can say, well, I love and cherish and believe in the sacred writings of Jewish people, commonly known as the

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Old Testament. And these laws and doctrines that we believe in regard to many of these social issues are rooted in those scriptures that the

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Jewish people have cherished and proclaimed and died to believe for thousands of years.

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So, therefore, if you're calling these beliefs nonsense and evil, you're anti -Semitic.

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I think that that should start catching on. I just thought of that recently. Because anti -Christian doesn't work.

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Nobody cares if you're anti -Christian or not. So why not say you're anti -Semitic? Well, that's an interesting thought.

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I never thought about that. And, well, not all of my thoughts are worthy of repetition.

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I still think that's one to run with myself. And what would you have to say to people who are in denominations, especially in the pastorate, in denominations like this, and just some encouragement that you might have to them if they may be starting to see from the scriptures, wait a minute, wait a minute, this group that I'm a part of, they are violating some very serious laws and commands and doctrines of God.

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And they feel the fear and the anxiety of being ostracized and losing their careers and maybe losing their families as often a radical change in theology often brings that about, sometimes even death in certain parts of the world.

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But what kind of encouragement can you give to the man listening who is in the ministry, perhaps even the woman listening who's in the ministry who may realize, wait a minute,

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I'm not even given the biblical authority to be a minister because my role, although equal with a man's role, is not to be a leader and teacher over men.

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But if you could give us some helpful advice here for the listener in that situation.

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It's such a difficult thing because there are so many variations and situations that people would be in.

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But I would say this, if a man came to me and said that he had began or is beginning to recognize the errors in the denomination that he is in, my first inclination would not be to tell him to turn and run.

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Because again, that was my first inclination back years ago was to simply run away.

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I was just going to become a Baptist and that was the way it was going to be. And because at that time

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I felt like the Southern Baptist Convention was the way that I needed to go, because I felt like it was biblical.

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And like I said, even since then I've grown and learned more about Reformed theology and understanding that the root of Southern Baptist theology was very

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Reformed, but many have moved away in that group since. But I would simply say to him, similar to what

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I said earlier, and I don't mean to sound like I'm repeating myself, but I would ask him to consider what change does he believe he's capable of bringing in the situation that he's in.

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And if you see yourself as someone that God is using to bring change to a situation, know this.

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Know two things. One, it's going to be the hardest thing you ever have to deal with. It's going to break your heart. There are going to be people that you've eaten dinner with, that you've gone on vacations with, that you've had moments of great spiritual intimacy with that are going to abandon you, that are going to hate you, that are going to speak ill of you, and yet the blessing of faithfulness, the blessing of when all is said and done, and you may get run away, you may be as Jonathan Edwards was run away from the church, you may be fired, but the blessing of faithfulness, the blessing of knowing that you stood for God's truth, it will carry you through.

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And it will be what sustains you, knowing that God used you as a light in a dark place.

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And as I said, just don't automatically think about running away. See where God may be able to use you, but if it comes to the point where you feel like this is as far as I can go and I can go no further, don't abandon the ministry.

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Look for ministry in a place where your convictions now lie.

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And for women who are in the ministry, as I said earlier, I hold very strongly to the biblical conviction that women are not to be pastors, but that does not mean that God doesn't use women to do great things in the church.

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Right? Great and wonderful, helpful books and so on, a lot of things. Absolutely, absolutely.

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So if a woman came to me and said, I believe God is showing me that I shouldn't be in the ministry, shouldn't be preaching,

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I would say, well, I believe that's true, but that doesn't mean that you don't have a place in the kingdom, a place of service, and let's help you find that place.

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Right. And just because it's a different role does not mean that it's inferior. Absolutely, absolutely.

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There is spiritual equality among all believers.

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And the hand cannot save the foot, I have no need of you. Everything, we have to look at that. I remember having this conversation once with a person about females in the eldership role, and she went to Galatians, and she said, well, here it says that in Christ, there's neither male nor female.

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I said, well, that's true, but that's talking about spiritual equality. I said, it's not talking about authority and leadership roles.

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I said, because if it were, then my son and my daughter who, when they become believers, they would be spiritually my equal, but does that mean

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I don't have any authority in the home? Right. Because we're all spiritually equal? You know, that doesn't make sense.

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Not even all men are equally qualified for the ministry. But we have to go to our final break.

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It's a brief one. If you have any questions, please email them now, because we're running out of time. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. We'll be right back with Pastor Keith Foskey of Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida.

48:49

Lynbrook Baptist Church on 225 Earl Avenue in Lynbrook, Long Island is teaching God's timeless truths in the 21st century.

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Our church is far more than a Sunday worship service. It's a place of learning where the scriptures are studied and the preaching of the gospel is clear and relevant.

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It's like a gym where one can exercise their faith through community involvement. It's like a hospital for wounded souls where one can find compassionate people in healing.

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We're a diverse family of all ages, enthusiastically serving our Lord Jesus Christ in fellowship, play, and together.

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Hi, I'm Pastor Bob Walderman, and I invite you to come and join us here at Lynbrook Baptist Church and see all that a church can be.

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Call Lynbrook Baptist at 516 -599 -9402. That's 516 -599 -9402, or visit lynbrookbaptist .org.

49:34

That's lynbrookbaptist .org. Welcome back. This is Chris Arns, and if you've just tuned us in, we have been interviewing

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Keith Foskey, Pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church in Jacksonville, Florida.

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Their website is sgfcjax .com. It's actually sgfcjax .org.

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I really apologize to everybody for continually repeating the wrong address.

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sgfcjax .org. My sincere apologies.

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Not a problem. One thing that I would like to say, it was interesting to me that I did contact the main headquarters of the

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Disciples of Christ today to see if there were any evangelical congregations that might want to especially listen in to the broadcast, and was told by the very nice and gracious and friendly people there, three of them, that they didn't even know of the existence of an evangelical congregation.

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That did surprise me a bit. But what do you have to say,

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Pastor Keith, that is really burdening your heart, that you really want most of all, more than anything, to be etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners before they depart listening in this broadcast today?

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Our purpose as Christians is to be about the business of the gospel.

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And if you are in a church that is not preaching the gospel, then my encouragement to you is, and I guess

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I said this earlier, but I'll say it again, is that should be our primary concern as Christians.

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The gospel is the power of God and the salvation to everyone who believes. And we have become so concerned in Christianity and in the broad group which calls itself evangelical.

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We've become so concerned with everything but the gospel. We've become concerned with style.

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We've become concerned with social issues. We've become concerned with so many things that don't address man's nature, that don't address man's sin, that don't address the only salvation which is in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. We have become so focused on everything but the gospel. And I guess just my admonition to everyone who's listening is the gospel is sufficient.

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And we need to have a revival in our land of a love for the gospel.

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So that would be it. That would be, you know, my heart is that we would understand the nature of man, the necessity of insufficiency of grace, our sin, and Christ's saving work.

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And if you could, it may sound like a question that every Christian should know, but tell us briefly in the minutes that we have left, what is the gospel,

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Pastor Keith? Well, the gospel simply means good news. That's what the word gospel means.

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And it begins with understanding the bad news. And the bad news is very simply this, that we are all sinners.

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We are sinners by nature. We are sinners because of our relationship to the first person who was ever created, and that was

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Adam. When he sinned, he brought all of us into the...

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he gave to us all a nature of sin. And because we have this sin nature, we are rebels against God.

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And we are actually at war with God. The Bible declares that we are an enmity with God. And yet God, in His love and in His mercy, sent

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His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world that He would take upon Himself the very punishment for our sins.

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Our sin is legally worthy of punishment from God because God is just and righteous.

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And Jesus Christ took our punishment when He was on the cross. Every ounce of God's wrath that my sin deserves was poured out on the person of Jesus Christ.

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And Jesus Christ bore it all on my behalf and on behalf of every person who would ever believe in Him.

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So that now, when I stand before God, I stand before God having had all my sins, every single one of them, my sin nature and every sin

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I've ever chosen in my life has been paid for and punished in the person of Jesus Christ.

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And that's only half of the truth, because the other half of the truth is this, Jesus Christ never sinned.

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And because He never sinned, He lived a perfectly righteous life before God. And Christ gives to me the gift of His righteousness.

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God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

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That's the gospel, that we who are sinners have been forgiven and given the gift of righteousness, whereby we stand before God boldly.

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And praise be to God, He rose from the grave and ascended into heaven where He is seated at the right hand of the

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Father. And He remains there as an intercessor between us and Him, we who are in His covenant.

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And it is amazing how people today, in fact, people have always since since the time that Christ walked the earth, they despise this notion of Christ being nailed to a cross with the wholehearted consent of the will of the

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Father to have this murder take place. This torturous death was a part of the divine foreordained plan of the

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Father. And people view that, it's been called cosmic child abuse and all kinds of blasphemous things.

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But this, out of this horrific, most evil occurrence in the history of humanity, became the most beautiful and wonderful and glorious event, did it not

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Pastor Keith? Absolutely. And that's it, I was going to mention that, the cosmic child abuse statement which is often made.

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What we must understand is Christ underwent the punishment willingly. He did it because He chose to do it.

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He went to the cross for us because He loved us. And that's a beautiful thing.

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As penal substitutionary atonement, the penalty that we deserve was paid for in a substitute and we received by that an atonement.

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It's so beautiful and something that I think is utter blasphemy when the people call it child abuse.

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And of course, many of the liberal denominations who actually affirm that Christ lived and died on Calvary's cross, many of them would view that death merely as a wonderful and prime act of sacrificial love and humility, but they do not see the depth and the real meaning behind that, do they?

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No, and that reminds me, a few years ago, I still receive information from the disciples every once in a while.

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A few years ago, I received a booklet inviting me to a conference and one of the people speaking at the conference was

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John Dominick Crossom. And I just remember thinking, because at that point I had been introduced to him through Dr.

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James White. I just remember thinking, here's a man who doesn't even believe Jesus rose from the grave. Here's a man who doesn't believe the gospel, and yet he is one of the speakers in this denomination.

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And I just thought, wow, how sad, how far from the gospel have they gotten.

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Well, I thank you so much for being our guest today on Iron Sharpens Iron, Pastor Keith Foskey.

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And once again, let me correctly state that your website is sgfcjacks .org,

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S -G for Sovereign Grace, F -C for Family Church, Jacks, J -A -X .org,

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Jacks being a nickname for Jacksonville, sgfcjacks .org. We look forward to having you back on Iron Sharpens Iron very soon,

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Pastor Keith Foskey. And our listeners are going to be blown away, I think, to learn that this was Pastor Keith Foskey's very first interview, and I never would have guessed that in a million years if I had just been listening and not known what you told me before the program.

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Hello, Chris. I appreciate very much our friendship and the ability to get to talk to your audience.

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Thank you so much. And don't forget to tune in tomorrow to hear the testimony of Deborah Antignano, a former

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Jehovah's Witness who came to Christ. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater

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Savior than you are a sinner. God bless, and we look forward to hearing your questions tomorrow for Deborah Antignano, former