March 13, 2023 Show with Dr. Barry York on “Mercy: The Fruit of Biblical Worship”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father

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This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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

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

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

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

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

This is Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this 13th day of March, 2023.

I am thrilled to have back as a returning guest today, Dr. Barry York, who is an author and co -host of the 3GT podcast, and he's also president of Reform Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

We are going to be addressing the theme, Mercy, the Fruit of Biblical Worship.

It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr. Barry York. Thank you,

Chris, for having me on. It's great to have you back on the program, brother. And why don't you tell our listeners more about 3GT, your podcast, which stands for Three Guys Theologizing.

That's right. For a number of years, I've podcasted weekly, sometimes biweekly, with two of my friends.

We call our podcast 3GT. It's a pastor, a parishioner, and professor talking about subjects that are interesting to the

Christian life from a Reform perspective. It's a casual kind of round -the -table type of podcast where we're just speaking on different subjects.

Sometimes we have guests on that have written books or can speak to a particular topic. We have a lot of fun just fellowship and talking together and sharing some thoughts with our listeners.

Who are your co -hosts? My co -hosts are Kyle Borg, who is a pastor of the

Reform Presbyterian Church in Winchester, Kansas. And then a friend of mine, Scott Hunt, who's an elder in a church.

It's actually a daughter work of a church that I used to pastor out in Indiana. And Scott is a lawyer, and he actually just became the prosecutor of Grant County there in Indiana.

So these guys bring some knowledge to the table, pastoral experience, ruling elder experience, and so we have a lot of fun together.

Well, I've got to get them on the program sometime as well. And if anybody wants to...

Yeah, you... Go ahead. I was just going to say you would enjoy that.

I'm sure I would. And if anybody wants to listen to three guys theologizing 3GT, go to 3GT .XYZ,

3GT .XYZ. Now tell us about the

Reform Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who I have been very familiar with for many years.

In fact, I have, as you likely know already, have interviewed a number of the faculty members there, including you, obviously.

So tell us about this fine institution. Well, RPTS is the denominational seminary of the

Reform Presbyterian Church of North America. It's the fourth oldest seminary in the United States.

It was founded in 1810, and for about half of its existence, it has been located at its current spot, which is known as Rutherford Hall, there in Point Breeze in Pittsburgh.

We are a relatively small denomination. We have usually 80 to 90 students at a given time in our master's program, and probably another 25 or 30 in our doctoral program.

But we also have lots of folks that audit classes on -site or online.

We have some programs for ruling elders and deacons that a number of churches subscribe to.

So we do have that type of ministry going on. Our motto at RPTS is

Study Under Pastors because all of our full -time professors are actually pastors.

They either serve significantly as pastors. Some of us are still doing so.

And so we really seek to, in the seminary classroom and the community there at RPTS, really approach our studies and our approach of training.

I always promise incoming students and prospective students three things you'll get at RPTS. You're going to get academic rigor.

We are a confessional seminary, and we're happy living within our confessional boundaries and teaching those to our students.

We also promise that you will experience devotional piety. It's a very worshipful place with chapel held every day and devotions and prayer taking place in the classroom and outside of it.

And then very practical training. So we want to really help prepare, particularly preparing men to go into pastoral ministry.

That's our bread and butter, the heart of what we really seek to accomplish at RPTS.

Although we do have laypeople, both men and women, studying with us, for instance, doing things like our counseling program.

So that's a short snapshot of RPTS. And from what

I know of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, which also has denominations globally, the primary differences of which

I am aware from your other major conservative, evangelical, biblically -based

Presbyterian denominations, including the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Presbyterian Church in America, et cetera, is that as a whole, the

Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America unanimously holds to exclusive psalmody in worship and also exclusive a cappella worship.

And I believe, if I'm not mistaken, at least here in the United States or in North America, there is a prohibition of alcohol consumption.

Am I right on all of those? Not quite on all of them. The last one, there was a time when

I first became a minister that you had to vow not to use alcoholic beverages, but that has since been overturned.

So we encourage a moderate lifestyle, not a prohibitionist type of lifestyle.

But with respect to our worship standards, yes, we sing the psalms exclusively.

We do it via a cappella singing. It's a historic practice of the early church.

Matter of fact, that's the way Jesus sang them. And so we're thankful for that practice.

It's been such a blessing. I did not grow up in this denomination and only came to it in my 20s as a young man.

But that's been one of the blessings in my life, my family's life, the church's life, is just singing

God's word back to him and meditating deeply on the scriptures as we worship. It might interest my listeners to know that although I am not an exclusive psalmist,

I am a believer in exclusive a cappella worship, as was the belief of Charles Spurgeon.

He was also not an exclusive psalmist, but had no musical instruments in the

Metropolitan Tabernacle and he did not welcome them into the Tabernacle either.

In fact, the story goes that one, and I've never had this 100 % confirmed, but every

Spurgeon expert that I've asked this question, is this really something

Spurgeon said? They all say, we don't know for sure, but it sounds like him. But somebody approached

Spurgeon and said, Pastor Spurgeon, is it appropriate to have an organ in a church building?

And Spurgeon said, yes, it is very appropriate as long as the pipes are filled with cement. But also, my listeners may be interested in hearing a three -part interview

I conducted on the theme of a cappella worship with Pastor John Price of Grace Baptist Church of Rochester, New York, which is a confessional reformed

Baptist church. And I have to insert in here, this is a, today in the 21st century, a rare position for reformed

Baptists, but John holds to this position and I interviewed him for three days on his book, which is

Old Light on New Worship, Musical Instruments, and the Worship of God, a theological, historical, and psychological study.

And there was at least one brother from your denomination who endorsed the book, even though John does not hold to exclusive psalmody.

And that was a dear brother, a giant of the faith who we just lost recently, who is now in eternity with Christ, Ted Donnelly, who pastored your church in Ireland, correct?

That's right. Actually, Ted was a close friend and mentor to me. I just wrote a tribute to him.

So I felt this loss tremendously because he was a father. We spent a lot of time together.

When I entered into our PTS as a student 35 years ago this summer, at that time, they required a year's worth of Greek before you came in, and I didn't have that.

So they had an intensive summer Greek class. And I did not know who the man was, but when

I came into the small class of just four students, Ted was teaching it. And walking into that classroom,

I just realized I was in the presence of a master teacher as he not only opened up the

Greek language to me, but did so with such a shepherding heart and pastoral ministry.

As a matter of fact, my father died in the midst of that class. And if it wasn't for Ted, I don't know if I would have continued on.

So we've spent a lot of time together over the years. And so I'm very thankful for his ministry.

And regarding John Price's book, Ted actually introduced me to that book many years ago.

And you and John might like to know that I used that book in a class at our PTS called Ministry of Worship when

I'm defending the acapella singing of the church.

Cool. Well, I will definitely let John know that. And I don't know if I made this clear before, the church where I'm a member,

Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, does not share that opinion with me. So I just want to make sure

I said that, because there are many people in my audience who associate with me with Grace Baptist of Carlisle.

Much to their dismay, I'm sure. But they do not practice acapella worship or exclusive psalmody.

And then, interestingly, you do have some churches that practice exclusive psalmody, but not acapella, like Joel Beattie and those folks.

But anyway, if anybody wants to learn more about the Reformed Presbyterian Church—I'm sorry, the

Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, go to rpts .edu,

rpts .edu. If you want to hear, at some point later on, after this live program, my three interviews with John Price on exclusive acapella worship defended, parts one, two, and three, which are based on his book,

Old Light on New Worship, Musical Instruments and the Worship of God, a Theological, Historical, and Psychological Study, go to ironsharpensironradio .com

and go to the search engine and type in acapella, that's

A, and then a new word, C -A -P -P -E -L -L -A, and you will get all of the interviews that I have conducted with John.

Or you could type in John Price as well, just like the Price is Right, and you will get those interviews, and I hope that you enjoy them, no matter what position to which you hold.

Well, this is quite an interesting topic that you have chosen, Mercy, the

Fruit of Biblical Worship. I have conducted many interviews on the subject of biblical worship, including one with one of your colleagues that is not at RPTS, but the former president of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Joey Piper, who

I'm sure you know, he has conducted at least one interview with me on biblical worship, but I have never addressed it from the unique viewpoint of mercy being the fruit of biblical worship, so I am dying to find out what you had in mind when suggesting this theme.

Well, there's a good segue here, because as we talk about singing the Psalms or acapella practice in worship, part of the reason those practices arise is through our understanding of the regulative principle.

The regulative principle teaches that in matters of worship, we must take great care to do only what the

Bible commands, and so a lot of Reformed Christians hold to the regulative principle, even though, as we're discussing here, we might have some different applications or understandings of how that might apply in a congregation or in a denomination.

And one of the things that I teach in my ministry of worship classes, actually the last lecture

I do, is that as we think about worship, and by this time in the class we've talked about our triune

God whom we worship, the Sabbath day, the regulative principle, some of the elements of worship, all the elements of worship, including preaching and the sacraments, ordinances, whatever you want to call them, of the

Lord's Supper and baptism. We've talked through all of those things, and toward the end we start talking about the fact that God doesn't want us to come into worship and remain unchanged.

As a matter of fact, that He really is looking, as we come before Him, to be transformed, to be sanctified, and that there should be fruit emerging from our lives.

And so sometimes the way that I approach this with the students is I say that there's another regulative principle of worship that you need to think about.

Not only do you need to make sure that when we are conducting worship in the church that we are following the dictates of Holy Scripture, but that there's also a biblical principle that insists that our worship is to regulate us.

So we think sometimes about regulating worship, but we need to remember that worship is to regulate us, and in particular

I believe the Lord is looking at us as we worship and making sure that we are calling us to a life of taking care of the poor, the needy, the widow, and the orphan as we ought to do.

And there are a lot of scriptures that testify to that. You can think of there at the end of chapter 1 of James, pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our

God and Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their distress and keep oneself unstained by the world.

We are to show that we have a true faith in Jesus Christ as James goes on to teach in chapter 2 by exhibiting a care and a heart for others.

As a matter of fact, James chapter 2 starts off with James giving an anecdote about being in worship and a rich man comes in and everybody goes and pays favor to the rich man, and then a poor man comes in and they sort of just say, well, you just go sit over there and don't really give him the attention.

And he goes on to teach how important it is that our faith is exhibiting true

Christian love and care for the poor and the needy in our midst. One of the other passages

I would just point you, Chris, and our listeners to is in the

Gospel of Matthew when Jesus talks about his return in glory, and it's the story he tells of separating the sheep and the goats.

And everyone will recall that Jesus said, I was lonely and you visited or you didn't visit me.

I was in prison. You did the same or you didn't do that. I was hungry. You fed me.

And of course, the response of the sheep is, when did we do those things to you?

And he said, when you did it to the least of these brothers of mine, you have done that unto me. And I remind the students that there's a great day of the

Lord coming when he will return, and he's going to do this very thing. He's going to separate the world into two groups.

Yes, we can call those two groups the elect and the reprobate, but the way that it's going to be visible to those on Judgment Day of who the elect and reprobate are, are not only the fact that they've been justified by faith or have rejected the

Gospel, but that they also will bear fruits in accordance with that true faith in Jesus Christ.

That's going to be clear on the Day of Judgment. And when we come into God's house every

Lord's Day, I always tell my students or people when I'm leading them in worship, you know, we're one step closer.

We're one week closer than we were the last time we were together, and we need to be making sure that we're preparing ourselves as we worship the

Lord for that great day of the Lord. And one of the ways that we are to be doing that is by heeding his voice to exhibit care for the lowly and the needy and making sure that we're really bearing the fruit that we're called to bear as the

Christian church. So I'll pause there and see how you respond to that. Well, I love everything you said, and I will respond and perhaps our listeners will respond with questions when we return from our first commercial break right now.

If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Dr. Barry York, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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We are now back with our guest today, Dr. Barry York, President of Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

We're discussing mercy, the fruit of biblical worship. We have a question from Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, and it's not quite on the heart of our discussion today.

It has something to do with what we were discussing earlier. She asks, I heard that you both say you believe exclusively in a cappella worship.

Does that mean you believe that there is no place at all for musical instruments anytime, anywhere in the body of Christ?

Well, let me just quickly answer on my part, and then Dr. York will answer what he specifically believes.

I love instrumental music. I love listening to it on the radio. I've purchased many

CDs of instrumental Christian music. I go to concerts on occasion. I have nothing against a church having a concert that includes musical instruments or a fellowship gathering outside the corporate scheduled

Lord's Day worship where folks use instrumental music.

I am just speaking of the corporate gathering on the Lord's Day. But what do you have to say about that,

Dr. York? Yes, I would agree. I have daughters who play the piano wonderfully or violin and also enjoy music of all shapes and varieties.

Our position has to do with just what we believe the Scriptures teach with respect to the instruments as they were used in the

Old Testament, really being associated with the sacrificial system and with the coming of Christ, that His death and resurrection,

His atonement for our sins really fulfilled all that the sacrificial system was signifying.

In the Old Testament study, the instruments you'll see that in the tabernacle, then particularly in the temple, when the instruments were introduced, that they were to be performed by the

Levites. And so we just see it as—and they accompanied the sacrifices. And so that's why we don't practice them anymore in the

Reformed Presbyterian Church. We believe that all those instruments signified, such as the trumpet signifying the presence of the

King or the harp, the peace that comes in a relationship with God has all been granted to us in the

Lord Jesus Christ. And so in the New Testament, when we're instructed to sing, such as in Colossians 3 .16

or Ephesians 5 .19, if you look at it very closely, it says that we're to make a melody, but it says to make a melody in our hearts to the

Lord. And actually, the Greek word for making that melody is a word that means to play a stringed instrument.

So the idea is that our redeemed hearts are the instrument. The joy of our redeemed hearts is the instrument that the

Lord wants to hear as we worship as God's people. But outside of the worship, we have a lot of freedom to enjoy the good gifts that God has given to us.

Yeah, I would even compare it to painting and drawing. I love—in fact,

I'm an art major. I not only love observing and appreciating Christian artwork, and artwork of all kinds, as long as it's not displeasing to God and as long as it does not break the second commandment.

But I also enjoy, although I don't do it as nearly as much as I used to, drawing and painting myself.

But I would not want that to be a part of a worship service. So, I mean,

I think that that is kind of a parallel because I'm not saying that all these different things in the arts are prohibited to Christians on all occasions at any time and place.

But there are certain things that we should not do in a worship service. Even the world -renowned

Olympian athlete, Christian athlete,

Eric Little, for whom Chariots of Fire, the book and film, classic film, were created.

He ran for the glory of God. I wouldn't suggest or would—if

I was in the leadership of a church, I would not permit somebody running around the congregation just because they were doing it for the glory of God.

So that's my two cents anyway, but thank you for your answer as well.

We have Bobby in Hartsdale, New York, who says, from my study of church history,

I understand that the Reformed Presbyterians were among the very first Christians in the

United States who opposed slavery. Is that true? And I could chime in immediately by saying yes, because I interviewed a member of that denomination,

Robert Copeland, on his book, A Candle Against the Dark, Reformed Presbyterians and the Struggle Against Slavery in the

United States, which you can hear in the archive or from the archive of ironsharpensironradio .com.

If you type in Robert M., as in Michael Copeland, C -O -P -E -L -A -N -D, you will be able to hear that interview.

But anything you have to say, Dr. York? No, except that Robert's a good friend of mine, and we've had him teach this material at RPTS, and he knows how to tell a good story.

So it's not just the dry facts about the Reformed Presbyterian Church's involvement, but just some really good stories of how

God worked through that movement, many ways that God saved lives in that anti -slavery movement.

So I would commend that book to your listeners. In fact, even though that would seem on its surface to be off -topic, it does involve mercy, obviously.

Yes. If you could, tell us what are the elements that you believe are inherent to true biblical mercy?

Some might just use it as a synonym for forgiveness. I know that forgiveness is certainly involved in mercy, but what else could you say about mercy?

Well, a number of things. So just to show that this is part of our

Reformed heritage in my study on this topic, I went back to the old

Westminster Directory of Public Worship and was fascinated to find a real attention there.

You know, we have a question in our Shorter Catechism on how the Sabbath is to be sanctified, and it talks about how we have the duty during that day to keep the day holy, to not engage in worldly employments and recreations, but spend the day in public and private worship.

And then it has that last clause on there that says, except so much as is to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy.

And you can almost read that last phrase as a reluctance. If you have to do something that's necessary, then yeah, you can do that.

Or if you have to show some mercy, yeah, you can do that. But I don't really think that's the spirit of that. It's like these are important things that have to be done on the

Sabbath day as well, the necessary things and merciful things. And I think that's backed up by the

Westminster Directory for Worship because, for instance, in its section on celebrating communion, the sacrament of the

Lord's Supper, it instructs the church that a collection for the poor is to be ordered so that no part of the public worship be thereby hindered.

And it's been a heritage of many Reformed churches that during times of communion, they would set an offering aside to take care of the poor in their community.

And part of the reason for that is what better place than when you're remembering your own spiritual poverty before God and how the

Lord gave his own lifeblood and broke his own body for you, you should then in turn to think about how he became poor so we could become rich spiritually.

You should turn around and think about others who are less fortunate than you are and care for them.

In the Directory of Public Worship, it also has a section on how to sanctify the Lord's Day, much like the catechism instructs.

And it talks about all the things we can do on the Lord's Day. There are spiritual exercises, going to public worship, meditating on sermons.

It talks about repetition of sermons, which doesn't mean the preacher preaching them again, but people sitting around their tables reflecting on what lessons they learned from the message and catechizing.

But then it goes on and it says this. Here's some other things that you should be doing, visiting the sick, relieving the poor, and such light duties of piety, charity, and mercy, accounting the

Sabbath a delight. And one of the things that you find when you study the

Sabbath day in the scriptures, both in the Old Testament, but particularly in our Lord's practice of it, you see that this is to be a day where mercy is extended to others.

It was a day in the Old Testament when tithes were to be collected, and those in part were distributed to the orphans and the widows in a community.

We see Jesus, one of the fascinating things in the Gospels, I think it's like 56 times the

Sabbath days mentioned in the four Gospels. And a couple of times those are just time references, but most of the time it's describing the

Lord's activity on the Sabbath day. And it's the day where he was so busy healing people and caring for people.

And there's some of his greatest miracles were done on the Sabbath day, like the guy, the person at the

Pool of Siloam who had been lame for all those years, and the healing of the blind man, and those types of things that took place on the

Sabbath day. And so this is quite a rich teaching,

I think, in the scriptures. And really part of our Reformed heritage is to think of the

Sabbath day as a day that we should be using in part to take care of the needs of the others, just like our

Lord did. We have an anonymous listener who is actually responding to the very things that you were just saying.

The anonymous listener says, I on occasion on the

Sabbath will assist neighbors, the and the disabled doing chores that they cannot do themselves.

It might involve mowing a lawn. It might involve doing minor repairs on a home.

Do you believe that this is appropriate for the Sabbath, because there are those that are critical of one doing those things, even if they are doing them as acts of mercy for others and not for yourself?

Well, one of the things I say is I try not to play Sabbath day policeman too much, where I'm sitting here judging other believers for what they're doing on the

Lord's day. I often just want to make sure that I'm honoring the Lord in the way that I'm keeping it.

But certainly if there is a need and it can't be met, Jesus said, if an ox falls into a pit, even the

Pharisees would get their ox out of the pit. And so if there are some legitimate needs that our neighbors have that we can use the

Sabbath day to meet, I would do that. I do try to avoid, like we have an elderly widower living next door to us, and some of those more strenuous jobs

I would try to either do on a different day or have, you know, sometimes the people in the church come and help him.

I tend to use the day more for visiting, for taking meals, less strenuous activity.

But then again, I am not going to sit here and judge someone if they're trying to use their time to care for those in need.

Thank you, Anonymous. Excellent question. Going back to the actual manifestation or fruit of mercy in the lives of worshipers, please give us some more detail about the actual acts of worship that if they are being done in spirit and in truth, according to the

Scriptures, will bear this fruit of mercy. Well, this subject really arose in my own life in ministry when

I was back doing church planting work in Indiana in a town north of Indianapolis called

Kokomo. It's primarily a blue -collar town, and there was a lot of people as we were doing door -to -door work and trying to minister in the community.

I just really, to be honest, I got overwhelmed with the needs that I was facing as a small church plant effort, a lot of single moms and people in poverty situations asking for help.

And I felt ill -equipped at the time to really know what to do in meeting those needs.

And one of the things that I did after I got some counsel from some older pastors is I actually just started preaching on the subject.

I ended up doing a four -month preaching series years ago on ministering to the poor. And as I dug into the

Scriptures, I began to see just how this subject, the Scriptures are just saturated with it.

And you see in the law of God, particularly the Pentateuch, the

Lord, as He's thinking about His people going into the promised land, one of the things you realize is not only was

Joshua going to lead the people in there and to drive out the wicked, but that God wanted to establish that land as a model place of justice and mercy in the world.

Psalm 68 pictures the Lord like a mighty warrior riding through the wilderness, leading

His people into the promised land. And yet the very opening verses of that Psalm, Psalm 68, talk about how tender

God is toward the orphan and the widow, and that He wanted to come and bring justice and mercy into the world as He had

His people establish the promised land. And as you see the Lord making provisions for caring for the orphan, the widow, the stranger, there's a lot of emphasis on taking care of what we might today call the immigrant or the foreigner in the land, like in the book of Deuteronomy, for instance.

It's amazing that there's this gospel implication in it all, because over and over again when the

Lord is commanding His people to take care of the needy, He'll remind them.

He'll say, remember that you were strangers in Egypt, and I came to you. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and I set you free.

And so that's the motivation for doing this, is it's an awareness of what

God's done for me in the gospel in setting me free from my sins, my spiritual slavery, my spiritual poverty, that if I'm really understanding what the

Lord has done to me, my heart should be ready and willing then to go and extend that kind of mercy and grace to others, both spiritually and physically,

I believe. So as that began to work out in our ministry,

I began to realize a lot of people are busy. And like our last listener in his question, a lot of people say,

I don't have time often because their lives are so full of work and family and other activities they have going on.

And I'll say, well, what about the Sabbath day? Because there are times on the Sabbath day where we should be free from those other worldly concerns.

And those are wonderful times for us to go and visit a neighbor, take a meal to someone in need, to try to just use that time in gainful ways to remind people of our care and love to them.

And in fact, let's pick up right where you left off. We have to go to our midway break, but we'll pick up right where you left off.

And please be patient with us, folks, because the middle break is a bit longer than the others because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle because the FCC requires of them to localize this program geographically to Lake City, Florida with their own public service announcements while we air our globally heard commercials.

So please be patient with us, and we'll be right back after these messages. Don't go away. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

G3 National Conference. That's Thursday, September 21st through Saturday the 23rd on a theme that I have been preaching, teaching, writing about, and defending in live public debates for most of my life, the sovereignty of God.

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Here's Joe Reilly, a listener in Ireland who wants you to know about a guest on the show he really loves hearing interviewed,

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

One of my very favorite guests on Iron Sharpens Iron is Dr. Joe Moorcraft. If you've been blessed by Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Dr.

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For more details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com,

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and put I Need a Church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you could send in a question for our guest today,

Dr. Barry York, and that's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com,

give us your first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Dr. York, right before the break, we were in the middle, or you were in the middle of answering my question about how specifically our biblically -faithful

Christ -honoring worship will bear fruit in the acts of mercy, and you were in the middle or towards the end of explaining that, and if you could pick up where you left off.

Yes, thank you, Chris. So I was just talking about how the Lord has established

His people to be the places on Earth where mercy is reflected, because the

God who's been merciful to us desires for us to have a witness here in this world as His prophet, priests, and kings of exhibiting that kind of mercy to others around us.

And when you look at these laws, they originate as Israel was coming into the promised land. You get laws like Deuteronomy 10, 17 through 19, for the

Lord your God is a God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and awesome God who is—

Are you there, brother? You cut out. Hello, brother. I'm still here.

Can you hear me? Yes, I hear you now. Can you hear me? Yes, I hear you now. Do you hear me? Can you hear me now?

Yes, I do. I do, yes. Sorry. I don't know what—I was just reading from Deuteronomy 10, which says—I was just explaining how these poverty laws that we find get echoed down through the scriptures.

We see them as God's people are going into Israel, and God says,

The Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, awesome God who is not partial and takes no bribe.

He executes justice for the fatherless and widow, loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.

Love the sojourner, therefore, for you are sojourners in the land of Egypt. And so we see that these commands are based on the mercy that God has shown his people.

And I alluded to Psalm 68 earlier, in verses 4 and 5, it says,

Sing to God, sing praises to his name. Lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts. His name is the

Lord. Exult before him. Father of the fatherless, protector of widows, is God in his holy habitation.

And I think when you come into the New Testament, as we've mentioned earlier, you see Jesus exhibiting this heart of God and the mercy that he showed to so many and feeding the 5 ,000 and healing the sick, particularly doing many of his miracles on the

Sabbath day. And then as the early churches formed, one of the very first things that happens, a crisis there in Jerusalem, recorded for us in chapter 6 of Acts is the need to care for the widows.

And you'll recall that the apostles were doing this work. So they saw it as part and parcel of their work, but because they needed to make sure they didn't get distracted too much from their ministry of prayer and the

Word, they appointed what we often recognize as the first deacons of the church and those seven men who took over this responsibility.

And one of the fascinating outcomes, Chris, of that story is found in verse 7.

I've always found this intriguing, because after these men are appointed and they start ministering to those widows there, it says this in verse 7, "...the

word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem."

And then it says, "...a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith." And I've always wondered, why did

Luke include that detail in the story? And I started thinking, you know, it was the priests who had the responsibility to care for widows.

That was their appointed responsibility. And I think these men in Jerusalem, seeing the early church, seeing the gospel transform lives, and then seeing these deacons doing the job that they were supposed to be doing and really caring for people but neglecting it,

I think they were convicted, drawn to the Christian faith. And that's why many of them, we're told here, were converted.

And as I looked at these, you know, these poverty laws and just how they kind of echo down through the

Scriptures, you find many of them in the epistles and instructions to the church. You see the apostle

Paul as he's being sent out by the apostles. He's told not to forget the poor.

He's told, remember the poor, the very thing he said he was eager to do. It just led me to think about practical ways we in the church need to make sure that our

Reformed worship, our biblical worship, is really following, you know, again, what

I'm calling this other regulative principle and producing the fruit the Lord desires. And there's a few practical ways that I think we can do that.

First of all, if we're leading in worship, we should be heightening our congregation's awareness of the fact that as they come before the

Lord in worship, that one of the things they need to realize is that the Lord from on high is examining their lives and they're to be using their time there under the ministry of the

Word to be looking at their own lives and making sure they're producing the fruit that the Lord wants from them.

One of the things that I've appreciated about singing the Psalms, and again, this is one of the ways that God taught me this, is there's so much in the

Psalms about the subject, about remembering the poor. One of the things that's so important in ministering to the poor is to remember your own poverty.

And so often the psalmist is just crying out, I am poor and needy. And then remembering like in Psalm 146, that the

Lord Jehovah is the one that cares for the poor. I think we have to be really careful to make sure that the rich and poor are worshiping and fellowshipping on equal ground in our congregations.

Back at my ministry in Indiana, we had a lot of men because of our proximity to a rescue mission and also some of our deacons working there.

We had a lot of men from that mission coming and worshiping with us, and we had to make sure that our people were ready to meet them with hospitality, to invite them to sit with them in worship or sit with them around a fellowship meal.

All of that was really important. We found that it's very important in ministering to the poor to remember that what they need more than anything is praying for them and preaching to them, that that's far more powerful than political help or, you know, politicians doing things for them, that they really need the church to come next to them and guide them and teach them

His ways. I think biblical compassion, you know,

I learned this from Marvin Olasky's book, The Tragedy of American Compassion, where he does a historical study of why immigrants that were coming to our country in the 18th century and early 19th century were ministered to and really became those who transformed our country into the great country that it is.

And he compared that to the way that the poor are treated in our day and age. And one of the things that Olasky taught in this book is that we've kind of lost the whole idea of what compassion means, because the literal word means to suffer with someone.

And so, so often Americans get this mentality that caring for the poor means that I'm better than they are, and so I'm going to give them what

I have. Whereas really biblical compassion is not to think that we're better than anyone, to realize that we've received mercy, and then we come and we walk alongside someone, we suffer alongside someone, we learn about them so that we know how to truly help them because we truly know them.

So those are some of the, you know, the practical outworkings, I would say, that should come as we worship the

Lord, who is a God of the orphan and the widow. We have another anonymous listener who says,

I hope this is no offense to you or to any other Reformed listeners, because I happen to be theologically

Reformed myself. The one thing that has always troubled me, as long as I have been a Reformed Christian, is that it seems that the minority of compassionate evangelistic mission work in inner cities is done by Reformed Christians.

The Pentecostal and Charismatic churches seem to have cornered the market on this.

That is, if you are evangelical, of course many liberal denominations have cornered the market on these kinds of evangelistic efforts, but they are devoid of the

Gospel. Do you think that Reformed Christians should rightly receive a loving rebuke to challenge us to be more motivated and involved in these kind of endeavors, like feeding and clothing the poor, reaching out to the prostitutes, the homosexuals, the

AIDS patients, etc., etc.? I think it's a great question,

Chris, and in part I would agree with our listener. I do think that a lot of Reformed Christians, because of what happened over the last century with the social

Gospel and liberal theology, that they see that the church really left preaching the

Gospel and began to just be involved in the social works. And so sort of a response or reaction against that is, well, we're not going to fall into that trap again, so we're going to go over here and just focus on preaching and theology and the like.

And I understand that, because you don't want to lose your preaching. I think that's where preaching, though, can recapture this in the

Reformed world. And I would remind our listeners that some of the greatest movements of awakening and revival and reform have come with a lot of mercy enacted at the same time.

So George Grant's done a lot of good work in this area. And he points out the fact that Calvin at Geneva had a

French fund, as there were these thousands of immigrants coming from France into Switzerland, and they were having to take care of them.

And the ministers and deacons administered this fund. And it wasn't just handouts.

They were using these funds to help train these poor immigrants and new skills that would help them to survive there in Switzerland.

During the Great Awakening, George Whitefield was very concerned for the poor.

There's anecdotes of Benjamin Franklin, who said that he'd love to go listen to Whitefield preach, but before he did, he emptied his pockets because he knew that when he appealed for people to give to the orphanages, he wouldn't be able to refuse that.

Spurgeon, you're aware of Spurgeon, you know, part of his ministry.

He had a couple of deacons that were just so key in establishing hospitals and orphanages there in London.

And so I think history shows that there has been a wedding between faithful gospel preaching, reform theology, and the care for the poor.

I don't think that we have to say it's one or the other. But I do believe, as you just said, that there's a bit of a battle that we have to face, a battle against wrong approaches to caring for the poor, whether that's churches that are doing things that I think often are hurting rather than helping.

There's a book with that title in it. Or, of course, our government, which has gotten so involved in this whole matter.

Well, let's, because of that very insightful question and challenge, how do we make sure that these works of benevolence that we and or our churches as a corporate body are involved in are clearly

Christian acts of benevolence, rather than just your average soup kitchen?

And please, I don't want any of my listeners to think that I am downplaying any importance for that kind of a work.

I'm glad that there are people feeding the poor out there, as long as they are not poisoning their minds with a false gospel.

But even if it's a secular organization feeding the poor, some kind of benevolent organization, charity,

I'm all for that. But obviously, I am much more enthusiastic and excited about it when a church is conducting such things.

What are the things that we should be reminded of? What should be included in all those kinds of benevolent activities, acts of mercy, to make sure that everyone who is the recipient of these acts of mercy knows that they are coming from those who are disciples of Jesus Christ?

That's a great question, and it takes a lot of wisdom. And I think we have to really go back and realize that God's Word has the answers to these things, and that's the way reform always begins, is by a clear return to God's Word to address the issues of our age.

And I do think that there is a lot of wrongheaded mercy ministry being done, particularly even in the name of Christ that's being done, where well -meaning people are seeking to help others but don't realize that they're actually hurting.

There's a book you may be familiar with, When Helping Hurts, by two men named

Corbett and Fickert, and they have done a lot of ministry work and training really around the world.

And in this book, they talk about how so often the Western world, in trying to help address issues of poverty, are actually hurting people rather than helping.

For instance, we may see some village in Africa where people are lacking clothes and shoes and things like that, and we say, well, we're going to address that problem.

And so we get all the extra shoes and clothes that we have here, and we collect them, and we box them up, and we send them over to Africa.

And we don't realize that we've just put the local clothing guy or woman who's sitting there sewing day and night trying to make a living, we just put her out of business because we thought that we would be helpful.

And one of the things that they talk about in this book is the fact that we often hear in the West have what they call a

God complex or a Messiah complex, where we think that we are really better than the people that we're trying to help, that we have the resources, that we have the strength, that we have the wisdom that they need.

Instead of really, again, coming alongside in that sense of what

Alaski was saying and learning to suffer with people and walk with them, and to really talk and interact with them and think about what might be most helpful to them.

In this book, they tell the story of a church's ministry to a government housing complex where at Christmas, they would collect all these clothes and gifts and food that these families needed, and they would bring them to this government housing complex and give them to people living there.

And they began to notice year by year that every time the door opened, it was a woman, that even in the places where there was a father, he wouldn't show up.

And they began to realize that they were embarrassing and shaming the father and the husband of this household by giving his family things that he couldn't provide.

And so they devised a way of these men doing some work where they could earn credit in order to take these gifts and then let the father come and give the gifts to the family.

And I just think thinking through issues like that is how churches would be better equipped, and I think actually kind of went back some of the area that we've lost in this regard in how to do biblical mercy ministry properly.

And let's see, another questioner, Joseph in South Central Pennsylvania says,

Do you think that these acts of mercy are more effective when conducted by individual

Christians who are sent out from a local church or when the actual church is involved in them, or is there really no difference and both are completely acceptable and equivalent in many ways?

That's a great question. And I almost feel like your listener just kind of set me up each step along the way here.

So well, I do think there are places for both. I think there are places for individuals to do things.

I think there are places for more of the corporate body to do it. But I think what often happens is when we start even talking about the subject, we can all start feeling guilty.

We start thinking, well, we need to form a committee at our church, and we need to have a soup kitchen or a clothing or food pantry.

And that often can be the response of God's people. What I think what we need to do first and foremost is to train our people to be merciful as individuals and in their families.

And I think that's the real thrust of the Scriptures. Brother, you've cut away again.

Are you there? Can you hear me? Now I can.

Can you hear me? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you.

Am I back? Yes, you are. Okay, thank you.

I was saying that in Matthew 25, on that passage of the sheep and the goats that I referenced earlier, that when

Jesus is talking to his people, he says, when I was hungry, you fed me.

When I was a stranger, you let me in. And so I do think we need to think about this on a personal level primarily that it should start there.

One of the great books on the subject is the prophet Isaiah, where the theme of that book, one of the great themes of that book really is that God's people honor him with their lips, but their hearts are far from him, that they offer the outer forms of worship that he's commanded, but it's despicable to him because they are not taking care of people the way that they ought to do.

And then he says in chapter 58, they're saying, well, God, we fasted before you, like we do all these religious acts before you.

And God says, is not this the fast that I choose to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house when you see the naked to cover him and not to hide yourself from your own flesh like our own family members?

And God really brought this home to me. For 10 years of my life, I had to take care of my own mother who was mentally ill, who had been divorced by her second husband after my father died.

And it was a very difficult time in my life. And there were times where I was struggling to fulfill these commands, even as a pastor and had to learn a lot about caring for my own mom who was struggling with mental illness, would run away from our house, would not practice hygiene.

There's a whole story I could tell you that because eventually my mother was converted in a dementia, a dementia ward.

I saw God act toward the end of her life in a wondrous way, but it was not before he taught me a lot of lessons about what

I'm trying to share with your listeners. So I do think that we have to first and foremost think about this on a personal level.

But then, sure, there are needs in a community that one person or family can't meet on their own.

And I think that's when the household of God needs to come together, particularly through their deacons, and find ways to take our resources and to meet those greater needs that exist in a community.

Now, you said something that I'm praising God with you to hear about your mother.

One of those things that we who are reformed get a little antsy about or nervous is when we hear the word miracle thrown around.

And of course, that word is abused quite frequently in the body of Christ. But would you consider what occurred in your mom's case a miracle?

I mean, she was in a dementia ward. From your understanding, you believe that she embraced the gospel.

Yes. And when I say miracle, I mean the miracle of conversion.

You know, it's a miracle any time when God's grace is enacted. It's the greatest thing that can happen to anyone is them to be brought from death to life.

If my mom was resistant to the gospel, resistant to me, she had been—she was a great mom when

I was growing up. I mean, she took care of me. I love my mom. But when she fell and spiraled down into this mental illness,

I think because of my father's passing primarily, she just didn't have the foundation.

She was in a liberal church, and she just did not have the foundation to continue on. And so she was in and out of mental wards and just dead.

I would go visit her when she was in an assisted living place. I'd be there five minutes, and she would say, it's time for you to leave.

This was my mom. But when she ended up having to go into a dementia ward, our church began to hold chapel services there and just a whole different couple of things that the

Lord used in my mom's life. All of a sudden, this woman was transformed in the simplicity of her mind.

I would walk into the dementia ward, and my mom would see me, and she would laugh. She hadn't laughed for years, and she would smile, and she would say, there's my boy, the big guy who preaches the

Bible. And every time you asked mom why she was happy, she would say,

Jesus makes me happy. And the weekend that she passed away, my brother happened in God's good providence to be there with her.

And she started talking about going home, which she had never done. And she talked about going home.

And my brother said, mom, where's home? She says, it's where God is. I want to go be with God. And so, yes,

I praise God and his great mercies. He clearly converted my mother.

Praise the Lord. And I was so delighted that my own mother came to Christ after being raised and living as a

Roman Catholic, always a very sweet, lovely, gentle, humble, sacrificial, and generous woman.

She was living a life enslaved to an idolatrous religion of the false gospel.

And she recanted all of it on her deathbed, dying of pancreatic cancer.

It was clear that she was trusting in the finished work of Christ alone while she was in her last days.

And she renounced prayer to saints and veneration of images and all that kind of thing.

So I share with you an experience of witnessing my dear, precious mother come to saving faith.

And I have no doubt at all that I will be seeing her when I enter eternity as well.

We are going to be going to our final break right now. And if you have a question, send it in immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

Chris Arnzen at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Dr. Barry York. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries here.

I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend, Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

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Hi, this is John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona. Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arntzen and the

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I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide. This is a day of great spiritual compromise, and yet God has raised

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I'm pleased to do so and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

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Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

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It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in his holy word and to enthusiastically proclaim

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Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron radio financially.

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If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

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This is Pastor Bill Sousa wishing you all the richest blessings of our

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Hello, my name is Anthony Uvino, and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Quorum, New York, and also the host of the reformrookie .com

website. I want you to know that if you enjoy listening to the Iron Sharpens Iron radio show like I do, you can now find it on the

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Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Invinio, and thanks for listening. As host of Iron Sharpens Iron radio,

I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations. A church I've been strongly recommending as far back as the 1980s is

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Thanks for helping to keep Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio on the air. Getting a driver's license, running a cash register, flipping burgers, passing sixth grade.

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That's liyfc .org. Welcome back,

Dr. York. We have a question from CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island who wants to know if you are aware of any books available in print, either old or new, that lay out these principles of which you are speaking.

I talked about George Grant. He has a couple of books that would be helpful in this regard.

He has more of a historical work that looks at some of these stories

I've told called the Micah Mandate, so that's a helpful book. He also has a book called

Bringing in the Sheaves. It really helps churches walk through a process toward instituting mercy ministry in a local congregation.

And then I might point to one, if you don't mind this, Chris, one RPTS resource. I did a class that's available to the public called

Deacons and Mercy Ministry where I teach on how deacons can set up a mercy plan for their congregation, and that would be available on our website.

If you go to the rpts .edu website and go to our resources tab, and then we have a place called

Applied Theology for the Church where that resource can be found. So that would be an audio resource.

A video, yes. Oh, okay, yes. Okay, great. Well, folks, we are out of time.

I want to make sure that our listeners have all of the information that they need to get in touch with Dr.

York and also learn more about Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary. First of all, the seminary website is rpts .edu,

R -P -T -S, standing for Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary, dot E -D -U.

And also, don't forget about the 3GT podcast, which stands for Three Guys Theologizing, and that's 3GT dot

X -Y -Z, 3GT dot X -Y -Z. I want to thank you,

Dr. York, as always. You have proven to be a very wonderful, superb, enlightening, and edifying guest.

I look forward to having you back on the program, and I want to thank all of our— Thank you. I want to thank all of our listeners, especially those who took the time to write in questions today.

I want to remind you that the Iron Sherpa's Iron Radio Free Pastor's Luncheon is

Thursday, April 13th, and that is at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania.

And also, the three -day Bible conference, also free, is April 14th through the 16th.

That is Friday through Sunday at a different church, Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Both of these events featuring Dr. William Webster, a Banner of Truth author and pastor in Battleground, Washington, and the

Rev. David T. King, a PCA pastor of Christ Church in Katy, Texas, who are both speaking at both of those events.

If you want to register for free for either or both, send me an email to chrisarns and at gmail .com—chrisarns and at gmail .com.

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.