February 3, 2020 Show with Conference Interviews featuring Paul Washer, Armen Thomassian, and Austin Huggins

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century Gospel Minister, George Norcross, in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron.

This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues

facing the Church and the world today.

Proverbs 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 in 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 Arnzen.

Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, Champaign County, Illinois, and the rest of

humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming to ironsharpensironradio .com.

I am Eric Nielsen, the webmaster for ironsharpensironradio .com, sitting in for Chris Arnzen.

As you may know, Chris has been taking some time to go to the Foundations Conference in

December and the G3 Conference in January, and he's done a number of interviews.

We're going to be playing some of those interviews today.

Unfortunately, Chris came back with more than interviews from those conferences.

He's been sick for quite a while, which is why we haven't had a new broadcast in some time.

I, myself, came back from the G3 Conference and ended up having to stay a few days home from

work.

But all that aside, we have some very good interviews for you today.

Chris had the opportunity to speak with Paul Washer and Armin Tomasian at the

Foundations Conference in New York in December.

And following that, there is an interview with Pastor Austin Huggins from the G3 Conference

in 2019.

We have a lot to cover today, so let's go ahead and get started.

Today's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio broadcast features interviews that were conducted on site on

Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th, at the Foundations Conference in New York City.

Please excuse the background noises and other imperfections in the recording due to the fact

that these were conducted on site with a portable recorder.

I hope you enjoy these wonderful interviews.

Well, God certainly does answer prayer, because one of my prayers for a number of years has been to

interview a man who has blessed me more than I can adequately describe in the

English language, and that is Paul Washer, Paul Washer of

HeartCry Missionary Society.

And it's such a joy to be with Paul here at the Foundations Conference in New York

City.

And Paul, before we even get into our discussion, can you tell our listeners about

the HeartCry Missionary Society?

Well, it was started probably somewhere around 25, 30 years ago.

And what we do is we partner, we are a local church,

Christ Church of Radford, and we partner with biblical churches of like faith

around the world.

We know them through providence, and they must have either a national or international reputation

among those of like faith.

And as they're training men to be elder qualified and sending them out and holding them accountable,

we help with that training, we help support sending them out and work with them in accountability and

continued training.

And our desire is to put as many men on the field sent out through local churches and cared for by

the elders of those churches.

Right now, I think we work in over 40 countries, and God has seemingly blessed the work.

Praise God, and we'll be giving you a website for that ministry momentarily.

But one thing I'm going to say, Brother Paul, and this is, believe me,

it's not intended to be an insult, but I cannot recall ever hearing you preach where I didn't

feel uncomfortable, where I didn't squirm.

Of course, you always direct us and drive us into the arms of a merciful and forgiving

and gracious Savior.

But how important is it, do you believe, if a preacher is truly

proclaiming the whole counsel of God for his audience to be squirming a bit

and to be driven to self -examination?

Obviously, that can sometimes be, the lack of that in the audience can

be the fault of those who are listening who are so proud and have such a seared

conscience that they don't even realize that the message is applying to them.

But as you know, as you have repeatedly said in your own sermons, this is very often the fault of the

one behind the pulpit.

So if you could explain that a little bit.

Well, first of all, you have to understand that I have an itinerant ministry in which I do

a lot of evangelism, and many times in places where people believe themselves

to be Christian and yet show no fruit of such, or in areas that may be a bit more liberal where the word of God is not

preached.

There's a difference between an itinerant ministry and a pastoral ministry.

Pastorally, a man is preaching through the full counsel of God.

And so he's not only reproving and correcting and training in righteousness, but he's also encouraging.

And so you have to make a distinction between those two ministries.

I, since the beginning, I felt the great need as I read through church history and as I

read through the scriptures and as I compared modern Christianity to the scriptures and

church history, I began to see that one of the greatest problems in American evangelicalism was the superficial

gospel that is preached.

And then pastors simply declaring someone converted

just because they walked an aisle without counseling them, without spending copious amount of time helping them

discern the scriptures and what the gospel is and what is a true response to the gospel.

And so I'm primarily preaching in that area, and yes, it does make people squirm.

At the same time, when people have come to the church that I attend, and I've been preaching there because the elders have asked

me to, they'll usually ask the elders, you know, I don't understand, you know, I hear

Paul preaching on the internet and I see one thing here in the church, he's primarily preaching

on the love of God.

Because truly converted people, their greatest need is a deeper and deeper understanding of the love of God in Christ.

And the more they get that, the more they'll grow in sanctification.

Outside of our church and in many places, I feel like it's a clarion call of warning to make your

calling and election sure.

Are you bearing the fruit of a Christian?

Are you genuinely converted?

Yes, that would, correct me if I'm wrong, but be somewhat comparative to the way

I may counsel and speak with a brother or sister in a

congregation and speaking to somebody.

In a bus or train, right, right, you know, when I'm preaching,

for example, in the street or a bus or a train or something, it's good news.

It's joyful news, you know, and I'm going to talk to them about sin, I'm gonna talk to them about the holiness of God,

but it is, it's not this, I'm not going to approach it as this stern rebuke or this

solemn declaration.

But when we're in the context of people who have sat under preaching for years and yet have

not been moved by the gospel because maybe they've not even heard it clearly, it's another type of preaching.

Now, we know that the scriptures forbid ear tickling

for men from behind a pulpit to be tickling the ears of

the listeners in a way that basically makes them feel comfortable,

promises things that make them be filled with joyful anticipation and so on,

and never troubles their conscience and so on.

Now, we who are Reformed, we often look at those that are in

perhaps the Word of Faith movement or some other modern evangelical movement,

even just your bland, average, vanilla evangelical that just wants to speak

comforting, soothing words, but do you think that in our circles sometimes, and in

fundamentalist circles, that a preacher can be tickling the ears of those

present by only focusing on the sins of those that are, the sins that are not

common amongst that congregation?

You may be solely speaking against homosexuality, adultery,

fornication, immodest dress, and so on, and I, of course, I think that those things must be

proclaimed to be damning behaviors, but at the same time, doesn't a

preacher, especially a pastor, a shepherd, need to have some awareness of his congregation, not that he knows what

goes on behind their closed doors in private, but that he has to really, as you do with me and

many other people, he has to make his own people squirm, not just preach against those outside of the

four walls of that church.

Well, it's like this.

When I had my heart attack, I did not need to be treated for cancer.

You know, I could have had the greatest cancer specialist in the world and I would have died.

I needed treatment for a heart attack.

And so what, see, here's the thing.

A pastor, a true pastor, knows his people.

He's with his people.

He visits his people.

It's true pastoring.

It's not just I'm the preaching pastor.

No, he knows his people.

And, you know, even with my own children, if each of my children have different personalities and different weaknesses,

I'll deal with them differently according to their need.

If one child is overly proud and robust, I must deal with him in humility.

If the other has a sense of false humility, I must deal with that.

And it's the same way in a congregation.

I don't need to be preaching to people outside.

And something very important today in the age of the Internet, when you're pastoring, you do not need to be

preaching to people on the Internet.

You need to be preaching to your people.

Because whatever is good for a local congregation will be a blessing on the Internet, but not vice versa.

A lot of what you are saying is very, I think, very much wedded to a

message you just gave here at the Foundations Conference where you said, God's hammer

is always hard, but it's always necessary.

And I think that you are very faithful in bringing down the hammer of God when you preach.

But at the same time, as I said earlier, you don't just leave us there in terror.

You drive us by the Holy Spirit to the loving and merciful arms of Christ.

If we study the preachers of old, Spurgeon, Whitefield, so on and so forth, even Wesley, there

was the idea of the preacher like a physician.

When my mother had cancer and she passed away, praise God in the Lord.

But when she had cancer, I'll never forget that physician.

I so admired him.

He knew my mother was pretty stubborn and hard and hard willed.

And so he did something unusual.

He said, Mrs. Washer, he said, I have to tell you, you have cancer and

we have to deal with it severely.

And immediately my mom was like kind of in denial or kind of, no, it's not that bad.

And it's like he knew my mother.

He brought a stack of folders, probably, I don't know, it looked like six inches a

foot deep.

And then he'd go, Mrs. Washer, here's the reason I say that.

And he presented the first evidence.

Here's the reason I say that.

The second, third, fourth, fifth.

And you know what?

I love my mother.

And that doctor was hurting my mother.

He really was.

With every one of those evidences he presented, he was ruining her day.

He was making her sad.

At the end of it, my mom was in tears.

You would think I would be angry at that doctor, but I admired him.

He was hurting my mother so that she would respond.

You see, he knew he's got, I've got to make this real to this woman that if we do not act

now, she's in a severe case.

Now, if he had done anything else, he would have been immoral.

He was seeking to save her life.

You know, a man in a burning building.

I'm not going to whisper to him that he might want to think about running.

I'm going to scream at him to run.

Now, we have to be very, very careful at the same time.

We do not have to intentionally be hard.

We should always be loving.

All we really have to do is repeat what's in this book.

Give them the full counsel.

And the full counsel is not only this extravagant, beautiful love and

grace of God, but also if we are not in Christ and we do not run to him for

refuge, there is the justice of God.

Amen.

Well, a lot of people have asked me, because they know that I know your

pastor, Anthony Mathenia, how's Paul Washer's health doing?

And I was wondering if you could give an update, because I really don't have the in

-depth knowledge, of course, that you do, being your own health.

And in fact, if you could, if you feel comfortable doing so, tell us about the fact that you

actually clinically died three times.

Well, what I know about it is that I had to be resuscitated three different times.

And that when, after I was resuscitated the third time, they told my wife,

they said, you know, your husband is never going, you're not going to interact with

your husband again.

Wow.

He's gone so long without oxygen, that it would take a miracle.

And I did.

I mean, from what I understand, when the ambulance got there, I was basically gray and clay -like.

And then they even said, you know, we've lost him.

And my wife heard it, you know, and and then they kept working and

they resuscitated me.

And I don't know, I just know it was three times.

I don't know exactly when and where it all happened.

And I remember the first thing I remember

was several days later.

Now, from what I understand, I was talking and things, but mainly nonsense.

But the first thing I remember was a doctor standing over me and he said, you know,

do you know who you are?

And I said, yes.

And I remember him like calling some others, I think physicians or something, and they are all standing around my, my bed

there.

And they said, you know who you are?

And I said, they said, you know your name?

I said, I'm Paul Washer.

And they said, do you know what happened to you?

And I said, well, no, was I in an accident?

And this one, he was, he was oriental neurologist, I think, lovely man, kind man, very

funny.

And I said, was I in an accident?

And he said, no, you died three times.

And I don't know if it was clinical or whatever you would call it.

I just know I was resuscitated three times and that my heart completely stopped.

And how long ago was that?

That was, it'll be three years this coming March.

And, and it was, you know, they told me it would be a difficult recovery.

And I didn't really believe it.

I just thought, you know, just suck it up and go on.

But I realized there were so many things that were different.

And so many, it's like many of the weaknesses that I'd had before became stronger, more

susceptible to melancholy, more susceptible to fear.

And things that you see, it's like I was teaching a while ago,

God works weakness in our life to create dependence

upon him.

And the more the closer we get to zero, the more filled we can be

with him.

And I wouldn't have chosen this for my life.

There's there are many things I wouldn't, you know, my other medical conditions, I never would have chosen, but I know that

God has used them.

And I would be afraid to be without them.

You know, I don't ever want to know, you know, I never want to say to the Lord, Lord, if this hadn't,

what did you save me from by this heart attack?

I don't want to know.

I don't want to know.

But I know that he is all wise and all loving and all good.

And then that what he does is right.

Amen.

Um, you have been speaking very powerfully on prayer.

And after you tell this story, briefly, that

if you don't mind repeating it from your sermon, but I want you to advise our

listeners how they can pray for you and your health.

But before that, if you could, at least in summary fashion, repeat that powerful

story of Leonard Ravenhill's description of a man walking into a prayer

room.

I just heard this one time.

And I was always wanting to know who he was talking about.

But I never knew he he talked about one time walking in to a room where

there was a man who had distinguished himself in prayer.

He was a man of prayer.

And he said that he walked in, realized the man was there and was praying.

And then he didn't turn around.

He stopped and he backed out the door.

And he said that I backed out the door because you never turn your back on royalty.

And, you know, that is one thing that, you know, Leonard

Ravenhill and I would would disagree theologically on some things.

And and but oh, my.

When you when you heard him preach, I think the word that you would have to use would be

reality.

Here was a man who walked with God.

And and you know, we were all young guys in college when we would go

see him.

And there were other men like that.

You know, I had the privilege of of being around a man, you know, Mac Tomlinson.

Yes.

Who wrote a biography of Leonard.

And Mac is a godly man in himself.

And but but also Mac was like a bridge to me.

Mac Tomlinson was like a bridge because he knew a lot of the old guys, you

know, that before that I never knew.

And so I was always able to glean these stories.

And of course, Mac's a student of history and everything else.

And and he he kind of brought me into a world that I would have never known existed of

these men.

They they weren't necessarily eloquent.

They weren't necessarily academics, although they knew their scripture.

But they lived and preached with the power of God.

And God used them mightily, you know, and it's so funny, you know, I'm kind of like a kid when he goes to

see his grandpa, even though Mac is Mac is not that much older than me.

But it's like, hey, Mac, tell me another story.

Tell me another story.

You know, it's so encouraging to hear, you know, and sometimes you have to laugh at the kind of

men and women that God will use.

Strange birds, the mightliest of God.

You know, Mac.

Oh, yes.

Every time I it's funny.

It's as if he has amnesia.

But every time I ask him to come as a guest on my show

and I say, what would you like to talk about?

And I always say, can we talk about good books?

That's a good you got him down.

Well, we've spoken about that three times already.

Can we come up with something?

But he's a precious brother.

Now, how does that with that story of Leonard Ravenhill and the man backing out of

the prayer room?

How does that reflect upon the deficiencies that you are addressing in your sermon about the

typical prayer life of perhaps modern day evangelicals?

Well, I think there's a deeper.

Problem.

And that is just men of the West, especially men of America, have that can do

spirit of pragmatism.

You know, I mean, if someone comes to me with some church growth strategy

or ministry strategy or five ways to do this, I mean, I'm going to tell them if you give me the book,

it's going straight in the trash can.

I'm not reading.

And we've got to realize that our work is not social.

It's not academic, even though it requires study.

Our work is a supernatural work that cannot be carried out with any weapon of the flesh.

And I think that's where young guys have been misled, even though they may even have good

theology.

But it's like, OK, that's my theology, but that's not necessarily my practice.

And even Mack Tomlinson would say things like, yeah, but is it a reality in your life you're saying?

And see, we have been given only a few weapons and they're so powerful.

We don't need anything else.

We've been given the weapon of the proclamation of God's word, the weapon of intercessory

prayer and the weapon of a godly life.

And you go beyond that.

You're getting on.

You're putting on Saul's armor.

You know, give me the smooth stones of the gospel to sling at that giant because armor is not going to help me.

I'm so weak.

There is no strategy.

There is no there's nothing in this world that I could add to the gospel that's going to make me

stronger.

If God does not move on this preacher's behalf in ministry, nothing is going

to happen.

As a matter of fact, not only nothing, it's they're going to be negatives, you see, and we can

do nothing in the flesh.

And I've learned that through the study of scripture, but I've also learned that through rubbing shoulders with men from

the old school.

You know, I've learned two things today that I never heard

before.

The first is that there are any people that either have the audacity,

the stupidity or both to tell you that you're not a very good preacher.

I'm amazed that people like that exist.

But the second one, you dispelled a myth that I've been hearing

since I've been a Christian, I believe, since the 1980s.

Perhaps I can't even count.

I don't know, but I know that I've repeated this myth thinking it was true.

But Abba Father, you just mentioned in a sermon not long ago today, does not

mean daddy.

It's not that overly familial or perhaps playful way of

addressing father.

No, we've got to, you know, it is a term of endearment.

Far beyond anything I could exaggerate.

It is a term of endearment, of love, of grace, of acceptance.

That is all true.

But to say it is equal to daddy?

No, because that is eliminating the idea of it also holds

the father in reverence and highest honor.

And I mentioned that it's been primarily in Africa, especially among

African believers, I can think in Zambia and different places, where you will see a

child come to their father.

And let's say he's a good man, he's a good Christian man.

And without the fear of there being some

fault in their father's character, that's going to adversely affect them.

Loving their father, and yet at the same time, you will see this reverence.

You know, it's like I said, I love my children.

I love my children.

But I have to make it very, very clear.

I am not their friend.

I'm something higher.

I'm their father.

And so even though they'll come to me, we'll laugh together and everything.

I am not one of their colleagues that's 15 years old.

I'm their father.

And so they're not going to speak to me in any way but a reverent way, even though they may be

smiling, but it's going to be reverent.

I am their father, and their mother is their mother.

And that's lost in this idea that Abba Father means daddy.

And how does that connect to an appropriate way that our,

our fellow believers should be approaching the throne of grace when we pray?

Well, you know, Jesus set up what I called this morning, the perfect psychology of prayer, our Father who

art in heaven.

He's our Father.

That is true.

Oh my, so wonderful.

We never have to be nervous before him that he is going to act inconsistently with his nature.

We're fully accepted in the beloved.

And yet at the same time, our Father is in heaven, seated on the throne of heaven.

You know, I'm reminded of a picture, I think I get this right, you're probably a better student of history.

But isn't there a picture of John F. Kennedy sitting in the Oval Office, I believe it is.

So that would be sitting on in the most powerful desk maybe in the world at the time.

And you see that inside the desk through the hole there, his little son is playing with toys at

his feet.

And so I want you to think about this for a moment.

You know, here's the most, arguably the most powerful political figure in the world.

And if men were called in there, they would, they would watch their Ps and Qs.

Regardless of what you think about his politics, his office demands honor.

And so you would be very careful how you spoke.

And yet, what we see is we see his little boy playing at his feet.

And I think that shows something of what, yes, we're his children.

Yes, we can delight before him, but never, never laying aside this

reverence of holy, holy, holy.

And you know, what I've discovered about especially the American mind, especially in the last 25 years,

is we can't seem to think that those two things can exist together.

But in the scriptures, they do.

They do just like we can't, we can't accept the fact that someone can love me and tell me I'm wrong at the same time,

you know, but the one who does love you will tell you you're wrong.

In fact, it's amazing how.

People who are parents have amnesia in that regard, because they may deal with their

peers or other people in a very

insulted manner when they are told they are wrong, but they seem to forget that they must be telling their

children at some point that they're wrong.

Yes, if they love them.

Yes,.

If they love them.

At this point, we need to take a break from the interview to hear a word from our sponsors.

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Welcome back.

This is Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Chris Arnzen, our host, has been interviewing.

Paul Washer.

Let's continue to listen.

So now I come to the point where I want you to educate our listeners how they can pray for you, not only your

health, but also just the HeartCry Missionary Society in general and anything else that you'd like to.

Well, we begin our prayer.

Meetings at HeartCry with the primary petition, Lord, increase our

fear of thee.

Increase our reverence toward thee.

Growing in reverence to God pretty much handles everything else.

The more we know about who he is, his otherness, as I said this morning, he's not like

us.

He's not like us, just bigger.

He's in an entirely different category.

The more we see God as God, the more we see the love of

God in the cross of Christ, the more sanctification everything's going to fall

in line.

You know, for me, my greatest desire, and this

is going to sound strange, I always when people say, how can we pray for you?

Pray that I will be a godly husband.

And they say, well, you know, don't really understand that, you know, you're preaching the mission, you do all these things.

Here's what I've discovered.

In a pulpit, it's very easy to appear godly, isn't it?

You stand before people at times, man, that guy's preaching he, you know, but it's behind closed

doors.

And it's with the people that are closest to you, where your character really comes out.

If I can be a godly, loving, patient, merciful, kind husband,

everything else will fall in line.

Everything.

And also, you know, if I mess up in the ministry, I've messed up in a ministry.

If I mess up with my wife, I've messed up with one of God's daughters, that's a very dangerous thing.

You see that?

So that, you know, because I found out that publicly, it's easy to appear a certain way.

But privately, pray for my private life, that I would be

what I appear to be, that we would walk in integrity.

And then pray, not so much for heart cry, but the

Great Commission, there's still so much to do.

There's there's so many people groups, and then people groups that once had the gospel, for example,

I've been focusing a lot recently on France and Paris.

And, you know, you walk around the streets of Paris, and you realize that there's more light in the jungles of Peru, more

gospel light than in the streets of Paris.

You know, David Blum?

Yes, that name.

Yes, yes.

He's a Reformed Baptist missionary.

Yeah.

And I work with David Romare in Paris, and his lovely family.

So you know, there's so much to do.

And then with Bible translation, people don't know this, that

there's Bible translation going on, and there are some good translators, don't get me wrong.

But a great, a great part of Bible translation has been terribly affected by liberalism.

Even in evangelical circles?

Yes.

How about even in Reformed and Calvinistic circles?

Not so much.

But here's the thing about Bible translation that we got to understand, is that

people will say, well, the Bible is the missionary.

And so we got to make it understandable.

That's not biblical.

The Bible is not the missionary.

The Bible is the Bible.

Right.

All right.

And we should be translating a Bible and training men in that people group

to preach that Bible, to study that Bible, to expound it before God's people.

See, they don't need a paraphrase, a wild paraphrase.

What they need is a Bible they can exegete and proclaim to God's people.

So even those people who are not doing a liberal translation, for example, leaving out Jesus as the Son of God

and things like that, even those who are doing a more conservative translation, what they've got to realize is

the Bible is not the missionary.

The missionary is the missionary.

And the missionary needs a Bible that he can expound.

Let him explain it to the people.

Let him teach the Bible.

And don't think the people are as backward as you think, because that's what, you know, all through that, that has been the

big rule of Roman Catholicism.

The people can't understand the real Bible, so give them something else.

And that's not true.

Right.

In fact, I just preached recently at a men's drug and alcohol

recovery ministry in Pennsylvania.

That is something that is dear and dear to my heart, because I am someone who tragically, after being

sober for 18 years after coming to Christ, I fell back into that sin

of habitual drunkenness for several years and

through church discipline and through this Praise God.

Through this ministry in North Carolina, Hebron Colony Ministries, I was restored to not only a right

relationship with God, but to the church and have no, believe it or not, had no

temptation in that area for some reason ever since.

But I was amazed after preaching at this place, and this may reveal

some arrogance or prejudice or pride on my part, but I was amazed at several men from this

place who are, they were very obviously in the way

that they spoke, these were street people, these were people from an urban hip

hop kind of a culture.

And they approached me with these very deep theological questions and also questions that revealed that they

understood a lot more than I thought that they ever would.

Oh, yes, absolutely.

Here's something that I want you to see and is very, very important is this idea that a certain class of people

cannot understand the Bible.

And so we've got to somehow paraphrase it or dumb it down.

That's Roman Catholicism, that's antichrist from the word go.

And it's not right.

They need a Bible.

And we need to translate.

You know, I went to, I was out there in California with Grace Community and Masters

and all them.

And and it was three or four years ago.

And I just said, they were talking about this, the need of translators.

And and I said, please, please.

Why?

Because that school and that church believes that the word of God is the word of God.

And they fear they would never change it.

They would never try to dumb it down.

They believe it's the word of God.

And it's powerful enough to to grab a hold of the greatest intellect.

But it's also powerful enough to make itself known to the to the most uneducated mind.

We've seen that through church history.

And I said, you men out there, Grace Community and Masters, you're the very ones who need to be teaching

people to translate this Bible because you fear God and you love his word.

And you wouldn't change a jot or a tittle of it.

And so, you know, they're starting a program.

So if there's any young guys out there, young people who are thinking about I want to be a Bible translator, but I don't know where to

go, go to Masters, go to Grace Community, I plead with you, because there you're going to learn to

fear God and you're going to learn that.

No, you don't touch the Bible.

You translate it exactly as it is.

And then you teach people to preach it.

Amen.

I'm sure Phil Johnson,.

Who is the executive director of Grace to you, will be very happy to hear you say those things.

He is.

He has actually been interviewed on my show more than any other person, dear friend.

But going back very briefly, as far as prayer for you, how do that?

How do our listeners pray for your health and any kind of a final current update on

your health situation.

As much as you feel comfortable?

Well, my heart is doing well.

I couldn't take some of the medication.

And so it's a very strict diet and a regimen of exercise and things.

So my heart is doing well.

My doctor told me the other day, he goes, congratulations, you have the blood pressure of a 15 year old.

So I was very happy about that.

One of my problems biggest is kind of a genetic thing and arthritis.

That's why both my hips have been replaced and now my knee and then they would replace my spine, but they don't have the

technology to do it.

It's arthritic and it causes a great deal of pain.

But like I said, I told you earlier, I don't want to know what these things have

saved me from, but I know that God is all wise

and I know that everything is right.

Now, one final thing with Christmas right around the corner, within a matter of days, I asked

Stephen Lawson the same thing.

And I'd like you to perhaps respond to the same question that Christmas is a beloved

holiday that is celebrated globally, even by multitudes of people who do not know

Christ truly.

Some who even openly reject him.

The Jesus that is focused upon in this holiday, although it is a

glorious truth that he came in human flesh and that he

would ultimately bear on the cross the sins of his people and propitiate the

wrath of the father by this amazing and glorious

act that began with his incarnation.

But at the same time, when we constantly see the imagery of a meek, mild, helpless,

harmless, fragile infant, we forget sometimes, or many

forget, that he is returning.

And when he returns, he is not going to be this fragile child.

He'll be not only coming to rescue his elect and bring

us into eternal glory with him, but he's also coming with wrath.

And if you could perhaps speak to our listeners, because I can't guarantee that

all of our listeners truly know Christ, perhaps you could give them some kind of a

litmus test when they examine themselves as to whether or not they are truly

ready to meet this returning Christ.

And knowing that there are even many who are not only avid

churchgoers who love religion, who love piety, who love the Bible as literature,

they may even be pastors, but they may be just as damned as the prostitute or the serial killer.

If you could just perhaps let our listeners know how they can be examining themselves to be prepared for this returning

Christ.

Even if he does not return within our lifetime, they will be meeting him in death.

Yes, I've often said to people while I was preaching, if Christ does not come back in a thousand years, you're going to

still see him in less than seventy five.

Right.

And but here's a point that I want to make something that really troubles me today.

You know, we're a people of extremes and, you know, there's the easy believism.

So there are countless people who believe they're saved because they walked an aisle and some ecclesiastical authority

popishly pronounced them saved.

OK, so that's wrong.

On the other hand, with the reform movement, I've seen people take beautiful reform Puritan truth and twist

it into dangerous doctrine.

I have seen now young people who are so introspective and examining themselves

that if their repentance isn't just utterly profound and their faith isn't just

this tremendous type of mature Puritan faith, they have no assurance.

And that's that's as damning as the other doctrine.

You know, the real thing is, have we seen our utter

inability to save ourselves and are we resting in the

work of Christ, not resting in the greatness of our repentance or the greatness of our faith?

Yes, there will be repentance.

Yes, there will be faith.

But those are also evangelical graces in which we grow.

You see, my repentance and my faith is quite different from when I was first saved.

Hopefully I've matured in those areas.

So I want people to maintain a balance.

And there is a thing of making your calling and election sure.

And the Book of First John was written a series of tests through which we would examine ourselves.

But it's always this.

It is having a sense of our sin, having a sense of a brokenness over it, relying

upon Christ.

A change of heart in which we truly desire to keep his commands, a brokenness when we do not leading to confession.

You know, blessed are the poor in spirit.

Are we poor in spirit, recognizing that that we have nothing to do?

We cannot save ourselves, but Christ did it all.

Blessed are those who mourn.

Do we actually see our sin and desire greater righteousness?

You know, I had a professor, T .W. Hunt, and he was he was a man of prayer.

And one day I walked into his office and he said, Paul, how are you doing?

And because I had that look on my face and I said, you know, I'm so I'm so unrighteous.

I'm so this I'm so not that.

And I'm just sat down and plopped down in the chair.

And that old man stood up, put both hands on my shoulder and said, in the name of Jesus Christ, I pronounce you blessed.

And I thought, boy, that was strange.

And then he sat down and he said, You don't understand, do you?

And I said, No.

He said, Paul, if you had walked in here utterly satisfied with your own righteousness, I would have worried

about your soul.

But listen to you.

You said, I love Christ.

I want to love him more.

I, I seek to do his commands, but I fail so terrible.

I want to be more holy.

And he said, Have you never read, you know, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Paul, you're hungering and thirsting for righteousness.

Those who are satisfied in their own righteousness and care little for growing in Christ

are in great danger.

But but the weakest saint who is relying utterly upon Jesus Christ

and broken over sin and clinging to the cross.

Those are great evidences.

Amen.

Well, I'm looking forward to seeing your pastor preach at the G3 conference coming up in January.

You were originally on the roster.

Are you?

I still am.

I haven't passed away.

And I am very, very fortunate as an itinerant preacher to be

under, you know, four elders who like even when you said, you know, can,

can I interview you?

My elders have decided that I can't say no to anybody.

And so they always say, Paul, run it past us.

You know, but here's the thing, you know, I am gosh, I'm 58 years old.

I've been in the faith for 35 years or something.

I've been in the ministry almost that long.

And yet I rely upon being under godly elders and I rely on being in

the context of a real visible local church.

And so all you young people out there who are like, yeah, you're you're watching all these preachers on YouTube and

everything else.

Look, you have got to be under biblical elders in a

biblical local church.

Elders who are true pastors who are going to watch over and who know your name, watch over your life,

a congregation of like minded believers, a church that there's expository preaching, there's

congregational praying, there's church discipline, loving, merciful, biblical church discipline,

you need to be in a church like that you simply will be hampered in all your Christian growth

until you get in that situation.

I was very impressed when you told me what I asked you, can I interview.

You have to have my elders approval.

And I was so glad that I knew Anthony well enough that I had his cell phone number.

I was able to text him and get an immediate response.

My pastor knows everybody in the world.

Well, what you just said actually, years ago when I was possibly before I was a

believer, but it was when I was being drawn.

It's hard to say when I was actually regenerate.

But this Pentecostal pastor in this church where I was visiting for a while, he was

complaining to the congregation about them pouring money into the televangelists.

And he actually I think he stood up on a pew.

And he said, Jimmy Swagger, it's not going to be there with you when you're in the hospital room holding your hand.

Jimmy Swagger, it's not going to be there with you and your wife in the living room when you're having marital problems.

Jimmy Swagger, it's not going to be there at the graveside when somebody precious to you passes away.

That still strikes as much as I did not believe in much of what this

preacher said.

I think that was one thing I gleaned out of him that was very true.

I remember an old Baptist preacher and I don't remember his name.

But a lady came to him and said, I want to sing in the choir.

And he knew that she wasn't.

But he said, ma 'am, are you a member of this church?

She said, no, I'm a member of the Great Invisible Universal Church.

And he said, then you need to go sing in the Great Invisible Universal Choir.

In fact, James White, who you know, he has been involved in many

outreaches in the public, even in Salt Lake City, Utah, and in Arizona,

where Mormons have activities.

And there have been people who have approached him as he's passing out tracts and as he's

evangelizing and public open air preaching and so on.

Can I join you and help you pass out tracts?

And his first question is, what church are you a member of?

Oh, I'm not a member of any church.

I'm sorry.

Come back when you are under the authority of elders and you can join us.

Oh, brother, God's plan is very simple.

But he doesn't have plan B.

That's right.

Amen.

Well, I want to make sure that our listeners have your website for the HeartCry Missionary

Society.

And I had it right in front of me and it disappeared.

Do you happen to know that off the top of your head?

I think I do.

HeartCryMissionary .com HeartCryMissionary .com.

And HeartCryMissionary .com is a ministry of Christ Church of Radford.

So we're not out there.

We're not so much parachurch.

We are, we're under a church.

Amen.

Well, I am so thrilled and thankful to you that you took

time out of your day in this very busy conference, where you have played a vital role as a

preacher to sit down with me and to be interviewed, even though you're not feeling up to par physically.

And I hope that this is just the first of many interviews to come, God willing.

Well, thank you for the privilege.

God bless you. God bless you. Bye bye.

I hope you enjoyed that interview with Paul Washer.

Now it's time for us to take our midway break and hear from our sponsors who support Iron

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Welcome back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

My name is Eric Nielsen, and I'm sitting in for Chris Arnzen today.

I would appreciate your prayers for Chris as he is recovering from some viruses that

he picked up at the G3 conference.

Armin Tomasian took the time to sit down and and have a talk with Chris while Chris was at the Foundations

Conference this past December.

Here is that interview.

Remember folks, these interviews were recorded on -site in New York City at the

Foundations Conference with a portable recorder.

So therefore, please excuse all of the recording imperfections and background noises.

I'm here on -site at the Foundations Conference in New York City, a conference being

hosted by Sermon Audio, and it's my thrill to have once again on

Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Armin Tomasian.

Pastor Armin Tomasian is pastor of Faith Free Presbyterian Church in Greenville, South

Carolina.

And as many of you heard me say on this program, that I believe over the next decade he's going

to become a household name amongst Reformed Christians because I just think so highly of his preaching abilities.

And I know I have to be very careful because Armin has rebuked me in the past for possibly tempting him to have a

swelled head, so I better be careful.

But Armin, it's great to have you back on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

Thank you, brother.

It's good to be here.

And you just preached a very important message, I believe, especially for the audience

that is here at the Foundation Conference because many of us are from backgrounds that

might be more prone to unbiblical separatism.

Now, of course, I'm sure you would agree that every Bible -believing Christian is

a separatist of some kind, but unfortunately, since we are sinners,

we are errant, we are

constantly failing in trying to obey Christ and conduct things in a biblical

manner, even if that is our goal and we strive to do so, we all as

Christians tend to fail in one extreme or another.

You have those who have ecumenical relations with not only Roman

Catholics and others that deny the gospel, but even as far as liberals who deny

even the deity of Jesus Christ or his bodily resurrection.

But as far as those of us who are, we claim to be, Bible -believing Christians,

what are the dangers, in your opinion, when it comes to a

failure to conduct biblical ecumenism with those that are truly our brothers and sisters in

Christ?

And of course, I know that there are different forms of ecumenism.

We can't always be members of the same church or we can't be leaders in the same church, but if you could pick up

where I left off.

The danger, Chris, is that

we deny the doctrine of the body of Christ.

We deny what is fundamental, that Christ

is the head, his church is one body, one Lord, one faith,

one baptism, and the danger is that through

our distinctives, through our differences, through our

peculiarities that we may have, that we end up denying outright what is a

fundamental truth of what the atonement has accomplished, which is uniting

those blood -washed altogether, that there are many members in

one body.

And.

That we deny what will finally be.

The.

Experience of the church when she is glorified and whether individuals

like it or not, which of course they will being glorified, but

they will be pulled together and they will stand as one.

And that's the key danger.

We deny something that is fundamental, that is key, that is primary, that we

put a secondary, tertiary matter, even just a.

Particular.

Nuance of our own understanding, even views on Christmas or

things like of this nature that we will divide over, we will separate

and not hold fellowship with.

I just, yeah, that's the danger I was trying to warn against.

Should there be the temptation in some, in any of us.

And I think it is a temptation to any of us, especially, and I think one of my opening lines was to the thinking

Christian.

The person who thinks will inevitably wrestle over the differences and the danger is they

will elevate the differences or some differences to the point that will drive them away from

what Christ prays that they may be one.

Would you agree with me that there are tendencies

amongst specific groups of Christians, denominations, fellowships, that

very often will leave them with a blind spot to certain things.

And if we cut off all fellowship from our brethren who disagree with us

on issues, even if they're serious, we may never learn from them in ways that

we could and vice versa, they could learn from us as well.

But sometimes there are things that fester

in our blind spots when we are only only fellowshipping with and

hearing the preaching of and teaching of and reading books by people who agree exactly as we do

confessionally or every jot and tittle.

And we, these festering blind spots.

May be.

Alleviated if we had the humility to to learn from

people that we know that they are our brothers in Christ.

We know that they are gifts but they may differ from us and we have to

make sure that we are not being overly pharisaic or judgmental or

however you want to put it unbiblically separatist that we totally rule them out.

Yeah, we all have we all have blind spots and we're all in

danger of feeling so comfortable with what we know and what we've committed

to for a certain length of time.

When we preach especially or we're outspoken we tend to then have an

ownership bias and we say this is what I believe.

So the man for an example, he has preached for years an

eschatology that is dispensational he preached and he preached and he preaches it

before he's even understood another perspective.

And the ownership bias of his human nature will almost cause

him in his fallen state he won't even listen really to the other perspective of a

historic pre -mill or a mill or post mill.

He won't even listen.

He is so sold to that.

He doesn't want to consider that he has blind spots in his perspective of

certain scriptures that may completely change how he looks at the whole of his state of

theology.

So, yeah, but it's it's a day it's very dangerous and if in the providence of God we have opportunity to spend time with

those who differ sometimes it can be very very helpful insofar as

there are matters that aren't of critical importance.

I mean, of course, amillennialists and post -millennialists they can have those same attitudes.

Sure, sure they can.

Yeah, it's just example an example.

And as far as I know that you would agree that it is completely

right and proper and even commanded to form

convictions about the scriptures.

They may be very strict convictions and you take them very seriously

like our divisions over baptism and it's interesting that you are in a denomination that is one of the

rare denominations that permits both Pato Baptists and Credo Baptists in leadership.

And that the Presbyterian and Free Presbyterian is really only signifying the polity.

For the most part.

Yeah.

Well, isn't one of the key issues in regard to that is although we may have a

strong conviction that we must be very careful in the way we treat others

who disagree with it.

And then of course, I'm not speaking about cardinal doctrines of the faith.

I'm not talking about fundamentals of the faith that involve the deity of Christ and justification by faith

alone and the Trinity and and we could go on and on the inerrancy of scripture, right, but

we don't we need to make sure that we have a godly

approach to this where we are humble in our reaction to others that disagree with us.

Absolutely.

I mean.

Humility and charity are essential.

One of the one of the evidences of immaturity

is when one resorts to personal attacks and one's a

Presbyterian and.

He's.

Talking with a Baptist and the Baptist is we're having discussion about something and he just was all

he's an idiot as.

If.

Maybe he doesn't have a full or the understanding even of his Baptist views.

But you're kind of lumping in with that statement anyone who would hold to that view.

So all of a sudden Spurgeon becomes an idiot because he was a Baptist which is ludicrous or on

the other side.

You know Calvin's an idiot because he's you know, not of that persuasion that that's a sign

of immaturity and To have to be charitable to be humble to realize

that.

You may even go through changes yourself in your understanding you can be clear and have your convictions, but having a

humility that recognizes the fallenness of your own nature and that enlightenment to the scripture

is a spiritual work.

It's the Holy Spirit that gives you light and Paul prays for the church for the

enlightening of their minds.

Because God needs to do it and therefore there's a humility that realizes.

This is an ongoing work for the entire time of my sojourn here on earth that I'm being enlightened.

Therefore I have blind spots.

There are things I don't fully grasp and it may be that even where I'm most Defined as a

Christian as a Baptist on matters about that even there I may be Not particularly

understanding something and that may change everything if I did understand and vice versa.

And when we see our brethren with whom we disagree And

mock them and totally Disassociate ourselves from them one has

to wonder How much do you care about that brother or sister?

Learning about these core truths that you cherish if you're just keeping them

totally out of Contact with you and preventing any kind of fellowship.

Why are they going to even give consideration to what you?

That reminds me of a letter that John Newton wrote to a Calvinistic

brother who had a planned debate with another Arminian brother and

Newton wrote the letter.

Because he was concerned of the damage of the debate that He would

there would not be the charitable Aspect that needs to be there.

And he begins by.

I mean obviously you're going to win that I mean truth is on your side.

Clearly so he's agreeing.

He's almost telling him.

What's the point?

You know the truth on your side.

You have a one because truth is a you have the truth.

You know the truth.

You agree with the truth.

But he cautions him in his spirit.

And it cautions him against losing the brother because of the manner with which he will

present what is true and.

It's if you can find that letter.

It's it's somewhere anyway, and you know Newton wrote it and It's very helpful.

Just his ironic spirit that he was trying to encourage this other brother.

Just be careful.

You don't get lost in Seeking to win on the matter of truth, and you completely lose

this brother right.

And as far as.

The one of the root causes of this Hyper separatism I have found in

my own life when I have witnessed it amongst my friends and brethren's who might be more prone to That is that there is

a fear of men and you even hinted at this.

I believe in your message where Especially amongst my fundamentalist friends there seems to be an

ongoing Contest, but who will be more separatist than the other.

Who will be more fundamentalist than the other and you find that there is a paranoia of

being viewed as a compromiser or someone sliding into liberalism just because you

are being more irenic with a brother in Christ over over.

And laying aside for temporary reasons not that you're abandoning a conviction, but you

are Depending upon the circumstance you are laying aside a

Secondary or tertiary issue for the sake of fellowship at that moment right yeah.

And the fear of man is a real thing.

Christ addressed it.

I think it's John 7.

He talked about you believe not in me.

Because you you receive honor one of another.

In other words they were Their key desire was to receive honor from each other

and that was blinding them To the evidence that the Messiah was in their midst and they

would rather elevate their Desire to be received by their group

Rather than real receive their Christ, so yeah the fear of man is always a problem.

Well, I just want to thank you during your busy schedule for being on this program today.

And I just want to let our listeners know if you want to find out more about faith free Presbyterian Church

of Greenville, South Carolina you can go to faith FPC org faith

FPC for free Presbyterian Church, or.

Thank you so much Mr.. Armin, I look forward to your return to iron sharpens iron radio.

Appreciate your time and kindness brother.

God bless you.

I hope you enjoyed hearing from Armin Tamasian at this time.

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Welcome back to iron sharpens iron radio.

I'm Eric Nielsen sitting in for your regular host Chris Arnson.

We're listening to interviews that Chris has done at the foundation's conference and this next interview

is an interview that Chris did with Pastor Austin Huggins at the 2019 g3

conference.

Chris Arnson here.

Manning the iron sharpens iron radio exhibitors booth on the last day of the g3 conference g3

2019 and Right now I have the honor and privilege of welcoming to iron sharpens iron for the very

first time Pastor Austin Huggins of Christ Evangelical Christian Fellowship

in Milton, Florida, and he also Is on the team at first love radio and

first love publications The ministries founded by my very dear friend pastor Joe

Jackowitz, but it's Great to have you on iron sharpens iron radio finally for the first time pastor

Austin Huggins.

It's an absolute blessing to be here brother Chris.

Thank you for having me.

Why don't you tell us before we get into your personal testimony, which we Typically do we have

our first -time guests give a summary of their Christian testimony.

How they were raised within in what kind of religious atmosphere if any they were raised and how

Through Providence our Sovereign Lord raised up circumstances in their lives that drew them to

him and saved them.

But before we go into that let's hear more details about Christ Evangelical Christian Fellowship.

Absolutely, so.

Christ Evangelical Christian Fellowship is a young church.

It's a church plant about 30 minutes outside of Pensacola.

It is technically non -denominational.

But we are baptistic in our doctrines and technically a 1689 second

London Baptist Confession of Faith confessional church.

Praise God and.

Tell us about something about the surrounding area of Milton and what kind of

Opportunities and challenges you have as a sovereign grace -believing church there.

Well, we're right on that interesting dividing line where The Bible Belt kind of begins to disappear

the closer you get to the beach and you have probably more of that relaxed

beach mentality a little bit of that atheistic.

Retirement fun place is a town slogan Milton, Florida.

Where the buckle fell off the belt.

No, but maybe at the next town hall meeting.

I'm actually more familiar with the beach side.

There's a little town called in the bar down there.

That's my hometown.

That's where I was at before I joined the Navy and Years later, that would be the first place I would enter

into ministry again.

So it's only within the past.

Two years that I've even moved to Milton.

So I'm still getting comfortable there myself and tell us exactly what title or function

You have with first love radio first love publications and so on.

With our mutual friend Joe Jackowitz.

Oh, yes, Pastor Joe's a dear brother of mine.

As far as first love is concerned I am the vice president of operations over all three arms of the ministry

and with yeah, I think I missed one.

What's the third?

I always forget the name specifically of the first love missions.

There it is.

That's actually the one that I'm the acting director of that that I operate in in that context, so My

role within first love all is obviously operational.

So it had deals a lot with the internal communications the Development internally

a lot of the things that happen behind the scenes, but primarily it is the the mission field and in

my role as a preacher and bringing Godly brethren out there to the field and ministering to the local

churches and the needs out there, especially in the third world.

That's really where my heart is.

When I get a chance to share a little of my testimony you may see some of that come out just how the Lord.

Providentially brought it from here.

And of course for those of you who listen to Iron Sherpins iron radio via live streaming every day.

You will see that the live feed is coming from first love radio.

That's right.

That's right.

What was it last year at this time?

Mm -hmm that we had the privilege and the opportunity to bring you on it was actually yeah as a result of

this conference the g3 conference of 2018.

Not long after that conference.

I was giving the affirmation that First love radio had welcomed me to the roster of

the lineup on there.

And in fact, I am considered very honored to be told the anchor program of first.

That's right.

That's right, and we're very thankful and very happy to have you.

You know, we know the kind of quality of the interviews that you do the kind of questions that you provide and the

Opportunity for unique individuals to be able to share not only testimony but meaningful doctrinal discussions.

Discussions That really just don't happen anywhere else.

Especially at my age and my generation having conversations with people like family radio Programs like

this are vital.

The intellectual engagement is is.

For lack of a better term.

Yes engaging, but it's vital to be able to get into that back -and -forth discussion really prove and try.

Why people are coming from the areas that they're coming from and when they intersect real legitimate issues that we're encountering

right now in Christianity today to have somebody talking about those issues is We're thankful for it.

So to have you on first love is it is just as much of a benefit.

We're thankful for it to have you praise God.

Well, let's hear your personal salvation testimony.

Well, I'll begin somewhere in the middle and work out in both directions from there because that makes the most sense, but I

Spent five years in the United States Navy as a submarine sailor a sonar technician aboard fast attack

submarines.

So.

That's kind of a niche environment inside the Navy so it's a little bit different.

It's not quite what you would call special forces, but it's academically the top 1 % of the Navy.

It's considered a an elite force in that context.

So my relationship to the rest of the Navy was Their submarines and then

there's targets and those are the two vessels we make.

How's the you know in that community, you know, you've heard the terminology, you know cuss like a sailor.

Well, if there was a sailor of the sailors, it would be the submarine community.

You know, you take men who operate in that capacity you seal them up in close quarters.

Put them underneath the ocean for six months to time.

You know, you're trading cigarettes and it's like a prison.

I could imagine after the first 10 minutes of being in a submarine if I ever had the misfortune of

being in one.

The first 10 minutes of being submerged under the water might not even Reach the point of submerged in the water,

but I can read.

I could just think of myself.

Let me out of here.

Okay, yes, this is enough.

Okay jokes over get me out of here.

You know even after a year of pipeline and training.

It's amazing the first time you shut that hatch you.

Psychologically that there's an effect sometimes on people and that that that's not not ever happened if

I can say that but there's certainly a mentality there that's.

Due to the nature of the work in the nature of the job.

Like any military in general, but especially here there's just a promotion of a certain pleasure mentality.

The moment you do get off the submarine and you get away from being confined for so long I mean your

animal passions unrestrained, you know.

You know, we get into these ports and you know overseas and I mean I had been in every bar in

Japan, Hawaii.

Guam Philippine Islands, South Korea, we'd even been up to the North Pole and for him and let me give a disclaimer here.

Let me remind you folks.

This is before his cell.

That's right.

Thank you.

It's a vital disclaimer.

You know it and it points the the beautiful work that the the Lord has done.

I mean when you see.

You know who saw was is the murderer and how he describes himself.

The amazing thing is and as you go throughout the New Testament One of the key qualities of the Apostle Paul that always

stood out to me personally Was that he never got over being saved.

He always lived so to speak the day after salvation.

He was always walking in the light of the road to Damascus experience and and he grew he

matured.

There was the sanctification process.

There was a mind that was being conformed after Christ.

There was a walk that testified to these truths but it but as far as knowing who he was he never got over the

fact that God's grace saved a wretched sinner like me and that impact In my

understanding in my walk.

I Mean, I can't say enough.

I.

By God's grace I've never gotten over being saved and I pray that I can always live like it's the day after my eyes are

still freshly open.

And praise God, there's there's a God in the heavens who is to be blessed and who is to be feared now.

Going back earlier.

What?

What did you know about Jesus Christ before you were saved?

What kind of?

Religious atmosphere if any.

Where you raised it, you know, I'm really without excuse.

I.

I grew up in a local church.

It was not Doctrines of grace wasn't sovereign grace wasn't Calvinistic.

It was a middle -of -the -road Baptist Church.

But they they taught the scriptures they taught first by verse.

I I heard the gospel.

I I knew who Christ was.

I knew the work he had come to do.

I understood the cross.

I knew about the resurrection.

I knew about.

The the truth of the substitutionary atonement is is accurately as they would know to teach it within their

context.

And and I took the time to learn the scriptures.

I would sit in my classes as a young man on Wednesday nights.

I was you know, I would make sure to my sisters came when I got old enough to drive I mean we're talking all the way up through

into my teen years.

It would just be that even though that was an avenue that I participated in religiously.

There was you know in high school public school, you know who I was outside of that, you know see you got into the

process of being one way with one people in another way with another and.

By the time I ended up in the Navy at 18. I'm no longer under the influence of the Those

that are in the church no longer under the influence of you know my parents and who I am really begins to manifest in a very

obvious way and.

So you're.

This rebel against your upbringing and more importantly against Christ and his word.

You are this name naval officer who is.

Did I misspeak or you enlisted.

I was okay.

I came to the rank of petty officer, but I was never commissioned as an officer.

Okay, but you're in the Navy and as you were mentioning Your your true carnality

gets Expressed when you get out of that submarine that you're trapped in.

How to how did you get introduced or should I say?

Reintroduced to Jesus Christ and his gospel and his word.

Well, it would actually be after the Navy.

So just a clear a good amount of history quickly.

You know by the time I got out I was Raging alcoholic.

I'm not a big guy, but I know a fifth of liquor a night.

Kind of thing.

You know, it's bad when the other drunk sailors look at you and tell you you got a problem.

Oh, yeah, I know the experience myself being a former drunkard when I was a young man,

even in my 20s a lot of my friends in the bars were

Men in their 50s and 60s who are hardcore alcoholics and they would say the same thing.

You're like wow, you really got a slowdown on that.

Right, not that any one sin is greater than the other it just they almost if by God's grace he allows points.

For our inability for self -restraint to really come so clearly to the surface

That even we in our carnality can no longer justify it.

I really believe that that's a grace just coming from my own personal circumstances.

As long as you're able to maintain that veneer and the polish.

How long can you go lying to yourself?

Personally I've known it in my own life.

And how many times do we see it and people we love around us?

So for that sake, you know what was Intended for evil the Lord meant

for good.

And as that went on I eventually Met a woman living with her in

adultery left the Navy moved down to back to Florida.

My mother had was diagnosed with lung cancer at the time she was

Young she was in her 40s.

My father had Divorced my mother back before I was a year old and my stepfather came in

When I was very young, so I grew up with my stepfather very hard -working man.

I cannot condemn him for his work ethic, but he was a raging alcoholic himself

very very angry.

So it was nothing for every single night for him to come home raging cussing throwing stuff around.

And you know, but I wouldn't see him till late at night.

So here my mother my main parental figure the one Person who was

disciplined me.

She's sober.

She You know for all her Misgivings or faults.

She was a terrific mother.

So that was a Pretty difficult blow whenever that first came around.

So I promised that I would I would move and get back down there to Florida.

There's a couple hours away a little commercial shipbuilding group in Panama City.

That I began to work at and it was actually on that shipyard.

I would later come to salvation in Christ.

Well, tell me exactly the circumstances.

Well, I was.

I've been working there for a little while.

I was very used to the military structure.

I was very used to a certain element of a chain of command clear directives clear expectations.

And you I was working at a facility that it kind of began as a mom -and -pop shop.

And it had just really outgrown itself in a in a big way and But they were still trying to operate like a mom -and -pop

shop.

So I was frustrated with the organization.

I was back down there in the heat hadn't been down there and you know Six years and now I'm out there on the

shipyard and boots steel toes, you know working on they're going up five flights of Stairs carrying fire extinguishers.

I came on as a safety rep and environmental rep for the company and while I was

out there, I Really began to be

dissatisfied with life in general at that point and I was starting to get in

Back and forth with with my girlfriend.

We were having disagreements fights.

I was going out to the bar.

I was starting to get worse.

I started drinking and driving.

Which something I wouldn't even do back when I was in the Navy.

I had enough sense and I was Just becoming a more embittered and angry person in

general.

I was frustrated about the circumstance with my mother.

Even though it came to a point where they had successfully removed her left lung.

It looked like she was recovering and so me and what little Christianity I had in my mind.

Which was you know, I still even through all this mind you I I thought I was a Christian.

I was baptized when I was 12 years old, you know, I still prayed before I ate, you know I would cuss I had a filthy

mouth.

I would go out raging drinking smoking a pack a day living in adultery.

But by God, I'm a Christian.

And it was just a complete contradiction.

And I remember at one point I got a call from my mother finding out that she had

just had a conversation with the doctor and She had went back to the hospital.

She had tremendous pain in her legs.

This was months and months later only to find out that the cancer had returned and but this

time It was terminal.

And they had told her there was nothing they could do about it.

It was all throughout her legs.

She had a massive tumor growing in her right hip bone growing laterally through her sciatic nerve was excruciating

pain.

She couldn't eat.

She couldn't sleep.

That was really hard.

I remember I like I dropped in my knees in my house after the phone call.

And I'm just shaking my head in disbelief.

Tears running down my face.

My girlfriend walks up behind me puts her hands on my shoulder and says what's wrong?

Tell her what's going on she says.

Well, you're not gonna go through this alone, I love you.

I'll be with you every step of the way and I remember thinking in that moment.

Even in all the midst of my rebellion and sin.

No, pray praise God.

I I've got I've got a woman.

It will be by my side.

Four days later she walked out on me.

She told me she wasn't having fun anymore.

That this was difficult things were a little too intense.

And so she left.

Wow.

And.

That put me in a big tailspin and of course that was an enormous blessing from God to you.

Although it didn't feel that way at the time, you know, it's it's it's amazing after the revelation of

the truth of God's dealings and God's workings and the sovereignty comes into your life with such force and enough time goes by

that you can see what He's doing that you can thank him meaningfully prayerfully and tearfully for the very

most painful Events in your life realizing his hand was behind it because it absolutely was a blessing.

I I don't think I would have been in a place to cry out to the Lord now.

It's the Lord.

He's sovereign.

He could have chose some other means but considering the means he used.

Had that not occurred.

I would have maintained a relational crutch because between these two women you had the the my heart.

These were the two people I trusted.

I still you know had a rough exterior.

You know, I was you know chip on my shoulder point -to -proof proud arrogant, you know sensitive childhood growing up.

You need that affirmation kind of thing.

And you know, I know this is going out all over.

To Christ be the glory, you know, so but you know here I am just this this mentality, you know.

Almost like a Napoleon complex or something.

And so there were these two ladies that I really let in it was my mother and it was it was my girlfriend

and It was the sudden realization that one left me because she didn't love me

anymore.

And the other was getting ready to leave me because it didn't matter how much she loved me.

She didn't have power over her own life.

And I was a very helpless realization.

And about a week went by and I was unable to eat.

I wasn't purposely trying to starve myself.

I just couldn't get anything into my stomach every night.

I couldn't sleep.

I'd wake up after an hour with terrible nightmares.

I was being tormented in you know.

Just emotionally mentally and and of course the the spiritual dimension is at work and I'm oblivious to it.

I have no idea what's going on and I'm walking around on the shipyard.

This is this has gone on for a week.

I've lost water weight.

I'm dehydrated I'm hungry and I'm just kind of stumbling around remember.

I'm the safety rep.

So if you're not following protocol on the shipyard I'm the guy that has the

pleasure of sending you home without a paycheck, and then you hate me the rest of your life, so

You don't really have a lot of friends as a safety rep well with that mentality I'm walking through their safety

cones out everywhere stuff's going on cranes are moving huge loads everything and as I'm walking all the

Foremen and the supervisors are staring at we staring at me with this most incredulous look and I'm staring

back at them.

And you know I'm giving them the the shoulders and the hands up and the what -for and then finally One of the big foreman on

the yard takes his hard hat off.

Which is a safety violation break and points up and looking at me like I'm like an idiot and

so I look up and I have just walked under a

Suspended crane load ten feet above my head with a cinder block bigger than this area of the

booth.

We're sitting here, and I have just massively broken safety code as the safety rep on the yard.

Wow so my boss gets a call.

And next thing I know I'm on the boss.

I'm on the phone with my boss.

His name is Rick, and you know Rick he's Chewing me out cussing me up and down one side the

other and and he's saying you know What are you thinking and you know I just said hey look Rick,

and I just told him what was going on.

And he had compassion on me says all right look just go home.

Go home.

Don't don't come in tomorrow.

They come back in Monday.

It was a I remember as a Thursday.

I said come back in Monday.

Is that good.

I said yeah I appreciate that so Thursday night.

I go home, and I'm sitting there on the sofa and I'm I'm about ready to go to the to the liquor

store and I Really started hating life about

that point I Was mad at the world I was I was mad at God.

I was mad.

I was mad at her.

I was mad at everything.

And at some point I remember falling out of my chair.

I made it to the back room where I'm thinking through all this I fell out of my chair.

Hit my face in the carpet my legs just open the chair is the most ridiculous position and as I'm laying there

just this Urge this thought whatever you want to call it.

You know this idea.

Why don't you pray and and I remember I was I was ticked off that the thought had even entered my mind like what

good Is that gonna do.

I was so cynical I was mad by that point because I felt I had already prayed.

And you know she had been clean of cancer, and then it came back, so what's the point now?

But it just began to eat at me and not me and I couldn't get rid of it so almost as if Being

beckoned and yet coming still defiantly I just began to shout at the ceiling.

You know mad crying snot everywhere.

You know shaking my fist heavenward.

Saying all sorts of things and somewhere during that process.

This tremendous sense of conviction out of nowhere Just began to be

laid upon my art and the thought was why should he?

Do anything that I asked him to do.

Why should he give me the time of day?

And there was this realization that Almost having nothing to do with

anything.

I do not love him.

I have never loved him.

And I never cared about the things he's ever cared about.

Who am I.

And the more I begin to?

Wrestle with this while I'm talking the more my tone begins to adjust in my prayers.

And the more I begin to contemplate on this and I'm talking through this out loud.

And then there's this I just remember this tidal wave this break, and I just began to repent.

I began to plead for forgiveness, and I and I just admitted just in the capacity they understood at that time

that Lord You don't have to do anything.

I ask you to do.

I'm sorry Lord and and I remember to this day.

I was so desperate by that point I just Lord I'll you know we always try and make bargains with God at the very Lord

Lord I'll do anything.

You know if you'll just take this pain away.

I remember verbatim what I said you know I reflect on it.

But I will sell my house.

I'll sell everything that I own.

I'll sit cross -legged out in the middle of the street drinking wheat tea for the rest of my life if you'll just take this pain away, you know

just like borderline psychotic and I remember just screaming like that for 45

minutes, and I finally pulled my head out of the carpet and I I just looked

around and I'm asking myself.

Why did I just do that?

What was that so I go to the bathroom?

I'm washing my face so I can breathe.

You know and I just have this foreboding sense like why did I do that?

What you know and then the the most terrifying thought I've that ever hit me in my life hit me then.

What if He heard everything.

I just said.

And what if he's coming to collect?

It scared me to death and so I'm walking around my house thinking about it thinking about it.

And but I basically come to the conclusion either there was help or there was not help either Christ was exactly who he said he was

either Christ's death upon the cross was absolutely sufficient for all of the worst of me.

Either there is help or there's not and I I trusted the Lord based on the faith that the Lord gave me at that

time.

I remember going to bed.

You've got just the sudden urge.

I was tired I was exhausted my head hit the pillow on the bed and I remember I've been waking up with nightmares

every night this week.

But for the first time I sleep the whole night through I don't wake up till morning comes and I have that day off.

So, I mean it's like if you can picture this scene.

You know, I wake up the the window curtain slightly pulled back a ray of sunshine coming across, you know.

The bed spread right in front of me.

Everything's bright and cheery and I remember standing up and This overwhelming realization that I have

never seen the world around me before and and it's like everything's in living color something Tangibly

meaningfully is absolutely different and the immediate thing that I'm aware of is Exactly

what I left off with the night before I remember the prayer.

I remember that intimately but there was an a new dimension to it that I had no concept of until that point and it

was This idea that an old verse I had heard way back in Sunday school years before

hadn't read it hadn't heard it In in years and it was that verse I will never leave thee nor forsake thee

and it's just rolling around in my head as if it was a fresh statement.

And that's when it began to hit me.

My girlfriend left because she doesn't love me anymore.

My mother's leaving because it doesn't matter how much she loves me.

She doesn't have power over her next breath and Everyone on the face of this planet will fit into

one of those two categories and God alone is sufficient to make such a claim.

Meaningfully if he says he'll never leave me nor forsake me.

He's the only one with the power over both life and death time and space heaven and earth and hell and all

that is in.

And it was an immediate sense of comfort and I remember looking around thinking Well, what do I do

now?

Like what's next?

What does this mean?

You know, I knew something had happened.

I couldn't articulate it, but I remember my very next thought was well, I Guess I should quit

smoking.

Like like that was the next logical thought like I guess I should quit smoking.

So I hop in the truck and I decide I got the day off.

So I'm gonna go up and get a you know Electronic cigarette something to start quitting on and that really what that was the last day I ever smoked a

cigarette.

I hop in the truck.

I turned my truck over and immediately the rock and raps blaring through the truck and it like startles me I turn it off real

quick.

And that was a that was the last time I turned that off.

I you know, the Lord just took that element out of my life.

He took the liquor away.

I've been sober ever since that night.

Wow, you know and that in the Lord has just day after day done this continual

transforming work.

I remember I would spend my nights in the bar before that now I would come home from the shipyard exhausted.

I would barely get my boots off my feet.

I'd halfway crawl to the back room, you know.

And I would find my by the time I found my Bible in one of the old cardboard boxes a few days later.

It was the same every night.

I would open it up.

I would begin to read I begin to weep and cry and pray and that would last for a couple hours

before I fell asleep.

And I did that every night.

I had no friends.

It was a new job.

It was a new location.

The one woman I knew there left.

I had a couple.

I had several close friends before that, but when they saw me radically Changed it wasn't.

I wasn't trying to do anything.

It was just a natural outflow what the Lord had worked in me by reason of the new birth.

I was like anathema to them.

They wanted nothing to do with me the the supervisors who would gather around the truck to drink on Fridays.

Like if you could get in that circle, it really helped you out on the job.

Finally one of the guys two weeks three weeks later comes in says man, where you been you've been standing us up

and I said I Was.

I was gonna tell him hey, you know, I've just been busy, you know.

Cuz I was kind of I didn't really want to explain to this, you know big grizzly shipyard bubble.

You know what happened and I just came under immediate conviction, you know.

And so I looked at him right in the middle of the safety office on the shipyard.

We're both wearing hard hats and I say well no actually here's the issue the Lord

Radically transformed my life and I I don't want to drink anymore.

That's what happened and he stared at me.

Like I was the strangest thing he had ever seen in his life.

He goes, okay turns around walks right out the back door and we never had a meaningful conversation.

So as the Lord began to take a whole lot of bad relationships out of my life very very quickly.

Not that I was trying to push him away.

I was willing to talk to them.

Especially after at that point the Lord gave me a lot of grace to begin to speak to people.

They they were just not interested in hearing about it.

So I was driven deeper into isolation.

So here's a period where I'm about to be isolated.

I'm terrified and rather than go into isolation, you know I'd rather I want this pain taken away.

Two weeks after that.

My mother passes away at the age of 44.

My girlfriend never comes back a week after that.

My grandfather dies who is the one masculine Reliable influence I had in my

life up to that point and amidst all these losses to venture it deeper into this Isolation the Lord is pouring in

and teaching me and I drive two hours out.

My mother passed away October 4th 2012 on a Thursday that next Sunday

I walked back into that old middle -of -the -road Baptist Church that I went to when I was 18, you know now I got tattoos.

You know my they'd probably seen me on social media.

No, so I it would be embarrassing and I remember wanting to be seen.

I remember wanting to walk through and and and to know that there was a propentious that needed to be public.

There was a testimony that needed to be seen there was an evidence that needed to be given and I didn't understand the concept of that

totally from a biblical perspective, but but the Spirit was at work and

Never I don't know I mean I Remember even in those early days The Lord began to show me some

discrepancies that were going on in the local churches that I was in at that time.

But I remember he would put he was faithfully put one or two godly Older

Christian men in my life who would begin to put some information in front of me put some verses in front of me.

That would were willing to talk to me about spiritual things while everyone else only wants to talk about football.

And during those first eight to ten months, that's all I did night after night was in the scripture reading praying.

Weeping and just repeat and that was my entire life my free time for about ten months after I got saved.

Praise God.

Well, I want to make sure that our listeners have The website how they could get in

contact with you pastor Austin Huggins the Christ Evangelical Christian Fellowship I have here.

Christ Evangelical Fellowship.

Well, that's your Your email address.

That's Christ Evangelical Fellowship at gmail .com.

Christ Evangelical Fellowship at gmail .com and your website is Christ evangel

.org Christ Evangelical org.

Do you have any other contact information that you care to get?

Yes, absolutely.

If you would like to get in touch with me through To the church Christ evangel Christ evangel

org you can do it through that venue.

But if you want to get in touch with me through the ministry of first love whether that's in reference to first love missions

Publications or radio you can reach out to us on those websites first love radio org first love

publications org and don't make the mistake.

We're going to first love missions dot org because that's a completely different Charismatic something else.

Yeah, I I checked that out.

So that's why it's backwards missions first love dot org.

So missions first love dot org would be our missions website, but you can get a hold of me through any of those avenues.

Well, Austin, I am so thrilled to finally meet you face to face after a lot of

communication over the Internet and I'm really excited about What lies

ahead for both of us laboring together with first love radio and family radio and any

other thing that our mutual friend Joe Jackowitz has his fingers in by God's grace and it

has been really a refreshing joy to meet you and speak with you face to face

and You far surpassed Anything that was in my mind not that I had anything negative in my

mind.

But I am just very impressed with you As a such a vibrant Christian young man

and pastor and I look forward to many more opportunities To not only fellowship with you, but to labor with you for the

cause of the kingdom.

Amen, brother.

Thank you for that.

And I Just continue to praise the Lord.

I'm thankful to be with you.

Whatever the Lord opens up the door in this next chapter I'm excited to be by your side as well.

So god bless your brother.

Keep up the good work.

Thank you.

God bless.

I hope that you've enjoyed this interview with pastor Austin Huggins.

We're planning to air another interview that Chris did with him at the 2020 G3 conference

in this series.

It will probably be airing in the next few days.

Please remember to pray for Chris Arnson's health and quick recovery.

And as Chris would say I want you to remember that Jesus Christ is a far far greater Savior than you

are a sinner.