June 3, 2015 ISI Radio Show with Pastor Josh Fryman on Rectifying Non-Calvinist’ Misconceptions of Sovereign Grace

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. This is Chris Arnzen on the radio, this is

Chris Arnzen on the radio. I just discovered that that melody goes right along with that.

My name is Chris Arnzen and welcome to Iron Sharpens Iron. Good afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, and the rest of the planet

Earth. I'm so excited to have a very dear friend of mine on Iron Sharpens Iron today,

Pastor Joshua Fryman of Community Baptist Church in Riverhead, Long Island.

Pastor Josh dodged a bullet because I was going, well he was going to be my pastor if providentially

I had not moved to Carlisle, Pennsylvania. So I'm sure that the church there in Riverhead is far off now that I'm living far, far away.

But it's my honor and privilege to have for the very first time on Iron Sharpens Iron ever,

Pastor Josh Fryman of Community Baptist Church. It's great to have you with us brother. Thank you brother, it's good to be on, thank you for having me.

And today we are gonna be discussing rectifying misconceptions about Calvinism, which is also nicknamed

Reformed Theology, the Doctrines of Grace, and several other types of nicknames that it has received over the years.

And basically the Doctrines of Grace or Calvinism is, to sum it up in a nutshell, this system of theology teaches that God alone saves sinners because sinners cannot help save themselves.

Wouldn't you agree with that summary? Yes. And so tell us first of all,

Pastor Josh, why is it that you wanted to discuss this topic, rectifying misconceptions about Calvinism or the

Doctrines of Grace? Well first of all I want to say, and forgive me for getting off subject already, but how grateful

I am. When you started singing I thought, oh man we're supposed to sing this episode, that's not going to go through. So I'm glad you started talking.

But there are actually a couple reasons. When you contacted me before and asked me if I would consider it, which

I do count an honor, so thank you again. I did pray about it, and I was trying to think what are things in my life that have influenced me, that have helped me.

As you know, my background, not Calvinist, and you know how I feel about the term.

You know, Paul mentions in 1st Corinthians 2 that, you know, we don't follow after man's teaching, but the

Holy Ghost teaches comparing spiritual things with spiritual, and so you know, and really no true doctrines ought to have a man's name attached to it.

And so there was this stigma already I had with anything that would have, you know, have a man's name to it.

They're, you know, automatically everything with it is is bad, or everything with it is wrong. So as I prayed about what subject,

I, you know, a couple things came to mind, but this was one that came to my mind as far as dealing with a non -Calvinist misconceptions of Calvinism, because I had prejudices,

I had misconceptions, I had built straw men, as we've talked about before, and the more

I studied Scripture, the more I was able to get through it. And by the way, that's important that I say that, because one of the misconceptions about Calvinists is that you can't be a

Calvinist unless you read books that aren't the Bible, and therefore, you know, if you do, you're not studying

Scripture. And as I began to study Scripture on these topics that would be associated with Calvinism, or owned by Calvinism, I should say, at least that was my perception,

I began to see them in the Bible, and sort of coming to a more fuller knowledge of them, and beginning to realize that obviously truth didn't start in the 1500s with John Calvin.

These things were already there, they were always there. And some of the misconceptions

I had about Calvinism began to fade away, began to kind of be burnt up in light of Scripture, and I began to understand a little bit more about the doctrines.

I'm very hesitant to say, you know, now I know Calvinism. I would say

I know Bible doctrine that often gets associated with Calvinism, if that makes any sense.

And my hope is, my desire is, that my... not that because it happened to me it has to happen to anybody else, or because, you know,

I've discovered truths that no one else has discovered, I hope it doesn't sound like that, but there are many people out there,

I know them, who refuse to read certain authors, refuse to go to certain resources because, oh, he's a

Calvinist, he's Calvinist. They're missing out on a lot of good study material, a lot of good resources, good authors, and good fellowship today with people, and I'm hoping, my prayer is that as we discuss this,

I can kind of help shed some light on some misconceptions, and basically, for lack of a better word, say, you don't have to be scared of Calvinism.

There's a... of course we know that there are extremes to every doctrine, you know, there's what would be called hyper -Calvinism.

Spurgeon, who of course, as you know, was a Calvinist and very proud of that fact, you know, but despised hyper -Calvinism, and what happens on both sides of this argument is, and I'm going to take for granted our listeners know, for the most part, what both sides are.

You take the furthest extreme and you kind of build that into and say, this is what this side believes, and it's really not fair.

Yes, there are some that believe it, there are some that would go to an extreme on it, but that shouldn't color everyone that holds the title, and the illustration

I've used is, you know, with Calvinism, well, you know, Calvin, you know, he had somebody killed and all this stuff, and it's really not about him, and I've said to people before,

I've said, listen, if that were the case, then we couldn't go evangelizing door -to -door because of the shipwreck that Jack Hiles was, or the disaster,

I'm not, I'm being serious, or the disaster that Steven Anderson is, you know, these men who do these things, you know, we cannot equate doctrine with men, it's got to come from Scripture.

Or Jehovah's Witnesses, for that matter, which is the classic example of door -to -door. Yeah, sure, sure, so basically what my burden on this was, my desire,

I guess, would be just to talk about some misconceptions, just for the sake of encouraging someone that, you know, that would, in another way, you know, avoid any book or sermon or topic that have to do with Calvin, say, you know, you don't have to be like that, it's not, you know, like I said, you don't have to be scared of Calvinism, if I could say it that way, if that makes sense.

Well, it's interesting that providentially, picking up on what you were saying, that non -Calvinists typically say you would never become a

Calvinist if you were just reading the Bible, you would have to have picked that up by reading an extra -canonical book which was written by a

Calvinist. But it's interesting that even those folks believe in the necessity of teachers, and very few of them would say that a person should go off in the woods all alone with their

Bible and not have teachers in churches where they are members and whose authority they are under, and so on.

But providentially, through God's providence, I came to the doctrines of grace when

I stubbornly was refusing to even consider it after becoming a new believer.

Someone gave me a tract, George Whitfield's letter to John Wesley on election, and it wasn't

George Whitfield that convinced me of the doctrines of sovereign grace, it was the scriptural quotes that George Whitfield used, because I didn't,

I could care less who George Whitfield was, I didn't even know who George Whitfield was at that time,

I didn't know if he was somebody living or dead, I didn't know who John Wesley was, I was a brand -spankin' new born -again believer.

And so it was the biblical citations, and taken in context, that the

Lord used to penetrate my heart on these matters. And wouldn't you say that the big stumbling block for non -Calvinists, for those who disagree with the doctrines of sovereign grace or Reform theology, is that it seems that most

Christians are completely fine with God being in control, except they do not want them to be in control over salvation.

That seems to be where they want to draw the line. Am I am I am incorrect in gathering that assumption?

Yeah, yeah, it seems like election is a very scary word to many, and it was the doctrine of election that actually, studying through the

Book of Romans, our church is going through the Book of Romans, and the doctrine of election, the more I studied it, the more

I realized that, you know, election is not this wall that's built to keep sinners out, it's a wonderful wall built to show the saved how secure they are inside the wall.

That's why you don't preach election to the lost, you preach the gospel to the lost. The saved understand what and who we are in Christ, and that's why

Paul would say things like, put ye on therefore as the elect of God, don't forget who you are, why it matters.

Peter talks about this too, you're to the world, you're strangers, but not to God, you're his elect.

But then there is that requirement of that, there is the demand, there is the predestination of what that is for, as Paul tells us about in Romans chapter 8, and that is to be conformed to the image of his

Son, and so election is not just that God has chosen that people say a prayer.

Election is that God has chosen us to be a certain way for his glory, and that's what gets lost, that's what gets confused, and people, they just hear the word election and they get all nervous because they believe that, well, how can you say

God would choose some and not choose others? And what I think is interesting is that most people teach and preach election already, they just don't call it election.

Anytime a pastor has got up and preached that the Israelites beat the Amalekites and that was a good thing, or the

Israelites won over the Philistines or the Jebusites or the Midianites, I've never heard, ever heard a message preached where the pastor said that that was a bad thing.

It was always a victory for who? For God's people. Deuteronomy chapter 7, which is a tremendous portion of Scripture, and God says to Israel, he said,

I set my love upon you. I'm paraphrasing, so excuse me, but he says,

I did not set my love upon you or choose you because you were a great number, because you had this...

So there is an Abraham, he's given a promise to Abraham. Why didn't he pick somebody else?

Excuse me, why didn't God pick somebody else? Of course, because what God wanted, and so we see this wonderful, great thing in the

Old Testament where God's using his people in the world, and by the way, that doesn't mean that it's just that.

Ask Hagar and Rahab if God said it was just going to be the Israelites, they would tell you no, but they would also tell you that God does expect obedience and loyalty to him, of course, and so that's what

I find interesting, and you know, the same people who would say, well, you know, it's a horrible idea, this idea of election, because God's gonna choose one group over another.

The entire Old Testament is filled with that, with Israel. And then, I don't know how much time we have, so I don't want to ramble here.

You could, by the way, you're not rambling, you're being very insightful with your answers. I will be sure to let you know when we have to make a station break.

Okay, and then in Romans chapter 1 and 2, it deals with sin and reprobation.

Now, what is reprobation? Reprobation is us admitting that God is in control.

God turned them over to a reprobate mind. That teaches that when God says it's done, it's done.

When God says that this person no longer has a chance to be saved, that person will never be saved. I don't know anyone who would think that's unfair, that that's not right.

So there's God in control there. And then, of course, in the future, in Revelation, I had a conversation with a man a few months ago, and I told him,

I said, how could we believe in prophecy if God was not in control, and in ordering everything, including, specifically, the

Antichrist, who is not a fallen angel. Antichrist is a person. And I asked,

I said, does he have a chance to be saved? You know, is there going to be some revival he attends, and suddenly he's overcome with, you know, you're making me nervous, you're laughing at my serious points, now

I'm worried. But is there going to be some revival he attends, and he's going to get saved, and suddenly turn prophecy on its head?

Of course, the answer to that is no. And I asked this man, who is a

Bible teacher, and I said, well then, what do you do with that? He doesn't have a chance to be saved because God has already said what's going to happen.

And he said this, he said, well, he does believe, I said, does the

Antichrist have a chance to be saved? That was the question. And he said, no, but only because God has predicted that he won't be saved.

And so we had to stop there, because if all we're doing is putting our faith and hope in a God that predicts the future, then that's not a very sure foundation.

And so, but my point was is that we, every Christian, at least that I know, believes strongly in prophecy that it will happen the way

God has said it will happen. We believe very strongly that God used his people, Israel, in a great way to bring him glory in the

Old Testament, and to be an example to the world around them, and saw other people converted, or turned to follow him.

Ruth being another example of that. But anyway, so the idea is already there, and I think it's just people are nervous about it, because, oh, it's quote -unquote

Calvinistic. It's not, it's Scripture. The Doctrine of Election is in the Bible. And I think that we ought to, like, really truly put this out, because there is something that's harming

Christianity, like, in a very bad way, and that is this false

Gospels that are being put out, this low expectation of what a Christian is, what they should be doing, what they should not be doing, and, you know, basically why

I said a prayer, you know, when I was three, and, you know, I know I've lived for the devil, you know, my whole life, but, you know, you can't ever be unsaved.

And that whole misconception about God's saving power,

God's converting power, God's transforming power, is a tragedy. And what happens when you embrace election, okay?

And again, I'm not Calvinism. No, we're not talking about Calvinism. We're talking about a Bible doctrine of election.

When you embrace election, you realize not only did God save me, God has a purpose for me, too.

And read Galatians chapter 1. Paul said, but by God's grace,

I was separated from my mother's womb, and called by His grace to reveal

His Son in me, that I might preach among the heathen. Paul knew that it was before he was born.

God knew what he was going to do. So, but the word, the word scares people.

The word scares people, because it seems as if, well, that means God's not loving. And really, that's one of the things

I wanted to talk to you about today, was I have, there's a lot we could talk about.

I have three main ones. I did three because I'm a preacher. Well, yeah, you could go on with those three, and just to say something about the love of God, very quickly, it's interesting how some of the most vehement opponents of sovereign grace are people who also firmly believe in the biblical truth of hell.

And yet, at the same time, they militate against Reformed theology, or the doctrines of grace, or that which is nicknamed

Calvinism. They militate against it, because they say that that teaches the falsehood that God loves certain people more than others.

Well, I don't know how anybody could believe in the reality of hell, and believe at the same time that God loves every human that ever lived, and ever will live equally.

It doesn't make any sense at all. Well, in Deuteronomy 7, again, this is the, this is why it's important to have

Bible. The one thing, my father -in -law, John Greb, you know him, I trained under him, and one of the things that he instilled in me was three words, chapter and verse, chapter and verse.

And that has helped me, because this is why it matters to have

Bible that supports, because what happens is, you're going to get into doctrines, and people say, well,

I know what the Bible says, but, and well, you can't do that. And it says right in Deuteronomy 7, the

Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose you. And there is something special about knowing that God loves us.

Paul narrowed it down even more than that. John 3, 16, for God to love the world, Ephesians chapter 5,

Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it. Go to Galatians chapter 2, look what Paul says, Christ died for me and gave

Himself for me. Yeah, we ought to be very thankful. I mean,

Romans chapter 5, but God commended His love toward us.

And that means He aimed. I mean, that's a wonderful thing, and it's a tremendous truth that we know that I love

Him because He first loved me. If He first loved us, we love Him because He first loved us.

So, you know, and I, you know, this is part of that thing that I believe, and it's actually the first thing, is

I told you that I have three points because I'm a preacher. They're alliterated because I'm Baptist. But, you know, about that, if you believe that it, you know, it somehow distorts

God's love, it doesn't. What it does say is it enhances God's love, it enhances the perception that we have of God's love, that it goes beyond a mystical sprinkle dust that goes everywhere, and it goes to individuals, it goes to people, it goes to persons, and we get to experience that, and what a wonderful privilege, you know.

And by the way, that's not because we did anything. I mean, we didn't, I didn't earn that. If you knew me before I was saved, you know, very seldom can

I say that I know exactly how the Apostle Paul felt. But in one regard

I can, it's when he described himself as the chief of sinners. That's me. I know who

I was and what I was before God saved me, and I'll be the first to tell you that there's nothing that would promote pride or arrogancy in knowing that God loves

His own, and that ought to give us, and this is another thing, and I forgive me for going off here on different tracks, but this is why this matters, that if you say, well, you know, we say,

God loves me, and God loves, yes, absolutely, He does, and we preach that message to the world. We're to preach that message to every creature, the

Bible says. That's part of our love for God, it means our obedience to Him.

But if you read what Solomon wrote in Proverbs, he talks about the

Ecclesiastes, perhaps, forgive me for not remembering exactly, but Solomon says he said there's an evil in the land, and the evil was,

I see servants on horseback and princes walking. And what he was saying was, when people are out of their roles, that's a bad thing.

Now, we're seeing that in the world, okay, but the same holds true for Christianity.

We are special. I mean, there's nothing wrong with being thankful for that, not arrogant about it, but when

Solomon said that, he said, no, the servants don't belong on horseback, the princes do, and the princes don't belong walking, the servants do.

And we have somehow become very wimpy, for lack of a better word, in our

Christianity. We feel almost apologetic that we are Christians, and that, you know,

God loves us, and you know, we have, there's a way that we're supposed to live, but John said his commandments are not grievous, it's a wonderful life.

And here's what I say to folks, is that, listen, because we're Christians, that doesn't make us better than anybody, but it does make us better off, and there's nothing wrong with being thankful for that.

And one of the great driving motivations for that is God's love for us, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I don't blame Israel for being thankful. When Moses prayed to the

Lord in the end of Exodus, he said, and I'm paraphrasing again, forgive me, but he said, he said,

I'm not, I'm not going to go forward without you, speaking to God. I don't want angels, I need you, it's the same text,

Exodus chapter 33, he says, show me your glory. Now what happens is, what happens is this, is

Moses said, God, your presence with us is the only thing that separates us from everybody else.

Everybody has livestock, everyone has cattle, everyone has tents, everyone has material things, but they don't have you.

But we do. And that was something that that Moses held on to, was

God's presence with us makes all the difference. And we need to, we need to be reminded of that on a regular basis, that we are, we are special people.

Yes, it's interesting. We are, we're not just peculiar, not just that, but we are special because we have the Lord with us, and that's such a wonderful thing.

And so yes, does God love us? Absolutely. And we ought to rejoice in that, and we ought to live for him because of that, and be thankful that that's what separates us from the world,

God's presence with us. And that that love through salvation, through the lost, gets to be expressed through us.

That's a great privilege. Yeah, it's interesting that one of the greatest texts that points out

God's unique love for his people, the church, is usually a text that is not even brought up in the quote -quote

Calvinist Armenian debate, Ephesians 5 .25, that's usually exclusively brought up when referring to marriages.

Yeah, and Paul said, husbands love your wives just as Christ loves the church, and gave himself up for her.

He didn't, Paul didn't say husbands love your wives and every other woman that ever lived, just as God loves the church and everybody else who ever lived.

That's the only way that the text makes any sense, is if it's talking about a certain and specific person, and in this case comparing it to a specific and certain people with the church.

Yeah, I would definitely like to come back on another program and talk about this, because that's something

I believe very strongly as far as the church is concerned, and I know that you're speaking about saved people, but the idea of local church versus universal church, you know,

I believe in a universal relationship. We have a family of God, we're all the children of God, you know, but I do believe very strongly the

Bible teaches that anytime you see church, ekklesia, it's an assembly, it's a local assembly, and that's something

I enjoy discussing as well, and maybe we can do that. But no, I know exactly what you're saying,

I know where you're getting at there. We can't pick and choose what portions of Scripture we get to really promote, and this is another one of my,

I don't know what the word is, I don't want to say issues, but I got real problems,

Chris, but no, I'm kidding. It is that there's this idea, and I have this prejudice,

I have this in my heart and in my mind, that, well, which one am I going to choose? Because these verses show election, and these verses show

God loving the world, so which side am I going to fall on? Of course that's not true, and there are other examples for that.

Number one, in Proverbs, answer not a fool according to his own folly, or according to his folly.

The very next verse says answer a fool according to his folly, all right? So which is it? Well, it's both.

And then you go to Galatians chapter 6, and you find that every man is to bear his own burden, and then you find in the same chapter that we're to bear one another's burdens.

Well, which is it? It's both. No man seeketh after God, right? And then you read

Hebrews chapter 11, you find out that we are to believe that God is, and that he is a rewarder of them that, what, diligently seek him.

Well, which is it? It's both. So how can it be both? Well, Paul gives the answer in 1

Corinthians chapter 2, and this text is what really helped me. And if we have time, this is kind of what

I think is probably more important than understanding some of these misconceptions, is how we make our hearts able to receive the truth past the calluses of our prejudices, if I could say it that way.

And again, just because it was with me doesn't mean it's with everybody, but I do think it's important. Yes, let's pick up on that right after the station break.

Okay. And if anybody has questions for Pastor Josh, you can send them by email. This is a live broadcast, so you can send the questions right away to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

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

Don't go away, we'll be right back with Pastor Josh Fryman of Community Baptist Church in Riverhead, New York.

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That's wrbc .us. Welcome back, this is

Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron. We are live, and if you'd like to email our guest

Pastor Josh Fryman with any question on election, on the theology nicknamed

Calvinism, Reform Theology, the Doctrine of Sovereign Grace, you can email us at chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

chrisarnzen at gmail .com. So if you could pick up right where you left off, Pastor Josh. Yeah, thank you.

What I was saying was that the text that God really helped me with, and by the way I don't say that lightly,

I hope you understand that, you know, throwing around God's name and things, he really did.

I can give you a couple examples, but this text really helped me. And I realized that what

Paul said was that the Holy Ghost teacheth comparing spiritual things with spiritual, right?

Now, the way I viewed my beliefs was what I believe is spiritual, and if you disagree, it's unspiritual, you know.

And Peter said this in his epistle, he said that Paul writes some things that are hard to understand.

Well, what good news, you know, that we have the Holy Ghost who's our teacher for the hard things to understand.

And he does this by taking what seems to be two opposing truths, and he brings them together and teaches us and shows us how they both can be true with no variableness at the same time.

And I fear that there's a lot of fear from others that feel like they have to pick a side, and you don't have to pick a side.

What you have to do is just study Scripture, allow the Holy Spirit to rectify these truths that seem like they contradict, and allow him to give you the understanding that brings them together in such a beautiful way that exalts

God every time it lifts God up, and it just is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

And if I could say, I would tell you, now, I realize that experience is not what makes this truth, okay?

Scripture is what makes it true, but just as a testimony, quickly, our church used to rent space at an office building.

And by the way, we praise the Lord, God's given us a beautiful building, and it looks like we're going to be closing on that building soon.

Yeah, we were tenants, as you know, for a couple years, and now we're gonna be able to buy it, so we're very thankful for that.

But before that, we were meeting in a small office space, and our church is going through the

Book of Romans, and I was having this struggle in my heart, because I felt like there was this, you know, this battle, right?

Well, which is it, which is it, which is it? And it bothered me. You know, you talk to my wife, you probably remember from when you're on Long Island, I'm pretty emotional,

I can cry pretty easily, but I struggled with this, I really did, and I was praying.

Now, I was by myself at the church, well, it was at the office space, was what we were using for the church,

I was praying about this very subject, doctrine of election, and being able to understand it, and I could have to preach it,

I have to exposit these texts, and I don't want to skip any part. I'm gonna tell you a side note, and I'm not making this up,

I wish I was. I had found through my different, you know, resources,

I try to pull from all sorts of resources and try to read, and there was a guy who had written about Romans 9, and it gets to the part about Jacob and Esau, and he actually said, do not read out loud.

And I thought, why? You know, and the reason was because it might confuse, you know, people that were there, it might look like one thing, and I really took that, it really gave me pause,

I said, you know, that's dangerous, you know, when we do that, you can't do that. So I am gonna have to exposit this text,

I have to preach this text, and by the way, that was another example, I don't know if you remember, but Romans chapter 9, there's a parenthetical statement that, you know, about Jacob and Esau, and you know,

God knew Esau was gonna be bad, and so that's why he said, or evil, and that's why he said he was gonna hate him, but there's a parenthetical verse, verse 11, and it says there, and again, forgive me for paraphrasing,

I should be turning to these passages, but it said that the children, having not yet been born, neither having done good or evil, all right?

So it's amazing, because God knows man, amen? I mean, it's like he puts everything in Scripture that will help us with every single thing.

So, you know, in case you think it was just foreknowledge, I'm gonna put in there that it was, neither had they done good or evil, this was before they did anything, that God had said this, and then also another verse like that's in 1st

John, love not the world, you know, we of course immediately go, I don't love the world, then

God puts a comma, neither the things that are in the world, you know, because he knows man's heart, we're very quick to defend ourselves, but anyway, so he covers all the bases there.

But anyway, I'm reading through, I'm going through these chapters, I'm praying, and I get a phone call from one of my best friends in the ministry, he's a mentor to me, and he said, hey brother, how you doing?

Now, he was in another country at the time, and I said, I'm doing well, he goes, I don't know why,

Lord just put you on my heart just now, and he said, I wanted to,

I wanted to call and check in on you, see how you're doing, and I said, well thank you, I appreciate that, anything I can pray for you about, and I said, brother, if you could,

I said, I didn't tell him what it was, I just said, if you'd pray for me, there's a text

I'm struggling with, I just want to make sure I come out on the right side of it, you know, there's something I'm, you know, don't understand,

I want to make sure I do, that kind of thing, and he said, you know, the same thing happened to me, and it was over the doctrine of election, can

I tell you what happened? And I, he's on the phone, and I just began to cry, and not that that makes it right, or like, you know, that proves anything, but to me, in the middle of me praying about this, how did that man know to call me, how did he, how, what made him say, here's what

I went through in discussing the very same doctrine? That's what I mean by God glorifying, you know, only

God can do things like that, and anyway, and so we ended up talking about it, actually, and we, he was able to help me by bouncing things off him, but anyway,

I kind of got off on a rabbit trail. Now you know how the people in my church feel when I preach. Hey, I remember too.

Now I know why you moved to Carlisle. But anyway, these things matter, the

Holy Ghost comparing spiritual things with spiritual, he will teach you, he will show you, and now

I want to go back to what you said, I shared this with our church recently, because I hear a lot about this, especially today,

I don't know why there's such a disdain for, well I think I do know why, but a disdain for church, you know, going to church, there's been such a tragic, you know, tragic actions being taken by pastors and churches manipulating people, and so I guess

I understand it, but I told our church this, I said, because it's, you know, it's in the

Bible, I said, you know, people that say, well, you know, I got the Holy Spirit and my Bible, that's all I need, okay?

Men who would say, like, you know, oh, you know, we don't need that or whatever,

I got the Holy Spirit and I have the Bible. Well, in essence, what they're saying is God was excessive then in designing teaching and discipleship, in designing the assembling of ourselves together.

And giving requirements for elders and teachers in the church. Right, right. So it's not,

God designed that on purpose, because we need it. We need each other, we need edification, we need fellowship, you know, we need all those things, and so that matters.

And matter of fact, that's kind of the other thing. I was talking to my wife when going through this, who, I can't even,

I can't speak highly of enough, you know, this poor girl had to deal with all my, you know, before anyone else heard it, she heard it, and so she went through it with me, but I was thinking, and you know, you know these guys,

I'm not saying anything new, and these are kind of like some of the resources and authors I was talking about before, I wish that some of the guys that are nervous or afraid of Calvinism, even though they're not

Calvinists, but you have men like Robert Murray McShane, J .I. Packer, Lloyd -Jones,

Charles Spurgeon, you know, these tremendous authors, and what you do, you read a book, you're basically asking their opinions on that subject, and you know, why wouldn't you want to know what

Spurgeon or Lloyd -Jones or Boyce, Charnock's book on the attributes of God, I mean, it's just tremendous.

Arthur Pink. John Bunyan, who wrote Pilgrim's Proverbs. And a lot of people don't even realize that these men are quote -quote or were quote -quote

Calvinists because of their preconceived notions, wrong preconceived notions, about the

Doctrines of Grace, which is why you're on today. Which brings me to what I was talking to my wife about. We, you know,

I'm reading these guys, and I finally said it, I said, Jen, if Calvinism was that heretical, if it was that far out there, then why did not

God withhold His hand of blessing on men like Spurgeon? Why are these men,

Robert Murray McShane, I mean, if the listeners haven't read him, I encourage them to do so.

I mean, that man, and by the way, it goes beyond soteriology, it goes into our personal lives.

McShane said that my people's greatest need is my personal holiness, and as a pastor, it's just tremendous.

But you know, these men who God used greatly, and still does through their teachings, why did He not withhold

His hand of blessing from them? And we began to go through these, and as a matter of fact, I'm reading Boyce going through Romans, and at the end of the chapter, you know

James Montgomery Boyce, right, down in 10th Presbyterian in Philadelphia? Well, actually he's in heaven now.

He was in heaven. Okay, yes. All right, Chris, you're right again. I did know that, but anyway, but you come to the end of his chapters, and he says, what about you, reader?

Have you turned to God? Have you repented? Have you been saved? And this kind of goes to my another distortion, or another myth of Calvinism, is that somehow it discourages evangelism.

And you read these guys, and you start talking, and you're like, hey, I thought he was a Calvinist. Well, he is a Calvinist. Yeah, but he witnesses.

You know, how does he witness if he's a Calvinist? Because that has nothing to do with Calvinism, you know, not witnessing.

It's not like one of the points, like, don't witness to people. And let me give you an example.

Recently, this whole thing with Bruce Jenner, okay? Now, I don't want to embarrass you.

I'm not trying to, well, perhaps that was an awkward segue. But I'm not trying to butter your bread, as they say here in New York.

But I have two pastors that are not Calvinist. They're actually strongly anti -Calvinist.

And one of them, I saw a post on Facebook, the other I heard speak personally.

And the animosity towards Bruce Jenner, reprobate that guy, he'll wake up, and he'll know what, you know, talking about going to hell, and waking up, and understanding the reality of it.

Now, those are non -Calvinists, okay, who have written Bruce Jenner off. You are a

Calvinist. And you have said publicly and privately that we need to pray that God would send someone across his path that would give him the gospel.

James White is a famous Calvinist, famous Calvinist apologist. You've launched him into popularity on Monday.

Next thing you know, he's on national TV. But he's preaching to Muslims, and debating with them.

Most, many, I shouldn't say most, but many non -Calvinist Christians have an animosity, a disdain for Islam, Muslims, and, you know, oh, we need to go wipe them out, we need to make the

Middle East a parking lot. He's over there evangelizing them, witnessing to them, and doing so because it's part of our responsibility to preach the gospel to every creature.

These are just two examples I have of the same people who would say, oh, if you're Calvinist, that means you don't love the lost, you don't evangelize.

And then the next breath, they're mocking sin, or writing people off.

And yet, I know you, I don't know James White, but two Calvinists that are, you know, public

Calvinists, are saying we need to pray for the lost, we need to pray that God would save them. And so it just, it's not true that, you know, this discourages evangelism.

I told you before about reading Office Spurgeon, you know, if sinners be damned to hell, let them leap over our bodies.

You know, we need to do everything we can. And what, knowing that God is in control, what the wonderful truth and wonderful confidence it gives us to evangelize, if I went out thinking that it was all about me, and if I say the right thing or do the right thing, or if I don't say the right thing, that's worse.

Then someone will go to hell because I said the wrong thing. Or go out knowing that God's going to use me in my obedience today, and as I speak the truth to as many people as I can,

I plant some water but God gives the increase. You know, I'd rather go out in the power of God.

That's why Jesus prefaced the Great Commission, and the Great Commission does not start with, go ye therefore. The Great Commission starts with, all power is given unto me in heaven and earth.

Go ye therefore. Because of that, the authority that I have to send you. That's why you go.

And so when we know that, when we go out there and we're heralding this great truth, representing

God, I mean, talk about a great reason to evangelize and a great reason to witness.

And what happens is when you, and what I've said to some people in the past, is that this modern, easy believism, quick prayerism, stuff that Hammond kind of put out,

Hammond and Neanderthal put out and became popular, what it's developed is a soteriology that has more to do with anthropology than it does theology, and that's not good.

And you know, yes, the gospel is for man, but it's from God, and we need to remember who we represent when we give it.

We're not out there selling vacuum cleaners. We're out there preaching Christ. There's a big difference. And when we have that understanding that God is the one who sent us, then my success is based on my faithfulness to God, not on the numbers

I get while I'm out. And there's a big difference. Yes, and of course, God has promised in his inerrant word that people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation are going to be in heaven.

Therefore, we, in fact, historically missionaries have been more patient when they believe in the doctrines of sovereign grace, and the people that sent them out as missionaries have been more patient because of the fact that they are not relying on a person's articulate way of speech, or his gimmickry, or whatever he needs to do to lure people into saying a prayer.

They want to rely upon the Sovereign God who's bringing about the increase. Yeah, so we have to go to a break right now.

It's our last break, and we do have a question from Tuscaloosa, Alabama that we are going to have

Pastor Josh address, so we will be right back after these messages. And once again, the phone number is,

I'm sorry, not the phone number, the email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com.

Don't go away. Lindbrook Baptist Church on 225

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LindbrookBaptist .org. That's LindbrookBaptist .org. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron.

Our guest today is Pastor Josh Fryman of Community Baptist Church in Riverhead, Long Island, New York, which is in eastern

Suffolk County. And I'm not exaggerating when I say it's one of the very few biblically sound churches that I was aware of after doing much research that is in eastern

Suffolk County, and of course my dear brothers at Wading River Baptist Church would be in that number without whom this program wouldn't exist.

But thank you very much for being our guest today, Pastor Josh. And we have a question from Ted in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, who basically asks about the perception that many non -Calvinists, many non -reformed people who reject the doctrines of grace, however you want to phrase it, they have about Calvinists being arrogant, snobbish, smarky, unconcerned about how the community or people around them view their personality, etc.,

etc. Now obviously I could say that I know many Calvinists that do fit that description, but I know a lot of people from all backgrounds that fit that description.

Yeah, well I like Ted because my alliterated outline was the myths are that it distorts

God's love, that it discourages evangelism, and the thirdly that it develops pride. And the reason for that, and I'll tell you because I was there, is because there's this belief that you have to approach

Scripture from this cerebral, academic approach, and if you believe it, then you think that you're better than other people because you understand something they don't.

And that's not the reality. Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean the people that do understand it think that about you, you know, and some might, by the way, some might, but you can't make the exception the rule.

And I would say this, that what I have found, and I know I'm very open and honest about this, you know,

I do not consider myself a Calvinist. I like Pauletian or electionist, but I'm definitely not on the other side of it either, but I love the doctrine of election.

I wish, man, how I wish that we could preach and we could understand that great doctrine, you know, and to Ted's question, because I don't want to get off track again, what happens is they think that there's this arrogancy that comes from it, but really it's the last thing that would enter the mind of someone who believes that we're nothing apart from God.

Here's the example I've given in the past. This is man for you, okay?

God in His grace, two times in human history, allowed the entire population to have the truth,

Adam and Eve, Noah and his family. Both times, what happened?

Given enough time, man rebelled against God. That's man. That's who we are, right?

That's what we will always do. We would never be saved apart from God intervening.

That's a great word, intervening. From God drawing us and convicting us and teaching us and guiding us and saving us and healing us and sanctifying us.

We'd have none of those things without God. So for someone to beat their chest that, you know, oh,

I've discovered this truth or, you know, I believe this, it would be so counterintuitive to what they are saying they believe.

And if anything, it causes one greater humility, because we realize it's not about us, it's about God.

We are a part of God's plan. We are not, you know,

God's plan. It doesn't end with us. But yeah, that is a misconception.

And here, I'll tell you something else, and if I could just speak to this real quick, one of the things that men miss, and ladies too, by fearing

Calvinism or Calvinists, is they miss fellowship. The Calvinists that I know, the people, we have some in our church, some of the most humble people.

By the way, one of the best soul winners we have in our church is a Calvinist.

And well, I say in our church. He's not a member yet, but anyway, one day.

But anyway, tremendous man. And I remember thinking, I mean, this guy's witnessing all the time, and I was shocked. I was, what, he's a

Calvinist? What in the world is this? And there is some fear that because you like certain people that, you know, well, all right, let me change my opinion about this, because, you know, they believe that, or, you know, well, that's just compromise.

You know, we're not talking about compromise. We're talking about, you know, convictions here. But anyway,

I just had to get that in there. Sorry about that. Go ahead,

I'm sorry. I just wanted to, I don't know if you've finished your train of thought there, but I wanted to have you perhaps clarify a misconception that some folks may have about something that you said earlier about how could these great

Calvinists of history be heretics if, because God did not withhold his blessings from them.

Yeah, well, I'm sorry. And I just wanted to have you distinguish that from, there is a heresy that is very prevalent.

In fact, I'm having tomorrow a guest who has come out of the

Word of Faith movement. He was not only a pastor in the Word of Faith movement, but he was also a occasional

TV guest host on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, which is a haven for the heresy of the

Word of Faith movement. And he is now a believer in the doctrines of sovereign grace. And obviously, a lot of people perpetuate the lie that something can't be false if somebody is monetarily blessed, if a church has thousands of members, it can't be wrong.

Yeah. Joel Osteen being the pastor of one of the largest churches in the United States, etc.

And I wanted you to clarify that. Yeah, well, first of all, McShane died in his 20s. 29, yeah.

Yeah, so it has nothing to do with a prosperity -type truth, like, oh, if you believe right, God's going to do great things for you.

What I meant was, we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater, as they say, and talk about a tremendous baby, you know.

We cannot make a broad brush, say, oh, that's heresy, Calvinism is heresy. Well, if that's true, how is it that God has used these men so much to help

Christianity? How is it that God has done that? And I'll tell you this, Spurgeon is my hero, and I love this about Spurgeon.

I'm on Twitter, and I've put this out there a couple times. Everyone loves Spurgeon. You ever notice that?

Everybody loves Spurgeon, everybody likes Spurgeon, but here's why, all right? And I mean, like, I'm an authority.

This is my opinion, I should say. I believe it's for this reason. Because Spurgeon was a soul winner, yes, but that's not why everyone loves him.

Spurgeon was a Calvinist, yes, but that's not why everyone loves him. Spurgeon made much of Christ, that's why everyone loves him.

And that's what I want for my ministry, it's what I want for every individual. That's the goal here.

It's not to promote an ism. As a matter of fact, I told you this last week, I said, I realized that the Doctrine of Election isn't part of an ism, it just is.

Yeah, and it's just truth. And that's really what we should have, is this burden to promote truth, not a part of it.

There's something, I know our time is short, but I just wanted to get this in real quick, if you don't mind. As long as it's under 40 seconds.

By the way, I do want to have you back next week, if you're free. Okay, sounds good. We know we'll do it next week then, because what it does is, my burden today was to encourage people that you can fellowship, you can learn from other people, especially people who are

Calvinists in our circles, and not to have any myths or misunderstandings about them keep you from a fellowship from great resources.

I wish I had time to go through some resources I wanted to recommend authors, but anyway, we'll do that, and we'll do that at the time.

And put your website, please, for our listeners. Communitybaptistchurch .net.

Communitybaptistchurch .net. We look forward to having you back next week, Pastor Josh Fryman. I also want to let our listeners know about a couple of other valuable resources.

Solid Ground Christian Books has just become today a sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron. Their website is

Solid -Ground -Books .com. That's Solid -Ground -Books .com.

And the Cumberland Valley Bible Book Services, which for many years has been distributing the finest in Christian literature,

CVBBS .com. CV as in Valley, BBS as in Bible Book Services .com.

I want to thank you so much, Pastor Josh. I want to thank everybody who listened, and I want to have all of you listening always remember for the rest of your lives the great words, the precious words of Christopher Love, who is a

Puritan, that I concluded the vast majority of my radio broadcasts with when

I aired this program from 2006 through 2011. I just want you to all always remember for the of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater