February 14, 2018 Show with Henry Jansma and Matt Kennedy on “To Ash or Not to Ash? That is the Question for Two Reformation Anglicans of Opposing Views on Ash Wednesday” PLUS Mike Gaydosh on “New Offers From Solid Ground Christian Books”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now here's our host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 14th day of February, Valentine's Day, 2018.

And I'm so disappointed, today being my birthday, that I did not receive the million dollars in unmarked bills that I've been asking for.

So we'll have to wait. But the night is young, so you never know what will show up at my doorstep today.

But today is not only Valentine's Day, but it is also

Ash Wednesday, or the first day of Lent. And today we have, I think, a fascinating program.

We're going to be addressing a subject that I've never addressed, at least for a full two -hour program, or in this case,

I should say, a 90 -minute program, because our guests could only be with us for the first 90 minutes. And we have

Mike Gaydosh of Solid Ground Christian Books joining us during the last half hour. But this will be the first time that we have devoted an entire program, or nearly an entire program, to the subject of Ash Wednesday.

And this is the theme today, To Ash or Not to Ash? That is the question for two

Reformation Anglicans of opposing views. And let me introduce to you these two

Reformation Anglicans that we have on the program today. And one has been a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio before, and the other is a new guest, a first -time guest.

First, let me introduce our returning guest, Matt Kennedy. Matt Kennedy is the rector, or the senior pastor, of Church of the

Good Shepherd in Binghamton, New York. He grew up in Corpus Christi, Texas, and graduated with a

B .A. in history from Southwestern University in 1994. After coming to faith in Jesus Christ in 1995, he served as a youth minister for an

Episcopal congregation in Houston, Texas. In 1999, he was accepted to Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia.

And during seminary, he met his wife, Anne. They were married in 2001, and together they have six children.

After earning his MDiv in 2002, Matt and Anne moved to Binghamton, New York, where Matt accepted the call to serve as rector of Good Shepherd Episcopal Church.

Good Shepherd left the Episcopal Church in 2007, following that denomination's departure from Christian orthodoxy, and now belongs to the

Diocese of Kena East, a Nigerian Anglican missionary diocese, which is a member diocese of the

Anglican Church in North America. As rector, Matt oversees pastoral care, teaching and preaching, administration, staff, and is committed to his singular passion, exegetical preaching.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Pastor Matt Kennedy.

It's my honor to be here. Great to be here. Thank you. And now, for the first time, we have, as our guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Reverend Canon Dr.

Henry P. Jansma, who has lived in the United States and in England. Prior to planting

All Souls Church in Cherry Hill, New Jersey in 2014,

Henry also served in the Church of England from 1991 to 2001, and the Episcopal Church from 2001 to 2013.

Henry holds degrees from Northeastern Bible College, a B .A., Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, a

Master's, and Lincoln Theological College in the U .K., a certificate in ministry and mission, and the

University of Durham, U .K., which is a Ph .D., and has taught homiletics in the

Diocese of Lincoln Lay Readers School, as well as Reformation history in the

Diocese of New Jersey Deacon School. His Ph .D. thesis is the prophetic office and the theology of John Calvin.

Henry remains a student of the Reformation period, particularly in early Anglican theology and the

Elizabethan Puritan movement. His pastoral experience began as assistant curate of St.

Mary and St. Nicholas Spaulding in 1991, when Henry served as an assistant in a large -town parish church in various rural parish churches in the fens of the southeastern

Lincolnshire, and as a part -time hospital chaplain. He was later installed as vicar of St.

Aidan's Clethorpus, an inner -city parish in northeast

Lincolnshire. St. Aidan's was identified as an urban priority area, an area of special economic and social need.

Henry was also a regular speaker on BBC Radio Humberside's Pause for Thought.

Returning to the United States on September 11, 2001, Henry was appointed the rector of St.

Mary's Episcopal Church, Haddon Heights, New Jersey, a previously troubled parish church.

He sacrificially led the people in a return to Orthodox Biblical Christianity.

Henry was ordained priest in the Church of England in 1992, and is now canonically resident in the missionary diocese of Convocation of Anglicans in North America, East Church of Nigeria, and since October of 2013,

Henry was appointed canon theologian for the diocese in December of 2014.

Henry also writes as an Anglican contributor on Meet the

Puritans, a blog of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, who are friends of the

Iron Sharpens Iron program, and is adjunct lecturer in homiletics at Reformed Episcopal Seminary from August 2016.

It's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Rev. Canon Dr. Henry P.

Jansma. Yes, good afternoon, Chris. Thanks for inviting me. And the pleasure is all mine, brother.

And the email address for any of you who would like to ask a question about Ash Wednesday in particular, we will accept other questions regarding Anglicanism and Episcopalianism, but we would like the majority of them to be specifically on the question of Ash Wednesday, whether or not that is a way that the first day of Lent should be expressed by someone who is truly a

Protestant or Reformational Anglican. And this is a subject that is near and dear to my heart, because much of my family on my father's side were

Anglicans and Episcopalians, and it did break my heart to know that some of those family members moved on into the

Roman Catholic Church because they were disgusted with liberalism in the Episcopal Church.

I wished that they had met folks like the two of you, who are committed to the 39

Articles of Religion and other major aspects of the Protestant Reformation that would prohibit the heresies of the

Roman Catholic Church. And just something that our listeners should be aware of, that not all of the

Episcopal or Anglican Church are either apostate and leftist or Romish and Oxford movement.

There are those that are considered to be truly Protestant and Reformational, and it is my joy to know a number of them.

Well, let me first have Pastor Matt Kennedy begin, since Matt is in favor of celebrating

Ash Wednesday on the first day of Lent, and he does not apparently see an inconsistency with that celebration and the teachings of the 39

Articles or historic Protestant Anglicanism. And if you could begin, Matt, to first of all explain to our listeners, because we do have listeners that were not raised in liturgical churches where Ash Wednesday was ever celebrated, or Lent for that matter.

We no doubt have a great number of Baptists and Presbyterians and others who have never observed those days or those holidays or holy days, although I know that Lent is something that has become more popular even beyond the boundaries of Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism.

It's something that even I know an Evangelical Methodist church that celebrates

Lent and Ash Wednesday, for that matter. But if you could, Matt, explain what Ash Wednesday is and why you do it and why you do not think this is a contradiction to your

Reformational standards. Sure. I mean, Ash Wednesday is the day 40 days before Holy Saturday or the day before Easter, and traditionally it's the first day of the season of Lent.

And Lent is a time set aside to devote yourself to repentance. Now, that doesn't mean that we don't always repent.

The Christian life is one of repentance. But it is helpful, Anglicans, or many

Anglicans tend to think, to have a season set aside where you really do battle with particular sin areas in your life.

And Ash Wednesday is the beginning of that time. And Anglicans, this may be something that is unique about Anglican Reform folk, and that is that we don't, not all of us anyway, some of us do, but many of us do not hold to the regulative principle with regard to worship.

So we hold to what's called the normative principle, which means that what doesn't conflict with the

Scriptures, and insofar as it's not inconsistent with principles laid down in Scripture, a congregation or a

Christian or a church may engage in those particular practices. And my position is fairly simple.

I don't see how either the observance of Ash Wednesday or the imposition of ashes in any way conflicts with either the written

Scriptures or anything that can be deduced from them. And so, for me, that's a primary test.

After having passed that, I mean, I guess the question is, what's the use of it?

And I think that the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday is one of the most helpful things, helpful, observable signs that we can do as worshipers.

First of all, you know, Jesus is very clear about not doing works of righteousness or religious practices in public to be seen by men so that we don't do them to exalt ourselves or gain admiration.

And I think the imposition of ashes is kind of the anti -sign for that. It's exactly the opposite of what

Jesus forbids in Matthew 6 there. Because by putting ashes on your head, you're essentially saying,

I'm a sinner, I deserve condemnation and death for my sin, and in fact,

I'm going to die. That's what the ashes represent, both death and sorrow over the fact that I'm a sinner.

And the fact that they're imposed in the shape of a cross says, well, yes,

I'm a sinner, I'm doomed to die, but Jesus came to save sinners and he has destroyed death, and so I rejoice in that fact.

And so you wear this ash around all day, some of us, some of my pristerners had it imposed this morning, and you kind of open pray that people will ask you, what's that smudge on your forehead?

And you get to say, you get to say the gospel with them, I'm a sinner, and Jesus died for sinners.

Now, is it always a smudge, or is it actually an attempt to make a cross symbol with the ashes?

Right, well, it's the attempt to make a cross, but often it looks like a smudge.

Yes, I was raised Roman Catholic. My father's side was

Episcopalian, but my father, when I was a teenager, eventually converted to Roman Catholicism.

But before my own conversion and my own becoming a Reformed Baptist, I was a

Roman Catholic, and I can always recall not only having the ashes on my own forehead, but seeing them, and they very rarely looked like a cross.

But if you could, perhaps now, Pastor Jansma, if you could respond to what

Matthew says and explain to our listeners why you, as a Reformational Anglican, do not practice

Ash Wednesday, although you do follow the Lenten calendar, you are a liturgical

Anglican, and in fact, I'm assuming all Anglicans in some shape or form, even low church

Anglicans, I'm assuming, are liturgical. And then, of course, we could say that every church is liturgical, because every church has some kind of order of worship.

But if you could, respond to why you do not practice Ash Wednesday.

Thanks, Chris. I would say first off that, yes, you're absolutely right, that Matt and I agree in the keeping of the discipline of Lent and the value of that, particularly today as the first day of Lent.

I think that the differences between us, really, are not so much whether we keep the day, but whether or not we would observe the ritual in exactly the same way.

I wouldn't impose ashes on the forehead of parishioners or on myself as part of a liturgy.

And I think the reason why that came about for me, I mean, as you heard in your introduction,

I've been in the Church of England, trained, et cetera, so there have been years when, as a curate,

I've participated in Ash Wednesday services, imposed ashes. The great benefit of church planting is you can reboot and rethink.

And alongside that, for many years, you take an oath, you see, when you're ordained, to uphold to the historical formularies to keep the daily office.

And so for many years I've done that with our 1662 Book of Common Prayer. So for me, the first day of Lent is slightly different.

It begins as a holy day that we have a special prayer for that day that both

Matt and I will say. But instead I would go on to another part in the prayer book, to the service of a combination that is found there, which is an important remembrance of God's hatred of sin and our need of Christ, and so begin in that way.

So I think what was my pause in not wanting to continue to impose ashes had a lot to do with the fact that I spent many years now with the prayer book, and I noticed early on that the actual service of ashing, the ritual of ashing, was discontinued very early by our

Anglican forebears. That was something I said, oh, right, okay.

Did Thomas Cramner abandon the ashes as well? Yes, that's right.

We're going way back to the earliest days once Henry VIII was dead and Edward VI was king, and Cramner was finally able to take his other hand from behind his back out, and he was able to start initiating more comprehensive reform.

And I took note of that, I think. And it's a historical argument to say, okay, it ended then and only returned in the 19th century with the ritualist movement then.

And I'm very sympathetic to Matt's view of really kind of reappropriating it and taking a good, clear gospel understanding to it, to use it.

But I've found for myself that the danger tends to be that we like to add to our signs in our worship, and I'm always mindful that God provided three, water, wine, and bread, and promised to use them accordingly.

And I'm always hesitant to go further. I guess I'm a bit of a cautious old fellow now, and so I tend to support my brother in his application of the gospel in the way he does in his parish.

He is accountable to Christ for his ministry in the same way I am, but I would refrain from doing that.

I think that's basically the difference. How I see Lent is really an expansion of how we prepare to come to the

Lord's Supper. So it has a Christological focus, questions of what we add and what we subtract in worship.

It tends to go there. And as you may recall from your own pattern of worship in the church you go to, we're asked, first of all, to examine ourselves and repent of our sins, and then to consider what

God has done for us in our redemption to the death of Jesus Christ. That twofold emphasis that we used to prepare for the supper really is what

Lent's all about, because we are looking toward the events of the passion of Christ, his death for us and his resurrection.

So going back to something that Matt said earlier, he would be more in alignment with what is known as the normative principle rather than the regulative principle, and you seem to be,

I don't know if you would identify yourself with that word, but you seem more aligned with it where the silence of the

Scripture is viewed by those who adhere to the regulative principle as a prohibition against things rather than a liberty to include things.

Would that be more accurate or somewhat accurate in the way to describe your own convictions on worship?

No, actually not. I don't think so, really. I've never been able to get a straight answer on, okay, a regulative is correct, then what's on the list?

What's included and what is not? And depending upon who I ask, I get a different length of list.

Yeah, I know that especially over instrumental music and also whether to sing exclusively the

Psalms or include hymns. Those are the only two areas that I'm aware of, though. Yeah, but I mean, it goes on, doesn't it?

I mean, we can talk about Sabbath observance. We can start talking about should we watch the

Eagles Super Bowl game? Go Eagles, we won. All right.

You know, and normative as well, I'm always a bit, you know, again, yes, certainly

Matt is correct. I'd like to propose perhaps an alternative that might be to say a

Christological approach to ask more of the question what we do in our worship.

Does it obscure Christ crucified or does it glorify

Christ crucified? Maybe that's a better way. And with that in mind,

I've always noticed how the prayer book, for example, never mentions things like crosses and candles.

I, again, note that. I remember when we first started All Souls and a member asked me, well, are we having candles?

And I said, no, I don't think so. And they said, why not? I said, well, look at the prayer book. What's missing?

And they looked and they said, well, they don't mention it. I said, exactly, because they weren't there. In fact,

I've heard from my friend, Reverend Jacob Smith. I don't know if you're familiar with Jacob. He's the rector of the parish of Calvary St.

George's in New York City. He is a Calvinist adherent to the 39

Articles of Religion, and he has told me that the low church Episcopalians and Anglicans refer to those who are becoming more

Anglo -Catholic or even more Romish. They were referred to as climbing the candlestick.

I don't know if you've heard that phrase or if you use that. Oh, my, yes, it makes you roll your eyes.

The danger of insider baseball amongst the clergy. We really don't want to go there,

Chris. We could be doing this all day.

Right, well, even if you do not personally adhere to a label known as the regulative principle, you seem to be fairly closely following it to the majority of people

I know who identify themselves that way. But actually, I think this would be a good time to go to our first break so I don't have to interrupt anybody in mid -sentence, because we usually go to the break right around now anyway.

If anybody would like to join us on the air with their question, and there are a couple of you waiting to have your questions asked and answered, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Let's say that you are a member of an Episcopal church that is conducting worship in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable or anything else like that where you don't want to draw attention to your identity.

I can understand that. So you may remain anonymous if it is about a personal and private matter.

But other than that, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence. The email address that you would use to join us with a question is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. And don't go away.

By God willing, we are going to be right back after these messages with Reverend Matt Kennedy and Reverend Henry Jansmut for more of our discussion on to ash or not to ash.

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We are now back to our discussion between Reverend Matt Kennedy and Reverend Henry Jansma on to ash or not to ash.

That is the question. That is the question for two Reformation Anglicans of opposing views.

Neither of our guests are Anglo -Catholics. They are committed to the teachings and standards of the

Protestant Reformation. And they would be both, though, however, practitioners of the observance of Lent, where they disagree is whether or not to impose ashes on the congregants or anyone coming to receive this sign on Ash Wednesday.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com

We have a listener in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania named

Harrison. And Harrison says, I am not from a liturgical background, but it seems to me that Lent is merely asking upon the faithful to be hypersensitive in regard to things they should already be doing, i .e.

examining themselves, especially in regard to receiving the Lord's Supper. Am I missing something?

And you can both answer that. We'll start with you, Matt, since we had

Reverend Jansma, who was last speaking. Why don't you begin with your own response to our listener in Mechanicsburg.

Well, I mean, again, Martin Luther said that the entire Christian life is a life of repentance, and I think that's absolutely right.

I don't necessarily believe it, asking a congregation. It is asking.

There's no... If you're from a Roman or, I guess, a traditionalist

Roman Catholic background, you might be used to days of obligations or these kinds of impositions by the

Church on the laity. That doesn't happen within Anglicanism. We don't require...

I don't require my congregation, anyone to do anything that can't be... that I can't back up with direct biblical command.

So, MASH Wednesday and Lent, these are opportunities for people to take action in their lives against things that have been enslaving them, and they haven't gone through the whole year without really taking stock of what's going on in their life or in their soul.

And this period of time gives them an opportunity to take stock of that, offer up enslavements, offer up idols, offer up things that have been plaguing them for a while to the

Lord, and seek His grace and mercy in both forgiving them for those things, but also in overcoming those things.

I think it's a truly healthy practice. I grew up as an

Episcopalian. I became a Christian in my 20s, but since my conversion,

I found Lent far from burdensome. I found it something that...

a practice that actually relieves burden, that enables me to take that time and really do battle and by God's grace be cleansed of things that I just let accumulate in my life over the course of the other month of the year.

Now, Henry, you could add anything you'd like to that, but I'd also like to add my own question, having been raised

Roman Catholic. One of the things that Lent, in that tradition, is known for,

I don't know if it's globally, but I'm sure it's quite well known for it, at least within the confines of North America, is that during Lent you give up something that you really love.

You give up either doing something or eating something, and obviously it is common for people to eat fish rather than meat, especially on Ash Wednesday or other holy days, although I, from what

I understand, the papacy, since that was never a dogma, has lightened up the reins on requiring those kinds of things.

But if you could comment, Henry. On whether you give up things?

Well, I mean, I'm sure you agree that that's what a Roman Catholic would typically think of during Lent. Yes, but I think that one has to understand that the nature of salvation within Roman Catholicism, the way in which you're justified, is to keep to the sacraments of the

Church as the means of grace to justification. So this question of being compelled is really sort of connected with how you are finally justified before God.

The difference, of course, as you know, Chris, is that as Protestants, Matt, myself, and yourself, see what we're talking about here more in terms of our sanctification.

We are justified in Christ, and it's our sanctification. So there's an element of conscience, of Christian liberty here, that a

Roman Catholic, a committed Roman Catholic doesn't enjoy. And for us, we have assurance, and sadly for a

Roman Catholic, there is no assurance, because the justification is still an open question, even at death.

So for me, I think that the question of our sinfulness, in a way, is not really examined to the depth it should be.

And Matt's absolutely right to point out that we can prepare ourselves each week to receive the supper, but the depth of our sinfulness, the need of sanctification, and the need that we have for the

Lord by the power of the Spirit, is such that dedicating time within the year to go deeper to see the nature of God's work for us in our redemption, and it's corollary, our need of that, the holiness of God and our sinfulness.

The more we understand one, the deeper our understanding of the other grows. And between them, of course, the cross, and the glory of the cross, and the beauty of Christ, our

Savior grows in the heart of a believer. To me, that's the gift of Lent, really, that my appreciation and beauty of my

Savior will grow, because I've given time to ponder these great things of God. Go ahead,

Matt. This is also why we wouldn't just... I don't know about Henry, but I know that in my parents, we wouldn't just give an arbitrary kind of discipline, so no meat on Fridays, or give up chocolate for Lent.

That doesn't really seem to be... That seems to be more akin to, I'm causing myself some kind of suffering to atone for my sins, and that doesn't have any place within Anglicanism.

We would rather say, if you're struggling with lust, don't give up chocolate. That's not going to help you.

In fact, I think it's aphrodisiac, isn't it? As far as I've heard it is, anyway.

Exactly. Yes, I would agree with Matt. I think that if there's one message that he and I both would preach regularly to our congregations, it's that your need is a lot worse than you realize.

To just speak in terms of circuses really is a form of presumption of God's grace, a dangerous ground for any believer.

Yeah, you just reminded me of an old Charles Spurgeon quote, which I don't know exactly the way he worded it, because I don't have it in front of me, but I have been told that Charles Spurgeon had said that if anyone says that you are wicked, don't be angry at him, you are far worse than he thinks.

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I think if Matt and I actually could see into the hearts of our parishioners, we wouldn't want to preach to them and just say, forget it.

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who will be shipping it at their own expense. We have Joe in Slovenia.

Dear Brother Chris, happy birthday. I'm always blessed by the wide array of guests you have for your program.

Does Jesus command in Matthew 6, verses 16 -18 to wash your face, conflict with the practice of rubbing ashes on one's face on Ash Wednesday?

Does Jesus command that your fasting may not be seen by others, but by your

Father who is in secret? Speak against the whole practice of going to a priest to get the ashes put on your face.

If we advertise the fact that we are fasting, are we not nullifying the benefit of fasting?

Thanks for bringing edification to this discussion each day.

Well, that's got to be one for Matt, I can tell you that much. Well, you can confirm it later if you want.

I think I kind of joked that in my opening. Matt, you're kind of muffled.

Hello, Matt? Your voice is muffled. Oh, yes. Hello? I can hear you now.

Okay. But I did address that briefly in my original, my first comment, my first bit of a talk there when

I was referencing Matthew chapter 6, and the things that Jesus forbids there are fasting to be seen by others, praying in a way that would be calling attention to yourself for the purpose of calling attention to yourself, and almsgiving for the purpose of being seen giving alms.

And all three of those practices have a lot of cultural cash value in those cultures.

You know, there was a very highly religious, the first century Judaism was a very highly religious culture, and so being seen doing these things gives you a lot of cred, a lot of street cred.

I would say the opposite is true with regard to our own culture, and especially with regard to what the ashes actually tell us, or what the ashes actually say.

The ashes do not say, and some people do use them like this, so I don't want to make that cut yet, but they don't say, look at me,

I've gone to church this morning, I'm a good Anglican, or I'm a good Lutheran, I'm a good Roman Catholic, or whatever.

The ashes are intended to say, look at me, I am a sinner, and because of my sin

I'm going to die, my mortal body is going to die unless Jesus comes back first, and I deserve condemnation and hell for my sins, and yet the ashes are in the shape of a cross because my

Lord gave his life for sinners, and so I live. And though my body will die,

I will live, and my body will one day be raised up, there's an anti -pride message in the ashes that I think actually helps to use

Matthew 6 as a counter -example. So Matthew 6 is always the text assigned on Ash Wednesday for preachers to preach through, for Anglican preachers anyway.

So I'm preaching on Matthew 6 tonight, I preached on Matthew 6 this morning, and I use the ashes as the counter -type to what

Jesus forbids in that chapter. And Reverend Henry, do you have any response that perhaps you might want to bolster, what our listener has said?

Well, I think, I mean, I'm very sympathetic to Matt seeing the imposition of ashes as an instrument to speak of the gospel to a world that needs that gospel.

I tend to hesitate with going that bit further and joining him in doing it, because it really takes several paragraphs to explain the meaning of the sign.

And I'm always a bit like, well, yes, but a sign should be more self -evident perhaps to us.

I'm thinking in terms of how it's so easy to explain the nature of how we are nourished by the supper, because even a child will understand how we are, we need food to live, and the question of spiritual food for our souls.

The same way water for washing as a sign is immediately accessible.

I tend to hesitate because so much is required, and that conversation may or may not occur.

When it does occur, I give glory to God for it, because it means His Holy Spirit's at work in that electing love, and that person who makes the inquiry to the

Christian who has the ashes on there for it. But I tend to pause there and say, well, if I want to talk of Christ, I will speak of Him in the comfort of the gospel itself rather than to rely on a dumb sign that without that gospel remains a dumb sign.

I think that doesn't necessarily answer our brother's or support our brother in Slovenia, but I think that Matt rightly pointed out that the cultural context of Matthew 6 in terms of what was going on in Jesus' day, and because of that,

I think that we must take extra care how we then apply those same cultural signs in our own day.

Well, thank you, Joe, in Slovenia, and thank you also providing us with an American address where your daughter lives in Georgia because we are shipping out to her, since it's much less expensive, a free copy of the book that we mentioned,

Reformation Anglicanism, written by multiple authors and published by our friends at Crossway.

Reformation Anglicanism, a vision for today's global communion, and again, that's a $35 hardback, and you're getting that absolutely free.

And thank you providing us with that American address. Let's see here.

We have Christopher in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York. He says that Pastor Matt earlier on commented that he looks forward to people asking about why there's a smudge on their forehead so he can profess his faith and that others in his congregation can do the same.

However, in a lot of places in the United States, a question like that would never be asked because of the predominance of Roman Catholicism, and they would automatically think that you are a

Roman Catholic. Does it not disturb you, Pastor Matt, that you are very opposed to the heretical dogmas of Rome, and yet you are risking being identified with them merely because of a ceremony that has no place in the

Scriptures? You know, two things there.

That's going to be a problem, I guess, with any kind of religious practice.

I think people who are not Christians associate or don't have a good way of distinguishing between Anglican and Roman Catholic and Baptist or anything else, so it's all kind of a mush to them.

So I don't know that that necessarily is a critique with regard to just smearing ashes on your head.

If it could apply to a whole host of other practices, just going to church on a

Monday, we would do the same thing. I would just add, in addition to, and I do think that, at least from my feedback from the parishioners that I have in my church, there is a fair bit of conversation that goes on when people who go to work wear these ashes on their head, and it has been an opportunity to share the

Gospel. But in addition to that, it's not just the evangelical or the mission -mindedness that drives me to want to do this.

It also says something very important to the person who has the ashes imposed. You look that person in the eye.

You trace across from that person's forehead an ash, and you say, remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

So every year, everyone in my parish is brought face -to -face. I'm not saying that this doesn't happen other times during the year, but in particular, every

Ash Wednesday, people in my parish are brought face -to -face with their own mortality, and they have to consider their own death.

They have to think that this, remember that this life is not long. And that's an important thing for them to know, and they also are reminded, again, of their utter desperate need for a

Savior who will save them not only from death, but for their sins. So there's a personal value for the person who has the ash, as well as the external value of being able to explain what the ash is for.

But as far as the question goes, again, I agree that that could happen. People might mistake the person wearing it for a

Roman Catholic, but I think that's just something that's going to happen with any kind of religious practice.

One question I have of my own, real quickly, is this a mandatory thing, that someone receives ashes in your congregation?

No. When I say everyone, I think there are some who don't do it, and they're welcome not to do it, because it's not,

I think the questioner pointed out, it's not commanded in Scripture, so we would never command someone to do it.

It is an option. Now, let me ask you another question. Let's say some church down the road, they picked a day out of the year, it could be any day, it could be

Resurrection Sunday, it could be any day, Christmas, perhaps even the first day of Lent, where the congregation is encouraged to walk around in the community wearing an armband, perhaps, that has a cross on it, or something like that.

Something that does not have the ancient connection with the tradition of ashes, but is equally not found within the pages of Scripture.

Would you be opposed to something like that, or is it just because of the ancient connection to ashes that you find this a commendable practice?

I wouldn't be opposed to that at all. I'd be all in favor of anybody, any church in our neighborhood going door -to -door and telling people about Jesus, if they want to wear an armband with that, that's great.

I don't see the problem with that. I think the ash on Ash Wednesday is a particularly compelling sign because of what ashes represent, as opposed to an armband, but I wouldn't have a problem with that at all.

And, Reverend Jansman, if you could respond to basically everything that, as much as you want to respond to, in regard to what

Matthew said. All right, well, okay, sit down, boys, and I'll... In fact,

I'll tell you what, if you could collect your thoughts over the station break, because we have to go to a midway station break right now, and you could respond to Matthew when we return, and that will be our final half hour, so if anybody wants to join us on the air with a question, and there are still a couple of you waiting, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com, whether you agree or disagree with either side, please just give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence, and you may remain anonymous if the question involves a personal or private matter.

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Reverend Matt Kennedy and Reverend Henry Jansman, who are two

Anglicans, conservative, Protestant, Reformational, 39 Articles Anglicans, who disagree over the issue of ashes on the first day of Lent, and we'll be right back,

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And that is also the email address where you can ask questions for our guests, Matt Kennedy and Henry Jansma, on whether or not to administer ashes on the first day of Lent known as Ash Wednesday.

These are two men who are not Anglo -Catholic. They are committed to Reformational standards.

They are 39 articles Anglicans. They're conservative and liturgical. Would both of you describe yourselves as low church?

I'm not sure about that. I would probably be considered high church.

Okay. And you, Pastor Jansma? I guess I would be low church,

I suppose, yeah. Okay. If someone wanted to label me, yeah. Okay. Well, those are differences that are tolerated amongst even

Reformation Anglicans. But if you have a question, please send it in before we run out of time.

They're only going to be on with us until 5 .30. But if you could pick up where we left off,

Reverend Jansma, on the listener before the break was basically saying aren't you, meaning

Pastor Matt and others like him, aren't you unnecessarily publicly confusing people and wrongly identifying yourself with the

Roman Catholic Church with whom Reformation Anglicans have very much to oppose, especially the dogmas involving salvation and things that would be considered idolatrous and so on.

Why would you do this thing that may blur the lines of distinction between you? And if you could respond to that kind of thought

Well, I think if Matt and I or another brother pastor were sitting down and asking well, how would

I do this if I didn't impose ashes? I would say, well,

I mean, be aware that to stand and look the person in the eye and impose the ashes as you say the words remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return needs more that it doesn't go far enough and we have within our prayer book this order of service that I mentioned at the start the culmination.

There's a reason why the ashes aren't there in the prayer book because culmination in a way makes everything very clear as to what is at stake.

As a service culmination literally means the action of threatening divine vengeance or as the service explains the announcing of God's anger and judgment against sinners.

And I think for our congregations the idea of God being angry may make us uncomfortable but it is scriptural.

God's wrath at sin and sinners is mentioned, oh, I don't know a good 600 times in the scriptures.

The most mentioned attribute of God we might argue is His holiness and because He is holy

He cannot tolerate sin. And scripture importantly does not say hate the sin, love the sinner.

That was Gandhi. That was Gandhi. We are all sinners.

We all deserve judgment and the death penalty because as Paul tells us the wages of sin is death but this is the eternal death, isn't it?

Of the damned. We're talking about in Romans 6. So the service of culmination is so based in the scriptures.

So for my Baptist brothers if you're a King James guy out there, come and have a look at this because it quotes over 75 verses of the scriptures with many more alluded to.

You see in the end our goal as Reformation Anglicans in our worship on the first day of Lent is to help our people understand what

I think Tim Hughes said in one of his choruses, Here I Am to Worship. There's a line I think that goes,

I'll never know how much it costs to see my sin upon that cross. Now that's the essence of what we're trying to do.

We're trying to understand God's hatred of sin and all He had to overcome to restore us in a right relationship with Him and we'll never know how much

He loves us. So the culmination does that for us. It begins by displaying

God's anger and judgment, although even at the beginning it says that God's anger and judgment is only a curse against those who refuse to repent.

It's only those who don't repent to Christ who face such judgment.

And you read the curses from the scriptures just like the Ten Commandments and we realize we all are guilty of breaking them.

Explaining that the day of the Lord is coming is also part of that service that compels the believer to fear

God, to turn away from sin, and not to despise His goodness, His patience, and His longsuffering.

And in that you see it proclaims Christ, it declares

Christ to be on our side, it emphasizes the propitiation for our sin, and then we're reassured that Christ is ready to receive us whenever we come to Him in humility, no matter what we've done or how many times we've done it.

The service says Jesus is most willing to pardon us if we come to Him with faithful repentance.

And so as a Reformation Anglican I'm saying, look at the whole.

The imposition of ashes is absent. The special prayer for Ash Wednesday is there, the readings are there from Joel and Matthew 6, as Matt mentioned.

But we need to have the foundation, the cradle, as it were to hold this, which is the combination service.

And I have always come away from that service acknowledging that the service itself might be uncomfortable for us to be reminded of God's wrath against sin, and our call to repentance, but it's for the good news of Jesus.

It's designed to, at the start of Lent, to bring us to our knees, to acknowledge our sinfulness, to fall on the mercy of God, and not on our own strength, and to see judgment against sin, and be so encouraged to fight valiantly against it, knowing our assurance in Christ.

That message is so relevant for today. And I would like to see that more and more in our

Anglican churches, indeed in all churches. And that would be my appeal that I would make over a cup of coffee if we were having a chat about that together.

And, Pastor Matt, if you want to respond? Sure, I absolutely agree with him about the service of combination, and I also agree that ashes by themselves are bare, and they don't give you...if

the service just consisted of the imposition of ashes, it would be incomplete, and that's why you have the combination that we have, the preaching of the

Gospel, and you join that to other things. So I would definitely agree with him about the need for that sign to have some substance to it, beyond just what

Pastor says when he rubs the ash on the head. Secondly, kind of going back to what the questioner asked with regard to associating through signs with the

Roman Catholic Church, there's a lot of... Thinking of the

English language, for example, we've lost the word tolerance. We've lost the word inclusive.

Good words. It had meaning before they were co -opted by the left, and we've kind of allowed them to be misused, and so now any time those words are used, we have all kinds of images that are conjured in our heads that weren't consistent with the original meaning.

I think the same thing can be true here with liturgy and with things that people might associate with the

Roman Catholic Church. The Reformed Church is the Catholic Church. Ours are the

Scriptures, the Fathers, the teaching of the Gospel throughout the centuries. So I don't know that we need to surrender helpful practices just because people might think that they conjure up Roman Catholicism.

I think that's more of a call for us to be very proactive in taking these signs and these symbols and pouring genuine

Gospel and Catholic content into them. We have

Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who says, forgive me if I miss this, but are either of you in the

Episcopal Church T .E .C. denomination, which is known by evangelicals as being a very apostate denomination, endorsing such wicked activity as homosexuality and even homosexual marriage and ordination of unrepentant homosexuals and also abortion and many other things that we would believe as Christians are an abomination, and more importantly,

God views as abominations. My question is, again, are either of you in this denomination, and how do you view brothers in Christ who are biblically

Orthodox, but who remain in that denomination, even in the clergy? You want to go first,

Matt? We had an interesting interview. We are both in the same diocese in the

Anglican Church in North America, which is not part of the Episcopal Church, and many of the pastors who belong to the

Anglican Church in North America have left the Episcopal Church for just the reasons that the commenter mentioned.

So, we've left the Episcopal Church. I do know some good, faithful pastors remaining in the

Episcopal Church. I think it's going to be increasingly difficult, because the pressure now from the central governing body of the

Church and the vast majority of bishops in the Episcopal Church are all favoring and promoting sexual sin, and they're working very diligently politically to make life very difficult for Orthodox pastors.

I think it's a matter of time before even remaining in that denomination is untenable.

And, Pastor Henry? Yes, as far as myself is concerned, in conscience,

I can no longer remain in the Episcopal Church and sought alternate oversight in our diocese of Canaan East and was deposed and left the

Episcopal Church under that discipline and quite happy to do so. And as far as those who remain, it really is a question of their own conscience before God.

I think that the question of why you remain is a tricky one.

Matt's absolutely right to point out that it will just get harder, and I think that the question really for me was to what extent the

Episcopal Church still remains a church, according to Scripture, carrying the marks of the

Church. I think for many they say, well, we still have you know, the

Thirteenth Articles and our liturgies still have these things, but if the

Church doesn't enforce it, if there's no sense of discipline and the

Church's procedures are uncoupled from orthodox teaching, the game is over.

If I can hold an office in the Church and embrace you know, a denial of Christ, of the virgin birth being a fiction, or just a failure of my potential, the cross is a moral example, the resurrection of Jesus is just some inward psychological journey that I take, that there's universal salvation, then that's the functional creed of the

Church. No matter what it says, the historical standards might say.

And so I left because I had to follow my oath to uphold the

Scriptures and the Gospel. And when it's conflicted with the visible authority of the bishop and the assemblies of the

Church, it was time to leave. And I encourage my brothers who remain to reconsider where they stand, because again, they are accountable to Christ for their ministry.

Their public ministry is in association with this public profession of a creed, a functional creed that frankly has no resemblance to the

Scriptures at all. And one has to seriously consider your position.

Well, Rev. Matt, I would like you to conclude your end of the program by summarizing what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners in regard to Ash Wednesday in about a three -minute period, approximately, and then we'll have

Rev. Jansma do the same. Sure.

Ash Wednesday is time to again come to examination.

Consider your own life, your soul, the ways that you're living, the habits you've adopted, and do the work of repentance, offering those things that are displeasing to God up to the

Lord, and being assured, as Henry said so well, that you're forgiven because of the shed blood of Christ.

I think the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday is one of the most profound ways to come to terms with your own mortality, your own sinfulness, and also prepare you to express that to those beyond the church walls.

The ashes represent death, and they also represent sorrow. You're sorry for the sins that you commit.

You're sorry for your sinfulness. You recognize that apart from God's mercy, you have no hope, and you ought to be condemned, and yet, again, those ashes are in the shape of a cross because the

Lord Jesus Christ died to take away your sins, and He crushed death under His feet, and so you embrace that.

As you receive the ashes, you embrace that as you hear the preaching of the Gospel at the service, and as you go out into the world, you pray.

That's where it gives me an opportunity to share the Gospel and prompt somebody to ask me about what this is, what this means, and look for opportunities to do so.

Because there's nothing in Scripture that would be inconsistent with this practice, and there's nothing that the

Scriptures would do to...there's nothing inconsistent at all with any principle that teaches with it, I see it as a plus, and there's really nothing to prohibit those who wish to engage in it.

And, Reverend Jansma, if you could conclude your end of the discussion with about three minutes of content.

I would urge Anglicans to try to be consistent

Anglicans in terms of the heritage that we've received from our forebears.

It's important to note that the ritual of ashing was discontinued immediately in 1549.

It's absent from the Book of Common Prayer, and we have this rich understanding of the ministry of the

Word and sacrament that replaces it. Specifically in terms of the nature of our eternal destiny, and the day of judgment where we will all stand.

Rather than in terms of our physical death, it's our spiritual death on the last day that is the attention of the cross.

And then in that way, I would urge our members to proclaim

Christ, again in the way in which Matthew 5 tells us that we are to let our light so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our

Father which is in heaven. That is the life transformed into a

Christ -likeness. The pursuit of holiness is something that draws the attention of the unbeliever.

And whether or not there's a smudge on our forehead really is beside the point.

Well, I was delighted with our discussion today and I want you both to know that you both have an open door to be interviewed here whenever we have an opening in our schedule.

If you have a special event, a conference or anything that you want to promote, if you have a guest speaker coming to your church, whatever the reason being that you would like to come back on, please let me know because I would like each of you to know that I would love to interview you again and many more times in the future.

I want our listeners to know that the Anglican Church of the Good Shepherd in Binghamton, New York has a website and that's

GoodShepherdBinghamton .org and Binghamton is spelled B -I -N -G -H -A -M -T -O -N dot org

GoodShepherdBinghamton .org and also our friends at All Souls Anglican Church in Cherry Hill, New Jersey they have a website which is

AllSoulsNJ standing for NewJersey .org AllSoulsNJ .org

AllSoulsNJ .org Pastor Matt, do you have any other contact information you care to give? I think you covered it.

Thank you. And Pastor Jansma? Look for my fortnightly column blog post on meet the

Puritans. I'm writing commentary on the 39 articles of religion.

Great. In fact, Pastor Jansma, I intend to, at some point, do a whole week on Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio where I address major confessions of the faith.

The Westminster, the 1689 London Baptist Confession, the Three Forms of Unity, I would love, oh the

Savoy, I would love to have an edition on the 39 articles if you would like to return at some point to take that day to be my guest to address the 39 articles of religion.

Oh, you don't want me to agree to that on the air now, do you? Actually, yes. Nice try.

Well, I hope that nothing disappointed you today that would drive you away from being my guest again.

Well, we could talk about it afterwards at some point off the air.

But thank you both so much, and I know that you both have busy schedules that you broke away from in order to be our guests today at very short notice, and I want to thank you both very much for your kindness and graciousness to do so.

Thank you for having me. All right, God bless you. And don't go away, folks, because our guest coming up after the station break is

Mike Gaydosh, who is the founder of Solid Ground Christian Books, solid -ground -books .com,

and he's not only going to be telling us about some excellent offers that he currently has through Solid Ground Christian Books, but I'd also like him, for our

Anglican listeners, to mention some of the things that he has published by Anglican authors, because he does have some that I think would be of great interest to any of you who are listening from that background.

And don't go away, God willing, we will be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God?

Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Hi, I'm Mark Lukens, pastor of Providence Baptist Church. We are a Reformed Baptist Church and we hold to the

London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. We are in Norfolk, Massachusetts. We strive to reflect

Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do than how men view these things.

That's not the best recipe for popularity, but since that wasn't the Apostles' priority, it must not be ours either.

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Solid Ground Christian Books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. And we have none other than the founder and director of Solid Ground Christian Books with us right now.

That's Mike Gadosh, a dear friend of mine for many years going back to the mid -1980s. My very first pastor after my rebirth.

The man who plunged me beneath the waters of baptism and who was my mentor in the faith for so many years and still continues to be.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Mike Gadosh.

Well, thank you, Chris, and happy birthday to you, my friend. Thank you very much. In spite of your insults on my appearance earlier,

I welcome your... You're trying to make up for that with a birthday wish. Tongue -in -cheek. It's just tongue -in -cheek, my friend.

That's what it is. I'm jealous. Well, before I go into what you primarily wanted to promote today, the leather editions of certain things, since we had two conservative

Calvinist confessional Anglicans on the first 90 minutes, I thought that you might want to let any of our listeners know that are connected with that fellowship.

I thought you might want them to know about some of the things that you publish by Anglicans and Episcopalians, such as lectures on the law and gospel and the

Christian pastor, both by Stephen H. Ting. And anyone else from that background?

Yeah, McIlvaine, Charles McIlvaine. We've published the

Born Again Episcopalian, which is the life of Charles McIlvaine.

McIlvaine was the Bishop of Ohio, was an incredibly gifted man, gifted preacher.

Banner of Truth did a small book of his entitled Christ -Centered Preaching.

And we've also done a book of his sermons called Truth and Life, and 22

Christ -Centered sermons that he preached. And he was a very, very special man and very gospel -oriented in all of his ministry.

In every way, he was just a sensational pastor, bishop, overseer.

He was just a very, very special man, as was Stephen Ting. I'm very grateful for these men.

They're gifted men, and God has given us an opportunity to bring their material back.

I believe McIlvaine is the one who, when he was at West Point, a revival broke out.

And there was such an outpouring of the Spirit upon the students that some of the faculty, or some of the, not necessarily faculty, but some of those in authority, became concerned that the men being trained for war were going to be turned away from it because of the spirituality of it.

I think as a result of that, McIlvaine ended up losing his position. So his success in ministry actually cost him his position there at West Point.

But he was the first one, I believe, who instituted giving every graduate either a

Bible or a New Testament. And I believe that's still done to this day. And that would have been back in the,

I don't know, 1840s, something like that. And McIlvaine was,

I believe, also was laid out in Westminster Abbey when he died.

He was actually on a mission overseas representing the

United States as an ambassador when he died. And on the way, as they were bringing his body back to the

U .S. for burial, he was laid out. And even though he was an American citizen, the only other

American citizen, to my knowledge, who was given that honor was Winston Churchill. Wow.

So quite an amazing man, Bishop McIlvaine. And I know that Stephen H.

Ting is such a precious jewel for you to have discovered.

I mean, I'm amazed that many conservative Calvinistic Anglicans aren't even familiar with him.

Yeah, right. He was the pastor, the rector of St. George's Episcopal Church.

I was so delighted to have a tour of that church by Reverend Jacob Smith, who's the current rector and who shares much of the theology of Stephen H.

Ting. That's why he actually accepted a call there, because he knew that Stephen Ting was the rector in the 19th century.

Well, I know that his book, Lectures on the Law and Gospel, is in the opinion of Earl Blackburn, Earl the

Pearl Blackburn, as I call him. Earl says it's the best book he has ever read on the subject of the law and gospel.

Wow, and he's a Reformed Baptist. And he's a Reformed Baptist. He's given away dozens of copies of that book, and the book is divided in half.

The first 12 lectures is Lectures on the Law, and then the last 12 are

Lectures on the Gospel. He just does a phenomenal job of laying all of that out.

And then his lectureship on the Christian pastor, which is titled

The Christian Pastor, the Office and Duty of the Gospel Minister, he was asked to bring a series of lectures at the

School of Theology at Boston University back in the 1870s. And they were so well -received that they ended up being put into print as a book.

He's also actually in another book that I've published. It's called The Man of Business.

And in The Man of Business, it's actually a book that was written. There are lectures from,

I think, six different ministers of that period, J .W. Alexander, W .B.

Sprague, John Todd, Stephen Ting, Jonathan Stearns, and Isaac Ferris.

And they just deal with different aspects of The Man of Business. And just a phenomenal book.

And then he also wrote the introduction to another book that I've published called

Light at Evening Time. And that's a book for people your age and my age.

A book of support. Thanks a lot. A book of comfort and support for the aged. So since today's your birthday and now you're over 55, you're closer to 60 than you are to 50, you're moving on, my friend.

Are you trying to push me back to drinking again? I've tried that a few times.

But actually, this is a great book, Light at Evening Time, a book of support and comfort for the aged.

And it's a book that is filled with brief. What's nice about it, it's a larger print, so it's easier to read.

It has contributions from just you name it, and there's a contribution.

And they're mostly brief. People like Augustine, Thomas Adams, J .W.

Alexander, Richard Baxter, Horatius Bonner, Charles Bridges, Thomas Brooks, John Bunyan, Chris Ostum, Samuel Davies, all the way on to William Wilberforce and Mary Winslow.

And they asked Ting to do the introduction. He wrote a pretty lengthy introduction, very, very powerful introduction, on ministering to those who are drawing close to the end of their lives.

I don't know if you were aware of this, but Stephen Ting actually designed, architecturally designed,

St. George's Episcopal Church in Manhattan. And he purposely designed it to be very simple in its structure, not ornate in really detailed carvings or anything like that.

He wanted the focus to be on the pulpit where the minister was preaching, meaning him, bringing the word of God.

The Lord's table for the supper was a very simple table. There were no candlesticks on it.

There was no cross, not even a barren cross. And the only thing that was on the wall behind him were the

Ten Commandments and the Apostles' Creed. And Reverend Jacob Smith told me that a minister that was unfortunately appointed there, a rector,

I believe it was at some point in the 1970s or something, he tore the banners of the

Ten Commandments and the Apostles' Creed off of the wall and threw them in the garbage.

He didn't even keep them as a historical artifact. He was that much of a repugnant person theologically.

But anyway, I just thought that that would be an important thing to bring up, since we have no doubt, at least especially probably when the people start listening to the archive recordings, we're going to have a lot of Episcopalians and Anglicans listening, and I thought that that might be a good thing to introduce.

Yeah, I'm glad you did that. It's very important. And those men, they're very, very important men to me, and I've appreciated what they wrote, everything that they've written that I have been able to publish.

And I'm glad you brought that up. Now, moving to—do you have a minute to— Oh, yeah, we have 15 minutes.

Okay, I have several projects right now that are in the fires and should be coming out within the next few weeks.

Some of these have literally come up almost, well, within the last month.

I really had not expected to be able to do a new edition of the 1689

Baptist Confession of Faith and the Baptist Catechism in bonded leather, but I decided to— somebody actually asked me if I was planning on doing it, and I said, well,

I really need to get orders in order to be able to consider doing it, and that man instantly ordered 50 copies.

And so that kick -started things, and I thought, well, okay, let's see what happens. Well, I've had now over 400 orders in the first month, which means the first—basically,

I've almost gotten the first print run paid for. So we're going to be having that—the 7th of March is when it's scheduled to be shipping to me, so I'm expecting to be able to turn around and start shipping it out to my customers around March 10th to 11th.

And then I decided, well, that went so well and surprised me at how quickly it was selling.

I decided, well, I have—it's been many years. It's been four—no, more than four. It's been about five years since I did the

Three Forms of Unity, which is also—it's a matching— it'll be a matching pair, and it's also the bonded leather and the same size and everything.

The only difference is the Three Forms of Unity is a little bit longer. It's 176 pages, whereas the

Baptist Confession and Catechism is 144 pages. But they both cost the same.

They list for $30. We're selling them for $15 right now. And the 1689, that $15 price is only good until midnight this coming

Saturday. And I think that is Saturday the 17th?

Today's the 14th? Yes, Saturday the 17th is when, at midnight, the price will be going up.

I think I've decided to bump it up to $16 .50, and then a week later it's going to go up to $18.

And then when it comes back into print, it'll be $20. That'll be the standard price for it.

So right now you can get it for $15, and we're doing exactly the same thing with the Three Forms of Unity. And I had one of my best customers, a distributor, ordered 300 copies of the

Three Forms of Unity, so that kick -started that. And so now that is also, I'm getting ready to send that material to the printer.

I'm expecting that probably will come out about three weeks after the 1689. And the

Three Forms of Unity being the Canons of Dort, the Belgic Confession, and the Heidelberg Catechism. That's correct.

And then also there is, in addition to those three, is the three historic documents, the

Apostles' Creed, the Athanasian Creed, and the Nicene Creed. And there's an introduction to each of these items that's done by Joel Beeky.

And so it's a beautiful edition. It's a very handy edition size -wise.

It's 5 x 7. Both of them are exactly the same size. As I said, the only difference is the pagination is a little bit longer on the one than the other, but very, very similar in feel and everything.

So we're excited about it. I feel like it's done well in the past.

It's always sold out. And every time it sells out, I assume I'll never do it again.

But the Lord seems to be behind this, and I get an opportunity once again this time to do a new printing of it.

So that's coming out soon now. I'm also going to be doing a paperback edition as well, probably both of them.

But I'm starting off by doing a paperback of the 1689. It's exactly the same material inside, same size and everything.

The only difference is it's paperback as opposed to the bonded leather hardcover that the 1689 is going to be.

So that will be available possibly around the same time as the leather is going to be coming out, because it's not going to take quite as long to do that.

So that's going to be available quicker than I'd expect it as well. And that's also 50 % off right now.

You can get those for $7 .50 each. And it's remarkable that for decades after I became saved,

I was not aware of any leather edition of the 1689 London Baptist Confession until,

I believe, you. That was me. The first time we did it was 2010.

And I want to give credit to David Charles, who's a pastor in Ohio. David Charles is the man who was behind the initial inspiration to do this.

He is the one who asked me if I'd ever thought about doing it in a leather. And I said no,

I actually hadn't. But as we started talking about it, I thought, yeah, I think that's something that is worth pursuing.

And the response of men at that time, when I first announced it, pastors were very excited about it.

And we sold that edition out and then did a second edition, and now we're doing our third edition of it.

So there's clearly an interest, and there's an interest in the 1689 Confession of Faith. That's been growing.

So I'm very encouraged by that. A second thing, moving to a second item. Are we able to go straight through, or do you need to take a break?

No, no. You have the entire time until we're off the air. Okay. The second item

I'd like to focus on is also going to be coming out sometime within the next few weeks. The first one is another edition of Pilgrim's Progress.

And people might ask, really? Another edition of Pilgrim's Progress? And I say, well, yes.

And the only reason why I'm doing it is because a customer of mine who absolutely loves

Pilgrim's Progress has been encouraging me to consider pursuing an edition of, it's called the

Offer Edition. It's O -F -F -O -R, George Offer. And George Offer, what he did years ago, he was an editor of Pilgrim's Progress.

He went back and he examined thoroughly, carefully, the first eight editions that were printed during the lifetime of Bunyan, that Bunyan himself oversaw.

And he went through and made sure that his edition is the most accurate edition in terms of the original words and thought of Bunyan.

What his edition has that makes it special is he has marginal notes.

And his marginal notes include two things. They include the scriptures. The scriptures are put in the marginal notes.

And by margin, we're not talking about bottom margin. We're talking side. So on a right -hand page, it's the margin on the right.

A left -hand page, the margin is on the left. And that's where the text of scripture, the addresses,

I should say, of scripture are in the marginal notes. But more importantly than that is you have the original notes that Bunyan himself inserted in order to explain his intention in the actual words of the text.

And he explains in the book Holy War, in his preface to Holy War, he explains that his marginal notes are the key.

He calls them the key. He said there are two keys to unlocking the mystery of Pilgrim's Progress.

The first is the marginal notes. The second is the work of the Holy Spirit in illumining you in reading.

But he said to best understand what his intention is, you need to look at the marginal notes.

So we're doing a brand new edition of Offer. It's not going to have illustrations.

It's not an illustrated edition. There are many, many illustrated editions. And I sell one of them.

The best one I know of, illustrative, is the 1891 edition that we sell. And it's a beautiful hardcover, a large hardcover edition.

Now this Offer is going to be a paperback. And we'll be selling it for somewhere, most of the time around $7 .00,

$7 .50, something like that. But for larger quantities we can probably go down to like $5 .00

a piece. And that should be available within the next two or three weeks. A second edition, or a second thing that we're also publishing is a hardcover edition of Lectures on Pilgrim's Progress by George Cheever.

Now this edition that we're doing, the last time somebody did one of these was back in the early 90s.

And we purchased the remaining copies of that book. And what

I found is that that book that was done by a publisher in Oregon back in 91,

I believe, that book only has the Lectures on Pilgrim's Progress, whereas the book we're doing has not only

Cheever's Lectures, but has the, I think there are nine chapters, or no,

I'm sorry, not nine chapters, there are, let's see, one, two, three, four, five, five chapters entitled

Bunyan and His Times, Bunyan's Temptations, Bunyan's Examination, Bunyan in Prison, and then

Providence, Grace, and Genius in Bunyan and the Pilgrim's Progress. And those five lectures precede the

Lectures on Pilgrim's Progress. And a friend of mine who has been really behind a lot of this has told me that he has read every book ever written on Pilgrim's Progress, and he said

Cheever by far is the best. So we're doing, you know, we're going to be doing a new edition of the

Cheever Lectures, which is going to include not only the Lectures on Pilgrim's Progress, but his five lectures on Bunyan and His Times, Temptations, and Providence.

And it's powerful stuff, absolutely outstanding. It's going to be hardcover.

And in fact, we're doing it, and we're going to be trying to match, as much as possible, match the 1891 edition of Pilgrim's Progress.

We don't publish it, but we do distribute it. We sell copies for a friend of mine from Alabama who has been publishing that for years.

And it is an absolutely beautiful edition of Pilgrim's Progress. And so our goal is to try to have this

Cheever Lectures match that book. It's actually being printed by the same publisher.

They're using the same cloth, same color red cloth that's being used as well, the gold stamping and stuff.

So there are going to be nice volumes to be able to stand side by side on the shelf. So that is coming out also sometime, probably, that'll be out in March.

That'll be the last of this group of books that I've just talked about, the 1689, the three forms, and the

Pilgrim's Progress Ofer edition, and then the Cheever Lectures on Pilgrim's Progress.

So all of these are going to be available. Some of them are, they're already, most of these are already on our website, and you can pre -order them.

Now if you go to solid -ground -books .com and you want to know about new things, is there any one particular thing to click that would bring you there?

There is, but I have to update it. I'm glad you said something about that.

Because it's actually, if you click on the categories of books, there is a category that is called pre -publication special offers.

And I'm glad you mentioned that because now I've got to go in and I've got to make some changes here because I have not put any of these in there yet.

No, I'm sorry, I have. Pilgrim's Progress edited by George Ofer, including Bunyan's own marginal notes.

That's in there right now, and you can get that for $7 .50. But there are some others there as well that are, if you want to see what's coming up, what will be coming in the future, you can go there.

Go to my website, solid -ground -books .com. You'll see it says categories of books with an arrow pointing down.

You click the arrow and you'll see it says SGCB books, and you can go down from alphabetical order,

American Heritage Classic Reprints, American Tract Society, and just scour down until you get pre -publication special offers.

And that's where you will find these. As soon as we get off the phone, as soon as I get done,

I'm going to go immediately and I'm going to put these in there so that people can actually order right away. Well, I want to thank you for being such a vital spoke in the wheel of sponsorship for Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

We would not be able to carry on, barring a miracle, broadcasting this program without your support.

I thank you so much for that, and I also thank you for your long -lasting friendship, brother. Love you,

Chris. I do. Happy birthday, my friend. Thank you. And once again, the website for Solid Ground Christian Books is solid -ground -books .com.

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