January 30, 2017 Show with Interviews from the 2017 G3 Conference! Part 1: Todd Friel, Rich Pierce, and Doug McMasters

The Program Opens With a Reformation Theme and Conference Interviews

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 Arntzen. Good afternoon, Cumberland County,.

Pennsylvania, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Monday. On this 30th day of January 2017, and I thank you all for your patience, as obviously we did not start on time as we normally start right on the button at 4 p .m. Eastern Standard Time.

We were 14 or 15 minutes delayed because of some software problems, it appears, with the live streaming of the program. I'm not sure why that happened, but something that they did over at Leading Edge Radio Network in Weatherford, Texas, finally allowed us to break into their live feed, so we are now thankfully on the air.

We are going to be doing something different today. I'm not conducting a live interview because I conducted, as many of you have heard, a number of interviews at the recent G3 conference in Atlanta, Georgia, the G3 conference which took place between January 19th and the 21st of January, and I was delighted to have the opportunity to interview not only a number of the speakers there, such as Todd Friel and Phil Johnson, of grace to you, and a number of other of the speakers, but I also had an opportunity to interview some of the guests who are attending, some fascinating pastors, and just your average listeners of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio that I had the opportunity to providentially meet for the first time face-to-face, although I have heard from some of you over the years via email and text and so on, but I had the great privilege of meeting some of you for the first time face-to-face, which was a great joy for me.

Many more people that I met there at the G3 conference than I even realized were listening to the program. In other words, I was meeting some of you for the first time in any shape, any way, shape, or form, having not ever heard from you before, so that was even a double joy, just constantly bumping into people who recognized my name from the name tag and told me, I've been listening to your program for years, even going back to the old days in New York.

Even one brother from London, England, spotted me from some distance away, recognized my face, I guess, from the internet, and shouted out to me that he was so delighted that I returned to the airwaves after that hiatus that we were on, and I actually had the privilege of interviewing him.

So we'll eventually, God willing, get to all of these interviews that I conducted there. Today we're just going to try to squeeze as many of these interviews in the program as we can, and I will begin the program today with an interview I conducted with Todd Friel.

I was so delighted to finally have the opportunity to do so, and here is our interview with Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Radio. Well, I'm Chris Arnzen from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I'm here at the G3 conference with the person I think I wanted to interview more than anybody else,.

Todd Friel of Wretched Radio. Okay, that confirms it. You're out of your mind. Steve Lawson is here, Phil Johnson is here, Vody Baucom is here. You're very confused, and Mr. Dapper, look at you with the pocket stuff.

There's just one thing missing from this outfit of yours. You forgot your razor. What's this? Are you trying to become like a.

Cool reformed guy? No, actually. I just shaved yesterday, and I'm very manly. Good on you. And for those of our listeners who aren't aware, I'd be shocked if they weren't, but Todd Friel is the host of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, and as he said in a recent ad, an occasional guest on Chris' show, Iron Sharpens Iron.

I have been so blessed by your television program on NRB. I don't get the local radio program on a station near where I am, but the.

NRB television program is a real blessing. Can I tell you they're good folks there? Yeah. We've got a new product that we created called Drunk in the Spirit. It is a screed against the extreme nonsense that is going on in something called the New Apostolic Reformation, which has about 365 million adherents.

I mean, that thing is like pedal to the metal going after it. Are they actually reviving that Drunk in the Spirit thing? Oh yeah. They're going to air it on NRB. Really? How courageous is that? Yeah, you're right.

Seriously, that might be the edgiest piece of Christian TV ever aired, because the men at NRB, they're serious, and they mean it, and they're about the gospel. So it's a real treat, because in so much of not so much radio, but more so in TV media, the Christian TV is not good.

And so when you run into one that is good, it's a joy. Yeah, unfortunately a lot of the people that can.

Afford to have TV programs are not necessarily the most faithful to the Scriptures. Well,.

But I pondered that. Why is that? If you listen to most Christian radio stations, overall it's dominated by John MacArthur. He's on 900 stations. R .C. Sproul. You hear these solid preachers overall, because radio is a thinking type of media only.

You've got to think. When you're listening to somebody, blah, blah, blah, you've got to be interested. You've got to be able to keep up. You've got to become educated in the subject matter. It requires thinking, and so the conservative teaching that we hear overall is good.

TV, however, is a visual media, and these rascals who know how to put on a show have gotten there first, and they keep people entertained with the shenanigans and the antics and the big hair and all of the nonsense, and they kind of dominate Christian TV, and I've got a little life's goal to change that.

Yeah, in fact, I don't know if.

You remember the late James Montgomery Boyce, but he purposely did not have a TV ministry for a lot of the reasons that you mentioned, and that he thought that the video distracted from what he was saying, but tell our listeners something about the basic concept of wretched TV and wretched radio.

What are the kinds of things that you address and whatnot? Yeah, we have a.

Threefold purpose. We want to preach the gospel, help people preach the gospel, and teach people how to apply the gospel to their lives, because it is applicable. The Bible does something. The especially when you come to a conference like this, we're not the deep end of the theological pool.

We just want to try to find some folks who don't even know that there's water, and to get them to dip their toe into it so that they can start getting immersed with better and better teaching. So that's what we're about, ultimately, so that the local church will be strengthened, the pastor hopefully encouraged to stay faithful to the word, and then people that are participating in their local church will simply improve the local church.

Now, one thing that I have been.

Wanting to ask you about that you haven't addressed with me on Iron Sharpens Iron before is something that you kind of left as a cliffhanger on wretched TV once. You were discussing about pastors needing to hear the gospel, too, because sometimes men behind the pulpit are lost, and you said at the end of the program, and that would include me, and then you walked away or.

Something. You were a lost man who was a pastor. Thankfully, I wasn't pastoring a church. I studied to be a pastor, and I was a pagan. The application didn't ask, so I didn't tell. And so, I mean, I wouldn't have ever thought this way, but I learned years later that I was just a false professor.

You don't study about Jesus during the day and live like a devil at night. If you keep on sinning, you're of the devil, and I was keeping on sinning. I was present and ongoing sin. I just, I didn't love the Lord.

I wasn't grateful, and interestingly, it's not that the gospel was never presented that Jesus died for our sins. I heard that a thousand times, and this is maybe an encouragement to pastors to ask themselves if they are ever pointing a finger at the congregation to say, and this day, you must respond.

You must repent and put your trust in Jesus Christ now. Today is the day of salvation. Examine yourself. See if you're in the faith, and if not, humble yourself before the mighty hand of God. Nobody ever challenged me.

Nobody ever casted out the gospel net. I heard the gospel, but that's not the same as casting the net. So, we need to remember that there are people sitting in our congregations who've never been confronted to see where they are at with the Lord, and that was me.

So, what kind of a religious.

Atmosphere or upbringing did you have, if any, and what were the providential things that the Lord brought into your life that actually drew you to himself in a saving way. If you had reached the point where you were actually applying for pastoral positions and you realized you were lost?

Yeah. What happened before, and what brought you to the point? You know, I'm grateful.

For the education that I received because it was a classical education, and so I studied Latin and Greek and Hebrew. Wow. Did all of that, so it was a very fine education, and what I appreciated about it is they were very earnest about theology.

You took them at the seminary that you went to, your family. Well, nobody in my family was a believer, just talking about how I was trained to value the Word of God and theology. So, my issue, Chris, was not a lack of knowledge of theology.

When I got saved, the reason for it really was, what started it was listening to Chuck Swindoll on the radio. You know, he's Insight for Living, and Chuck has a way of teaching without it sounding like theological highbrow business, but I heard exactly what he was doing.

It's like, oh, I see what he's doing there. He's taking that theology off the shelf, and he's applying it to life, and I increasingly was listening to him with a fascination that, wow, this all kind of fits together and does something, and so my wife and I, we decided, we looked up Chuck Swindoll to see what he was, and we found out that he was Evangelical Free Church of America.

So, we took out the yellow pages. That dates the story, doesn't it? We took out the yellow pages, and we looked for ECFA churches near us. Well, one Sunday morning, I went. My wife stayed home. I went, and the pastor was just a godly preacher, and I'm hesitating to tell the story because I'll start to cry, but he read something that simply devastated me, and I don't think that I would ever share this.

I mean, I don't think I'd ever preach it. Maybe you've seen it out on the internet. It's pretty gloppy, but it's a letter to a friend from Jesus. Dear friend, I watched you wake up this morning, and I was hoping that you would stop and talk to me, but you didn't, so I prepared a sunrise for you so when you walked out the door, you might be struck by the creation and talk to me, but you didn't.

You went throughout your day. I carried you through, and I was hoping when you put your head on your pillow that you would stop and talk to me, but you didn't, but that's okay. I'll wait for you because I love you, and that simply crushed me that I had been the most pride-filled, arrogant, obnoxious, foul jerk that has ever walked the planet, and so I sat there, and so the pastor finishes reading this thing, and he said, you are dismissed, and I was like the...

You talk about the king of ugly crying. I was like the big blub. You know, I was like heaving and sobbing and snot and wiping out my face, and you are dismissed, and what am I going to do just sitting here in a puddle of tears, and that is when God was breaking me.

Could I say it was that moment? Perhaps. I don't know. I don't think the moment, but I know that that was the season, and I don't even remember what year it was, frankly, but I remember when God got a hold of me and convicted me and crushed me and promised me that He would save me anyway, and that was the season I got saved, and now immediately I knew that everything that I'd been doing as a pretend Christian was just a ruse, and it was fake because I knew the difference.

I knew about Jesus. Now I know Him,.

And it changed everything. Oh, praise God. Yeah. Well, even after that rebirth, has there been any major changes in your theological perspectives over those years? Oh, sure. You know, some,.

But overall, you know, pretty much the same. Conservative, high view of Scripture. I've changed my understanding. I would tweak my understanding a bit on eschatology, Lord's Supper, baptism, things, you know, just slightly different perspective, but like I said, I'm grateful for the education I received.

I just wasn't saved. That's all. Actually, I did a little math once because I went to prep too, and we had chapel twice a day, Monday through Friday and then Saturday. I think we just had one chapel service and then church on Sunday, and over the course, I added up over the years, I went to church service, chapel, 2 ,700 times.

Wow. And I wasn't a Christian. Wow. Just because you talk about the gospel doesn't mean that people are getting the gospel, so the encouragement would be preach the gospel. Don't, there's a bit of a movement.

It's not organized, but in evangelical Christianity, there's a big push about the gospel. It's all about the gospel. Well, you go and listen to some of those sermons, and they use the word gospel a ton.

Isn't the gospel amazing? The gospel's so incredible. Mmm, I love the gospel. Isn't it gospelicious? But they never preach the gospel. Preach the gospel, and if somebody complains, preach it to them more because they probably need to hear it because those of us who.

Are born again. Love to hear it. Yeah, I think that the perception I get is that most evangelicals, whether they are in the pew or on a TV screen or even a radio station, are teaching that the gospel is that Jesus loves you, so invite him into your heart.

Yeah. That's the gospel. Sure. Yeah,.

Now look, it's hard every week to try, okay, how do I talk about Calvary again? So I get that there's a bit of a challenge to that, but don't worry, Pastor, you can repeat yourself. We're okay with that.

Use your text to get us to Calvary, and that will make it inventive sounding. You know, it'll be clever enough, unique enough sounding, but get us there. Sir, we would see Jesus, so get.

To the cross and camp there. Amen. Now, you have had an opportunity to interview, I don't know if you've interviewed all of the key speakers here or all of the speakers, period, but... Oh, but Votie.

Baucom, who didn't show up, but I'm not going to name names. That's interesting because I've been completely bailed. You'd think he was living in Africa or something.

But I was wondering if you can summarize, perhaps, the essence of what is most vital that the folks that you interviewed over the course of the time that you've been here about the, I'm assuming that some of the content had to do with the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, which is the theme of this conference, obviously.

Anything that you care to share that.

You could walk away with? Yeah, I would summarize the interviews that I've had with Steve Lawson, Phil Johnson, James White, Nathan Busenitz, Whippersnapper out of Master SEM, Sharp. Boy, he gave us a 1500-year history of the Catholic Church, how to understand, okay, when did it get off the rails?

When did this happen? Brilliant young man. And I would say that the theme throughout all of those conversations, and we talked about justification, and propitiation, and atonement, and adoption, and expiation, and all the big Reformation words, but I think I would summarize it based on the t-shirts that we've been seeing walking around here at the G3 conference.

Did you see the quote from Martin Luther on the back of the t-shirts from the people who are running this thing? Did you read the quote? No. I'm paraphrasing, but it's pretty close. Martin Luther. Give me Scripture.

I'll say it again. Scripture, Scripture, Scripture. Did you hear me? Scripture. That's really what it says. It's about the Bible. Amen. And it's about that being our source of authority, our source of everything.

The Protestant Reformation was about authority. Is it the Vicar of Christ in Rome, or is it Jesus Christ? Is it tradition in the magisterium, or is it the Word of God? So the Word just kept coming through, the proclamation of the Word, the recapturing of the Word, the translating of the Word into the language of the people.

So the theme really throughout all of it was the authority of the Word.

Amen. And what an uncomfortable moment it was recently. As you may remember from our last interview, last week I had a debate, another debate that I organized between a Roman Catholic, Robert St. Genes of Catholic Apologetics International, and my friend Dr. Tony Costa.

If you're not familiar with him yet, you need to be. He's a professor of apologetics at Toronto Baptist Seminary, a friend of Dr. James R. White, who actually introduced him to me. And they debated on Mary, Sinless Queen of Heaven, or Sinners Saved by Grace.

Great title. And Dr. St. Genes knew that he could not maintain any kind of credible defense for Rome's teachings about Mary by remaining with a biblical discussion. So he kept trying to steer the ship to focus on sola scriptura, which he obviously denies.

And when Dr. Costa had brought up the fact that only Scripture is described in Scripture as theanoustos, God-breathed, it's the only thing that we have that is from the breath of God. And to hear Dr. St. Genes, the Catholic apologist, say, who cares?

He actually said that. Just means it's a little more special. That's all it means.

Wow.

He was backed into a corner, running out of arguments, and out of the anger and frustration really revealed the heart of Catholicism is that who cares? Because our traditions mean just as much, if not more, because they trump what the Bible says anyhow.

And you actually had the role of speaking on, was Peter the first pope?

No. You're dismissed. Yeah. In fact, I won the Puritan award at the conference because it was a three-point sermon, but the first point actually had 25 sub-points. So I win the Puritan sub-point award with 25.

You have to see a group of people say, everybody's up and paying attention because it's just starting. And we're going to talk about, is Peter the first pope? And I have three points, and the first point has 25 sub-points.

Just everybody slumps and just the air leaves the room. 25 points. So I broke it up in three points. Basically, when we look at it biblically, I'm a theological nincompoop. By myself, without reading commentaries, I was simply able to come up with 25 reasons biblically why Peter is not the first pope.

And a few of my favorites, if you don't mind, it's Matthew 16, 13 through 18 are the contested verses. On the ring of the Sistine Chapel, there are two Bible verses, thou art Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church, and I give you the keys to the kingdom.

I only tackle the first one. Is Peter really the rock? Well, if you read the very next story, Jesus now, having said, thou art Peter, and upon this rock, I will build my church. We, of course, believe it's confession.

The Greek language, you know that. But look at the next story. Jesus now starts to get specific. I must go to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man must be turned over. I'm going to die. And Peter, again, jumps up.

Forbid it, Lord. This was never going to happen to you. And Jesus turned and looked to the new pope, the Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ, and said, Get behind me, Satan, which is a pretty good sign that he had not simply just been installed as the new pope, that he was a sinner.

And we see this again, then, in Matthew 18. The disciples come and ask Jesus, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Please note, Jesus did not say, Hello, knuckleheads, weren't you listening? I just said it was Peter.

I'm building my church. He's the most special. Why weren't you paying attention? Apparently, the disciples didn't get that message, because Jesus didn't deliver it. He was talking about himself. And even if you want to say that Peter is the rock, okay, what was Peter all about?

Same as Paul, he preached Christ and him crucified. So no matter how you slice it, the cornerstone is not Peter. It's Jesus Christ. I'm sorry, but when you look through the Old Testament, too, in Zion, I lay a cornerstone.

Isaiah was talking about the Messiah. The Old Testament understood who the rock was. Think about Jesus in Exodus 17. And the rock was Christ, 1 Corinthians 10, about the rock and the water and the splitting of it.

The Bible always points to the rock in the Old Testament, Psalm 18. You can read it three times. God is the rock. The rock is God. In other words, the rock is divine all throughout Scripture. So for Jesus to say to Peter, you're the rock, is simply preposterous.

So that was point one, 25 of those, basically. And then we got into, historically, we took a look at the bloody and tawdry history of the office of papacy, which wasn't pleasant. And then we got to my favorite part, which was point three.

Confessionally, Peter was making it clear he was not the first pope. What did he say? The confession that was God revealed to him, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, thou art the Messiah.

He was making the same confession the entire Old Testament had been making. There is a Messiah to come. Look for the Messiah. Because the Bible is all about one subject, that Messiah. And as you make your way through the Old Testament, it's preaching about the Messiah.

It's preaching about forgiveness of sins. It's preaching about the need to be justified. It's the sacrificial system. It's Passover that's a picture of Jesus. It's Isaac that's a picture of Jesus. It's the ladder that's a picture of Jesus.

Assurity, the tabernacle, the bread of life. He's the manna. He's the ark of our salvation. He's the door that we must enter through to be saved. Jesus is in the Old Testament because that is what God is doing.

Ephesians 2, 1 through 10, the reason for the planet is for God to send his Son to save sinners that he might be glorified for his loving kindness. With that in mind, Peter was making that confession.

This is the one. And that is why the church's one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord, not Peter.

Amen. And I know that you said you could only spend 20 minutes with us, so I'll let you summarize.

Has it been 20 minutes?

Yeah, believe it or not. But if you could, let our listeners know in summary form.

You kind of made me sound like a jerk with that. You could only stay 20 minutes, hot shot. Listen, I want to stay married. My wife is down the aisle, and I'm looking at her. She's being gracious.

I'll tell you what, you can make it up to me by the next time you're on. Iron Sharpens Iron over the phone, be on for an hour at least.

So this is sort of a little scam that you've got going, a little chess game you're playing. All right, I understand you better now.

If you could summarize what you want my listeners, both Catholic and Protestant or otherwise, with what they should most bring home with them in regard to the summary of what the Reformation stood for.

Because obviously, as Phil Johnson said, and I'm sure you agree, the evangelicals need just as much of a Reformation today as Rome did.

Yeah, yeah, I think he's right, which is a pretty provocative statement. Let me speak specifically to the Roman Catholic who might be listening. I understand you. In fact, all of human history understands you.

We are bent toward working our way to heaven. We just, we want to do something to clean up ourselves. The gospel of Jesus Christ comes along, and it crushes that. And it announces, at its core, the gospel says, no, you can't.

So I understand why you try to do things. You think that baptism is a necessary thing, a work that you must do, acts of love, taking the Eucharist, doing confession, last rites, not committing any mortal sins.

I understand that because that's the way we're all bent. But Jesus has a rather staggering message for you. Stop it. Stop it. You can't. And the reason that even very nice people who pay their taxes and they mow their yard, they even edge the lawn, are not pleasing to God, is because every good thing that we do is offered with sin-stained hands.

Think of it like receiving a beautiful bouquet of flowers. And as you look at the flowers and smell them and appreciate them, you notice the hand that is attached to them, that is giving them to you, is connected to Adolf Hitler.

You'd go, you know, okay, look, Adolf Hitler was a wicked man. How many sins did he commit? I don't know, but I know how many I committed. And our hands are dirty. So even the good things that we do are not pleasing to God.

And Jesus has some great news for you. If you've done bad things, and you have, because again, you're like me. You've done bad things. You've broken God's laws. And unlike so often the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, God is serious about justice.

And he is going to judge every deed done in darkness. In fact, the psalmist said, you know my words before I speak them. Even the Old Testament supports what Jesus said when he said, you've heard it said of all, thou shall not commit adultery.

I say, you look at a woman with lust, you've committed adultery in your heart. He's going to judge our thought life. My Roman Catholic friend, you have a sin problem. Like me, like Chris. And the gospel has more news for you.

And this is the good news. Jesus can. You can't, and Jesus can, and Jesus did. Jesus paid it all. All of your sins, past, present, and future, gone. And think about it from this perspective. If you can get to heaven and say, I gave this much money.

I did this many confessional. I said my rosary this many times. I did this many acts of charity. Who can take some credit for your salvation? You can. And he is God, and he will not give his glory to another.

You can't, Jesus did. And he's going to get all the credit for saving you because he's everything you need for salvation. So if you have been relying on the traditions of men, Jesus warned about this in John chapter six.

You've exchanged the teaching of the word for the teachings of men. It was a rebuke to them, and it's a rebuke to you today if you've been trusting in traditions that are not found in the Bible. By grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not of works, so that nobody can boast. If you have never repented, told God you're sorry for your sins, turned from your sins, not in perfection, but in a new direction, stopping sinning, and put your trust in Jesus Christ, you have his promise.

He will not cast you out. In fact, he will save you to the uttermost, and it gets even better. Contrary to what the traditions of men teach, you will be in his hand, and nobody can snatch you out of it.

You will be eternally secure in the Savior who did it all for you. Repent and trust that good Savior today, and you will inherit everlasting life.

Amen.

Well, thank you so much, Todd Friel, for being on the program, for making time in this busy schedule at G3 to sit here with me. I'm honored. I'm delighted.

I always love it, bro. I really, I do enjoy it, and I'm sorry to, like, scoot on you.

No, that's quite all right.

Yeah, but I've got about an hour-long ride home with my wife, and it can be a pleasant ride or not, and that is all up to you, so your call.

All right, well, God bless you, brother.

Keep up the great work, yeah.

Looking forward to your return. Well, I am delighted that I had that opportunity to interview Todd Friel, as you just heard, and we are going to be coming back shortly, God willing, after these messages with another one of the interviews that I conducted.

We're going to try to squeeze as many as we can in the remaining time that we have on today's program, so don't go away. We will be right back after these messages.

Charles Hedden Spurgeon once said,.

Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read. He who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves that he has no brains of his own.

You need to read.

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Rich Pierce on Alpha and Omega Ministries, Calvinism, and Reformed Debates

Welcome back, and we're going next to an interview I conducted with the man whose voice you just heard, Rich Pearce, who is the president of Alpha and Omega Ministries, the ministry of Dr. James R. White.

And Rich Pearce is quite a precious brother in Christ, and—. This is Rich Arnzen again at the G3 conference, and this is a very monumental moment in my life. For a long time, I've wanted to interview Rich Pearce, the man behind the curtain at Alpha and Omega Ministries.

I've been wanting to interview him for a long time, and providentially, for one reason or another, it has never happened.

You can run, but you can't hide from Chris Arnzen.

A lot of it, I think, has to do with this opportunity, that is, because the Alpha and Right across from the Iron Sharpens Iron booth here at the G3 conference in Atlanta. But Rich Pearce, I have been grateful to God for quite a long time, since about 1995 or so, that God saw fit to develop a friendship between you and I, and you are the backbone, the central nervous system, the man controlling a lot more things than the average person knows about in regard to Alpha and Omega Ministries, to free up Dr. White to use the skills that has blessed the body of Christ in so many ways.

Well, let me take a moment and tell you about why that is. Before I came along in 1987, which is ironic because here we're at the G3 conference, and Dr. White and I actually met this month, 30 years ago.

And the structure that was originally set up for Alpha and Omega Ministries as a corporation, the president at the time, who was the original one, the co-founder, his name was Mike Beliveau, and James and Mike set up a structure where James would have sole concentration on the theological ministry.

His job was to read and to minister, and Mike's job was to do administration, and the two were to be separated so that James is not burdened with administrative issues as they would come along. And it was a very wise thing to do, it really was, because when I came along and became the vice president a few years later, Mike kind of showed me the ropes, and eventually Mike had to move his family away from our area, and so I took over as president.

And I just saw the wisdom in how that structure was, and the importance of being able to keep James focused on doing the ministry, doing the theology, and being able to lead the ministry in that way. And so that's where we came up with the title of Director of Ministries.

So it's not just he's the director of Alpha Omega Ministries, he's the director of ministries. And so when we get into, when we got into Islam a number of years ago, this was James's decision. When we got into, we started off with two groups, and that was Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism.

And one of the interesting things that these guys did initially, you got to think 1985, you know, circa era there, they set up phone lines, and they would advertise in local newspaper for the phone lines, and the phone numbers were 2662 LDS and 2662 JWS.

And they would every week update a five-minute long message on these recording machines, and James would write them, and eventually there was a whole slew of these messages. And that's really the roots of Alpha Omega Ministries, starting off with that.

And eventually, I'm going to say around 1989, came 2662 RCC for Roman Catholicism. And then shortly after that, James was contacted by Jerry Matitix of Catholic Answers in wanting to do a debate. And so when you look back at our history of doing debates, it was actually Catholic Answers that brought that about by approaching it.

It wasn't something that James saw in, I mean, certainly you can tell it's naturally in his wheelhouse, but it wasn't something that he really saw as something that he would be doing. And when it came to the doorstep, it was, he was just a natural.